Early Friday afternoon, a source deemed reliable confirmed that co-founders, Fran Veri and Michael J. Jamanis, have tendered their resignations as members of the Pennsylvania Academy of Music’s board of trustees.
The formal press release reached NewsLanc Friday evening. The following statement from the couple accompanied the announcement:
“These are indeed challenging times. However, we feel confident that there is a tremendous energy and spirit that is going to see the Academy unfold in a new and prosperous way. This seems like the right time to embrace fresh ideas and look toward new leadership.
“With these thoughts firmly in place, we feel it is time for us to resign from the board of trustees. Certainly we will hold the Academy, its faculty and students very close to our hearts an look forward to all the wonderful possibilities for the future. Please accept this as our formal resignation from the board of trustees of the Pennsylvania Academy of Music.”
In a NewsLanc interview earlier in the week, the couple had explained that they would only remain so long as it took to reconstitute the board and help arrange for new leaders. The Intelligencer Journal New Era announced earlier today that Dr. Holmes Morton and his wife Caroline Morton had joined the board and had become chair and vice-chair respectively.
As an outgrowth of the academy’s heavy losses and questionable future, much criticism had been directed at the couple and, as indicated by the precipitous resignation of all outside members of the trustees and the interim president over a week ago, the founders had become an object of much anger.
The Mortons will have their work cut out for them, whether it be to arrange for a smooth cessation of operations or somehow pull the rabbit out of the hat by raising funds to offset its heavy operational losses and arranging with UNCB, its landlord, or a new owner, for the long term use of all or a portion of the facility.
Hopefully, this is but the end of a chapter for PAM, and hopefully the founders’ and supporters’ dream of an international music campus will yet come to pass. In that case, the names and achievements of Veri, Jamanis, and former chair and major donor Paul Ware will be memorialized and honored side by side at the school with the difficulties and acrimony the three encountered long forgotten.
