News from the home front in interesting places
So I was reading through some of my usual tech news this morning and came across this little tidbit from my old alma mater (well, technically I guess it isn’t my alma mater since I would have had to spend more than three months there to actually graduate) of Ocean County College. Seems as though they’re ditching the faculty advisor to the student paper after 35 years, and the reasoning behind it is kind of weak:
Bosley rebutted the two reasons she was given for not being renewed as newspaper adviser — that the paper contains too many errors and that student staff, because they use Macintosh computers, are not being prepared for the real world.
The real meat of this argument lies somewhere underneath:
“Professor Bosley gave her heart and her soul to the students,” said Ari Berger, 29, a Dover Township resident and former Viking News editor. Many of her supporters referred to the numerous awards the paper has won over the years.
“But advising an award-winning publication for 35 years just wasn’t enough, when the newspaper ran contrary to the opinions of the administration,” said Randy Monroe, an associate professor of English. “This matter was decided without deliberation, behind closed doors. It’s an example of the raw exercise of managerial prerogative.”
Elizabeth Mitchell, mother of Patrick Mitchell and a teacher at the college since 1968, was the most blistering in her comments, claiming that Larson had her son dismissed to retaliate against her.
Thinly veiled technical arguments aside, this all smacks of personal agenda if you ask my opinion. But really, I expect no less from a school that had actual, factual clowns running around on my first day of classes oh those many years ago. Maybe that’s why I was never really enamored with the place….