Entries associated with the tag "Dean John Lavine":

The Medill faculty spun its wheels Wednesday, defeating an innocuous resolution written in response to "Quotegate," the controversy over much more than a quote. Here's the resolution: "We the faculty of Medill accept Dean John Lavine's apology for poor judgment in not properly attributing a source in a letter he wrote to the alumni in the spring of 2007 issue of Medill magazine. We look forward to working with Dean Lavine as full partners in the future."

This resolution went down 22 to 14. One faculty faction opposed it because it's so wimpy -- it says nothing about the running-sore question of whether there was a source in the first place. A larger faction, composed of marketing professors, opposed it on grounds that the dispute was silly and Lavine owed no one an apology. A third faction believed the resolution ignored the most important issue -- Northwestern provost Daniel Linzer's unsatisfactory report that claimed a blue-ribbon committee had vindicated Lavine.

The resolution's champions believed it would let Medill move beyond an issue about which the truth will probably never be known.

Dean Lavine, present for the faculty meeting, abstained.

Some faculty felt a second resolution voted on Wednesday also addressed the matter: "We the faculty and the dean vigorously uphold the fundamentals of truth, accuracy, ethics and fairness in journalism and in all communications." Despite the careless omission of apple pie, this passed 29 to 7, Dean Lavine voting aye.

A third resolution proposed that the faculty and dean commit themselves to deliberating and voting on the new Medill curriculum that Lavine has introduced before it is fully implemented next year. Here we get to Quotegate's yeasty back story, the sense among the journalism (as opposed to marketing) faculty that Lavine is ramming change down their throats. This resolution was defeated on a tie vote, 17 to 17.

On another front, there's been an exchange of e-mails between Professor David Protess and Provost Linzer's office. Protess is hoping to find out how that blue-ribbon committee went about its work and whether it actually submitted a report.

A couple of inaccurate headlines in Saturday's papers stand as tributes to the power of weasel wording. The stories reported on the findings of an ad hoc committee created to look into allegations that Dean John Lavine of Medill fabricated a quote that appeared a year ago in his "Letter from the Dean" in the alumni magazine.

The Tribune story was headlined in print "NU panel exonerates Medill dean" and on-line, "Northwestern panel says there was 'no evidence' that Medill dean fabricated column." The Sun-Times story was headlined "Panel clears Medill dean / Finds no evidence he made up quotes." The story by Eric Herman, quoting Northwestern Provost Daniel Linzer, reported that "a committee of three prominent Medill graduates found 'no evidence to point to any likelihood that the quotes were fabricated.'"

Herman wrote the sharper story, quoting Linzer more fully. "No evidence to point to any likelihood" sounds like a cute way of saying there's evidence, but not enough of it to drag this matter on. Of the quotes in question, the money quote had Lavine claiming that an unnamed junior had said about a marketing class, "I sure felt good about this class. It is one of the best I've taken." David Spett, a suspicious Daily Northwestern columnist, said he talked to every student in the class, including all five juniors, and all denied making that statement. Northwestern professor David Protess and Tribune columnist Eric Zorn later said that they'd reinterviewed the five juniors, with the same results. That's evidence. 

The Tribune story didn't even identify the members of the panel. Herman's did. They were Jack Fuller, former editor and publisher of the Tribune, and Northwestern trustees Teresa Norton and Paul Sagan, who is also cochair of the Medill Board of Advisors. A  Boston businessman, Sagan is the son of Chicago publisher Bruce Sagan,  a close friend of Lavine's.

Here's the key graph from Linzer's letter "to the Medill Community" Friday trying to put the Lavine matter to rest: "The committee unanimously concluded that although a record of the student statements that were quoted cannot be found, sufficient material does exist about the relevant storefront reporting experience and marketing course to demonstrate that sentiments similar to the quotes had been expressed by students. Thus, the committee found that there is ample evidence that the quotes were consistent with sentiment students expressed about the course in course evaluations and no evidence to point to any likelihood that the quotes were fabricated. The committee further stated that the author of a piece like the 'Letter from the Dean' could not reasonably be expected to have retained for a year the notes or e-mails documenting the sources of quotations used in the letter; nonetheless, the committee advised that in the future such meticulous archiving might be desirable given the heightened awareness of the problems that can result."

