Entries associated with the tag "Medill School of Journalism":

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.

Because the future of journalism is so unclear, the curriculum changes at the Medill School of Journalism can't easily be criticized on the grounds that they're not preparing students to function in it. Who knows? So the case against rampaging dean John Lavine, who took over Medill almost two years ago after running Northwestern's Media Management Center, is anchored by the charge that he's left his faculty out of the process. Last June the university's General Faculty Committee unanimously passed a resolution that found Northwestern's “suspension of faculty governance at [Medill] to be unacceptable and in violation of the University’s Statutes.”

On November 12 Lavine and his students engaged in a Q & A in Fisk Hall. Lavine shrugged off the resolution: "The issues they had are not really issues with us, they are issues with the administration." He conceded that the faculty weren't all enthusiastic about the changes, but journalism has changed and "can we really stay where we were?" Here's a partial transcript of the proceedings.  

The occasion might have been much more dramatic. Two recent grads, Andrew Bossone and Camille Gerwin, tried to organize a confrontation where someone would rise and read aloud a petition signed by some 80 alumni. It began, "As a member of the alumni community of the Medill School of Journalism, I endorse changes to the school that will improve the quality of the education for students, enhance the reputation of the program and add value to the diploma that I hold. I believe, however, that any changes should be taken with careful consideration and deliberation. These changes MUST include votes from all faculty members . . . "

The petition concludes, "It is [the faculty's] right to decide on the future of the school. It is also their right to express dissent without fear of losing their jobs. I therefore endorse this petition to immediately restore faculty governance to the Medill School of Journalism."

If all had gone as planned, that person would also have read a two-page letter (pdf) by Gerwin and Bossone to the board of trustees that expressed their "concern and discontent." "To begin with," they wrote, "we are appalled at the manner in which these changes are being implemented. Because faculty governance has been suspended, Dean Lavine has been making changes unilaterally or with staff members that support him indiscriminately. Those who have expressed dissent have been demoted or forced out . . . "

If Bossone and Gerwin had been on hand, they might have stood and delivered. But Gerwin is now working in Boston and Bossone in Cairo, Egypt, and from those great distances they could locate no one willing to lead the charge. So the moment passed. The petition and the letter were simply e-mailed and snail-mailed to the trustees and to provost Daniel Linzer. By Friday afternoon there'd been no response.

The faculty senate at Northwestern University has formally accused NU’s administration of abolishing democracy at the Medill School of Journalism. A resolution passed unanimously June 6 by the General Faculty Committee says it found NU’s “suspension of faculty governance at [Medill] to be unacceptable and in violation of the University’s Statutes.” The resolution predicts “curricular changes that are ill considered . . . the demoralization and enmity of the faculty . . . damage to the national reputation of the School . . . the loss of and the inability to hire faculty who believe that the faculty’s role in governance is important for students, faculty and the public.”

The backdrop to this blunt resolution is a series of internal and external audits in recent years that judged Medill--which enjoys seeing itself as a journalism school without equal--as an academic basket case. President Henry Bienen and provost Lawrence Dumas stepped in. Skipping the usual faculty search committee they named John Lavine (pictured) the next dean in late 2005, and in early 2006 they booted aside the incumbent, who had months to go on his contract. Lavine was already on site: he was the founding director of NU's Media Management Center, a fee-charging profit center housed in the journalism school.

An article on Lavine in the fall 2006 issue of the university alumni magazine said he’d been given “free rein to transform the school.” It explained that Bienen and Dumas “suspended formal faculty oversight at Medill for the 3 1/2-year transition period in which Lavine will shepherd the integration and revamping of the [Integrated Marketing Communications] and journalism programs and faculty.” IMC and journalism are Medill’s two basic divisions.

The resolution continues, “If the Administration in the future concludes that an unacceptable academic situation warrants the temporary suspension of the normal role of the faculty ‘to prescribe and define the course of study’ [a quote from NU’s statutes], such suspension should be only for a set, limited period and only after formal approval by the Board of Trustees made after the consideration of the views of all concerned faculty.”

Medill professors I’ve spoken with say a three-and-a-half-year suspension is hardly “temporary.” And it’s news to them if the Board of Trustees had any say in the matter, let alone heard from “concerned faculty.” The GFC resolution was signed by the committee chair, law professor John Elson, and submitted to Bienen and Dumas. They apparently haven't responded. Elson wouldn’t comment, but Lavine did. He said the GFC didn’t talk to him before it acted, and its members obviously don’t know what he knows.

And what’s that? “We’ve had more faculty involvement in the last 18 months than in the decade before that. We have 12 major committees reaching across the entire faculty.” True enough about the dozen committees. But unhappy professors say Lavine just pays lip service to them. A new curriculum is going to be introduced over the next four years, and although professors have been consulted individually, one told me, “We don’t vote on anything. We have no vote. Anybody who dissents is labeled ‘antichange.’” Another outsider heads up the new curriculum project--Mary Nesbitt, who'd been (and remains) managing director of the Media Management Center's readership institute before director of the women-in-newspaper-management project at the Media Management Center until Lavine brought her over. 

Lavine wasn’t blindsided by the resolution. Clarke Caywood, who teaches PR and marketing for the IMC side of Medill, was on the GFC when the resolution was proposed, though not when it was voted on (he says he'd have voted "aye"). He says, “I told Lavine a few months ago--truth to power--‘You should know it’s coming.’ His reaction was, ‘I think I’m doing the right thing.’ I don’t disagree with him, but I think his way of doing it leaves something to be desired.” That said, Caywood believes that the Medill faculty has long had a "passive-aggressive" relationship with the administration, with unwillingness to get involved running a close race with willingness to take offense.