Several years in the making.
If institutions of higher learning desire academic honesty, they must be institutions of obvious integrity, places where students, faculty, and administrators seek truth and wisdom and technical expertise in an environment marked by trust, honesty, respect, fairness, responsibility, and courage. — Peg Hogan, Former President, The Center for Academic Integrity
I whisked through questions to complete the survey even as the questions were raising more questions. Like this one, Question 5f: Level of Respect Shown to Faculty by College President. Should there have been a similar question about department chairs?
Fall, 2009, MEDP 299.47: One of the Best Feature Writing Classes with Talent in Recent Memory.
But …
June 9-12, Washington, D.C.: “The goal of the conference is to provide a faculty perspective on critical issues in higher education presented in a format accessible to the general public.”
I want to preface this semester wrap-up with an anecdote that I believe provides an insightful, behind-the-scenes look of inner workings and thinking as well as speaks to important matters, such as student learning, undergraduate journalism, Academic Freedom and the kind of baleful malaise that corrupts academic values and principles.
The D:F/M chair informed me a while back that he and the D:F/M Policy & Budget Committee wanted me to take a leave from teaching Basic Reporting, MEDP 292. I was suspected of being the culprit responsible for the drop in enrollment of department majors. There was this concern that a lot of students were flunking my classes (which have high standards and expectations for students, high – I’m being kind – in light of this department’s standards).
The result, if one was to believe the chair and the P&B, was a cosmic resonance so strong that what occurred in my classroom emanated beyond its boundaries and was discouraging students (who didn’t take classes with me, who weren’t even planning to enroll in my courses) from taking the major or were being encouraged to drop it.Â
Whew!
Lame courses, lame instructors were not being considered. Not to mention lame policy decisions.
I refused, of course.
I came across this student-instructor correspondence [provided later in this post] while searching for other material on my hard drive. The Student-In-Question was an excellent writer as well as considerably bright. He was in his late 20s or early 30s.
In my class, he also was functionally indolent.
I plan to use this anecdote and others for my tome about The Four Barnacles of the Apocalypse.
The 4 Barnacles of the Apocalypse (A Work in Progress)
Thursday, January 15th, 2009[This page is pockmarked with weird symbols like – I’m because of WORDPRESS updates. This page will be eventually removed and the edited contents will be added to another web site.]
This – I’m referring to all the words below is an edited version of an email sent to my department about grade tampering, and I also alluded to gross violations of academic freedom and academic collegiality as well as to what seem to be odious F/M customs and practices, such as colleagues engaging in defamation and slander. This kind of sleazy office politics seem to be cherished traditions in my department and are regarded, insanely I have to add, by too many colleagues as “Collegial.”
I have also referred to these perversions in various communiques, emails, listserv postings as well as as Farce and Mediocrity. The original title for the email to my department was:”Recommend For New Business, Wednesday, Grade Tampering in F/M- A Big Barnacle: Is a discussion needed?” I was interested in a discussion at the last department meeting of the fall semester, 2008, not that I was expecting a discussion. But I wanted to know how colleagues would respond and I needed to gauge things.
(more…)
Tags:academic freedom, academic integrity, Grade Tampering, journalism
Posted in Journalism Education, News/Commentary/Opinion | Comments Closed