Many students, faculty and community members alike are scratching their heads trying to guess what the state of the journalism school will look like in the near future.
As the Academic Review and Planning Advisory Committee is in the final deliberation stage of its program discontinuance review to be sent Sunday, the Information, Communication and Technology Exploratory Committee is still gathering information.
The ICT exploratory committee has been charged with envisioning a campus-wide initiative in a cross-discipline approach to evaluate the current technological assets on campus, said Merrill Lessley the committee chair and a CU theatre and dance professor.
“We want to strategically realign resources and strengths currently existing on the CU-Boulder campus to ensure that course and degree offerings meet the needs of students, the labor market, our campus mission and the communications needs of a rapidly changing society,” said Chancellor Philip DiStefano in a news release. “News and communications transmission as well as the role of the press and journalism in a democratic society are changing at a tremendous pace. We must change with it.”
| Exploratory Committee members Who is behind the board? |
|
|---|---|
| Who? | What? |
| Anne Costain
Director of CU-Boulder’s Women and Gender Studies Program and a political science professor |
Research: Non-violence as a social movement tactic and the influence of gendered interests on the Obama administration. Accomplishments: Received the Student Organization for Alumni Relations’ Distinguished Teaching Award and is a President’s Teaching Scholar. Past experience: Served as associate dean of social sciences and associate vice president of human relations. Author of numerous books, journal articles and chapters in edited books. |
| Katherine Eggert
Associate professor of English at CU-Boulder and scholar of Renaissance literature |
Research: Cultural studies, early modern science, women in the early modern period and feminist theory. Accomplishments: CU-Boulder’s Provost’s Award for excellence in research and creative work Past experience: Served as associate chair for graduate studies and chair of the English department; and vice president and president of International Spenser Society. Authored numerous essays, articles and a book. |
| Michele Jackson
Associate professor of English at CU-Boulder and scholar of Renaissance literature |
Currently working on a book analyzing technology and the “new workplace.” Director of ASSETT, a College of Arts and Sciences program that supports teaching and learning through technology. Research: Communication technology, organizational communication and group interaction, addressing social and organizational issues concerning communication technology. Past experience: Over 40 publications and 100 presentations in the disciplines of communication, computer science, organizational studies and technology studies. |
| Merrill Lessley
CU-Boulder theater and dance professor and exploratory committee chair |
Research: Computer-controlled laser lighting effects Past Experience: Since joining CU-Boulder in 1994, served twice as interim chairperson of the department of theater and dance, interim chair of the fine arts department, associate dean of the Center for Humanities and the Arts, interim director of CU-Boulder Honors Program. Taught courses in the history and development of American theater and senior capstone seminar. Published numerous articles on stage lighting and special effects. Served as interim chancellor of CU-Colorado Springs and held positions of vice chancellor for academic affairs and resident dean of the Graduate school from 1988 to 1993. |
| Michael Lightner
Professor and chair of the department of electrical, computer and energy engineering. |
Joined CU-Boulder in 1981. Co-founder of the Teaching with Technology summer institute of the Faculty Teaching Excellence Program, co-founder of the Boulder Digital Works graduate certificate program. Co-directs Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center for the Advancement of Cognitive Technologies at CU’s Anschutz Medical Campus. Past experience: Served as associate dean for academic affairs for College of Engineering and Applied Science, interim executive director of the Coleman Institute for Cognitive Disabilities. Positions with CU’s faculty Privilege and Tenure committee, Committee for Research and Creative Work, Boulder Planning Commission and Boulder Faculty Assembly. |
| Michael Zimmerman
Professor of philosophy at CU-Boulder |
Research: Personal, ethical, political and cultural implications of contemporary technology. Past experience: Served as director of the Center for Humanities and Arts. Faculty member at Tulane University in New Orleans. Author of four books and over 100 articles and book chapters. Co -founder of CU-Boulder’s Digital Humanities Initiative. |
| Stephen Lawrence
Associate professor of operations management in the Leeds School of Business at CU-Boulder |
Past experience: Associate dean for Programs; Faculty Chair of Executive Programs; and Deming professor of entrepreneurship. Research: Technology and entrepreneurship; technology selection and acquisition; and commercialization of sustainable energy. Taught at Washington University in St. Louis, Carnegie-Mellon University and University of Pittsburgh. Accomplishments: Recipient of numerous teaching awards, including MBA Teaching Excellence Award. |
| Uriel Nauenberg
Professor of physics at CU-Boulder |
Awards: Recently selected to receive the university’s highest recognition for teaching and research, the Hazel Barnes Prize. Research: Fundamental interactions of particles to understand how the world was formed at the time of the Big Bang. |
| Information provided by Elizabeth Lock, news editor for the Office of Media Relations and News Services | |
Jeffrey Cox, chairman of the ARPAC program-discontinuance committee and associate vice chancellor for Academic Affairs, said the ICT exploratory committee wants to ensure that the opportunity to provide response is available.