This passage is a travesty. Lavine's sin was to publish a quote that he did not attribute and later could not support. Linzer's sin is the opposite. His letter is all unsupported attribution and no quotation. He does not produce the report whose conclusions he's announcing. He tells us the committee concluded that the quotes in question were true to the spirit of student sentiment -- but that's never been the issue. He writes "no evidence" when there is. He speaks of "heightened awareness" as if to reduce an angry confrontation to a golden teaching moment. Until they speak for themselves and say differently, I will not believe that Fuller, Norton, and Sagan fully approve of the way Linzer construed their work. And until Linzer produces it, I will not believe they even submitted a formal report. Linzer's letter has the ring of something spun out of -- well, not whole cloth, but conceivably a telephone call from Sagan saying Lavine has egg on his face but let's get past this.

Northwestern isn't past this. Despite what headlines said, Lavine wasn't "cleared" or "exonerated," not even in Linzer's account. Lavine's aggression in changing Medill has made him a lot of enemies among the faculty, alumni, and student body They won't let this drop.

UPDATE: Paul Sagan responded Sunday morning to my e-mail asking him to comment on Linzer's letter.  "I respect that you have a job to do, but I'm afraid I can't help you," he wrote back. "I am a trustee of the university and my obligation is to serve the shared interests of the students, faculty and administration.  I believe I've done that in this case by offering my views to the provost, and I don't think I would be helping any more by giving an interview.  I can refer you to the provost's office for additional comment."

A Medill senior has gently but firmly suggested that his school's controversial dean made up a quote. David Spett, a columnist for the Daily Northwestern (and a Reader intern last summer) took a close look Monday at the "Letter From the Dean" (pdf) by John Lavine in the 2007 spring issue of the school's alumni magazine. Lavine touted an undergraduate class in "Advertising: Building Brand Image" that had created what Lavine described as a "fully integrated marketing program to uniquely impact teen driving." 

Since shifting from Medill's money-making Media Management Center to take over the entire school in 2005, Lavine has alienated a lot of NU faculty (and alums) by acting with little regard for faculty governance to rewrite the curriculum and more closely integrate Medill's two wings -- its journalism and marketing programs. So it's not so surprising that he would tout a marketing course. He wrote that a Medill junior had told him: "I came to Medill because I want to inform people and make things better. Journalism is the best way for me to do that, but I sure felt good about this class. It is one of the best I've taken, and I learned many things in it that apply as much to truth telling in journalism as to this campaign to save teenage drivers." It was a message that couldn't possibly have suited Lavine's purposes any better.

But "the phrasing "struck me as odd," Spett commented in his Daily Northwestern column, and he wondered why Lavine hadn't identified the student. What's more, a Medill instructor told him "sure felt good" sounded like a favorite construction of the dean's. Spett also noted that Lavine had used two other anonymous students as sources (one of them earlier in the same piece). So he did a little digging. There were 29 students in the advertising class (five of them juniors), Spett reported in the Daily Northwestern, and he contacted every one. "All the students denied saying the quote, even when I promised not to print their names."

Spett then recorded an interview with Lavine saying he'd taken the quote from an e-mail from a student whose identity he now couldn't remember.

"We cannot be certain these quotes were fabricated," Spett concluded. "But at the very least, I find reason to be suspicious." 

He's not alone. Faculty sources who prefer not to be named for obvious reasons tell me that some of them suspected the quotes were bogus, but beyond grousing among themselves they did nothing to act on their suspicions. As far as they know, Spett was the first person to confront the dean. "There are people on the faculty who are very nervous," one source said. They weren't ready to challenge Lavine's integrity over something like this -- a dubious quote he could shrug off by allowing that he probably should have named the kid. 

Spett said no one put him up to this. He says since he read Lavine's piece last year "it had been in the  back of my mind that it might be something worth looking into." In January the Daily Northwestern made him a columnist and he went to work. 

Lavine hasn't returned my calls. Neither, for that matter, have several other professors.