“We did not want to create something so amorphous to take on everything,” Cox said. “We do not know who the players really are. We are open to all ideas and want to hear from as broad a range of faculty as possible.”
The exploratory committee is operating independently of the ARPAC program-discontinuance committee and is a running review with yearly charges for the university in its entirety, Cox said.
“We have not found the right answer yet, and hope this gets us there,” he said. “Last year we reviewed English. The journalism school is not being singled out because of the program discontinuance committee.”
Some concern has been raised regarding the timeliness of the formation of the ICT Exploratory Committee and ARPAC program-discontinuance committee, two unrelated entities, as they were both initiated the same day the news about the possible closing of the journalism school was released, said Paul Voakes the dean of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
“The timing partially is an issue of regent policy,” Cox said. “Once the regent states he intends to do something, the clock starts. One has a shorter clock than the other. This is probably not the cleanest way of doing this, but if we are going to restructure the school of journalism, we have to do this as quickly as possible, and if we drift around, things will not get done in a timely way.”
Cox said the members of the eight-member committee were appointed by the provost in consultation with other leaders of the Boulder Faculty Assembly and respected members of the campus community.
“We asked out of the goodness of their hearts to be on it and, for the most part, it is a lot of extra work with no personal benefit,” Cox said. “I think everyone realized this is an incredibly important question for this campus.”
Cox said that although journalism is represented in the pre-existing standing committee of ARPAC, it is campus policy that members of the unit under consideration cannot be involved in its deliberation.
The ICT Exploratory Committee is gathering information from different disciplines as many are affected by the strength and availability of information, communication and technology assets on campus, Lessley said.
“This discipline cannot be studied in a singular position as there are too many related corners working in harmony together,” Lessley said. “We need something like this because we need the tools to deal with complex interrelated problems.”
Lessley, who has an extensive background in various areas and was called on behalf of Cox to chair the committee, said he is excited for the task ahead. He said he takes this role personally and that it is a good opportunity to bring change.
“For me, this is very personal,” he said. “I am frightened for our country and world because of this exponential explosion of information and the ability to propagate so much. We are not providing people with the proper tools to deal with that. We are in a world that lacks this very discipline, and if we don’t do something about this now, we are headed to a complete disaster.”
A main goal of the formed committee is to educate students and provide them with the opportunity to process information and communication effectively and with flexibility so there is room for future change, Lessley said.
“We want to build something that helps students in school, and citizens in our society, to understand information and communication and how the tasks of technology can be part of that complex world,” Lessley said.
The exploratory committee is geared more toward faculty, graduate students and alumni since it has a research-based focus, Voakes said.
Some concerned students feel left in the dark with a lack of information regarding the process being presented.
“I don’t feel the meetings were well known,” said Hannah Blacker, a junior pre-journalism student. “There was a lot of confusion, but it seems no one really knows what is going on. I hope that once they make a decision they can say this is what we decided and why, since they did not do very well with the process.”
Some students said they learned about the review process of the journalism school in a variety of ways, including newspapers, brief discussions in class and by e-mail. Others have not heard much.
“They haven’t told us anything about it and the committees have not been mentioned in any of my classes,” said Kayla Venners, a junior advertising major.
Many students said they are worried about the status of their degree after graduation if there is no longer a school of journalism.
“I wonder if it is still going to have the same prestige as before and people are still going to see it as good as it was,” said Eva Rieder, a sophomore news-editorial major. “I am concerned about the future of having a degree in a school that was misled or outdated and how future employers might see that.”
Others said they think this could be a positive transition.
“Transforming the school does not affect me because I am graduating with what I started with, and for new students this could be a really great program,” Venners said. “I am not expecting anything for me personally.”
Suggestions some students said could be applied to this process to avoid the potential closure include a voting process to become more involved with the student body, integration of media and technology
“I hope they do not close it,” Rieder said. “It needs to be updated with the changing times of technology, but closing it would be a really bad call. Journalists are still needed.”
Committee members also shared the view that the principles of journalism should be maintained.
“I hope this will generate a forum of discovery, while keeping the principles of journalism such as the ability to write well, think well, be ethical and structure an argument,” Lessley said. “That is all here and I don’t think we will ever give that up.”
A micro-site has been placed onto the SJMC website for interested community members to inquire, Voakes said.
“If students feel uniformed, it shows we have not done a good job at getting the futures page on the school website out,” Voakes said.
Cox said the different findings of the two committees will be deliberated and two distinct reports will be submitted to the provost. The program discontinuance committee needs to finish by Sunday. The provost and chancellor have until the end of January to make the final decision on discontinuance, but it is the action of the board of regents that have the final say.
“If there is massive disagreement, [the provost] will get to handle that,” Cox said. “The provost and chancellor will have all the information and then make an informed decision about that.”
The outline for the future of campus will not be immediate and this is seen as not making a decision, but creating a vision, Cox said.
“Things are not going to stay the same,” he said. “We would not be going through all of this to not see change.”
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Christine Larsen at Christine.larsen@colorado.edu.
