Poynter Online
Go


Top Story

Public TV, Radio Stations to Increase Local Investigative Coverage
Most Recent Articles
1.Poynter's Times Publishing Co. sells Governing
5:15 PM Nov. 20, 2009
2.Recommendation for Fewer PAP Screens Sure to Set Off Controversy
10:32 AM Nov. 20, 2009
3.Gene Patterson to Jack Nelson: Save Us a Desk Up There in That Celestial Newsroom
7:03 AM Nov. 20, 2009
4.Public TV, Radio Stations to Increase Local Investigative Coverage
6:19 AM Nov. 20, 2009
5.Woods: Plagiarism Never Justified
3:47 PM Nov. 19, 2009
Most E-mailed
Recent Comments
Recent Tags
Community Activity

Poynter Training
Poynter Seminars
Small, in-person training experiences.
1.
A New Curriculum for a New Journalism - Jan. 6-8, 2010
Apply by November 23
2.
Multimedia Journalism for College Educators - February 1-5, 2010
Apply by December 14
3.
NewsU: Write Your Heart Out: The Craft of the Personal Essay - January 25-February 19, 2010
Apply by January 4
News University
Today's most popular courses on NewsU, Poynter's e-learning site for journalists.
Webinars
Our online classroom is just a click away. Learn more.
All Webinars

Poynter Forums

View Forum Post

Topic: Miscellaneous items
Date/Time: 3/11/2008 10:31:54 AM
Title: Medill marketing prof on the Lavine brouhaha
Posted By: Jim Romenesko
 
Subject: Message from Tom Hayden for Medill community
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 12:28:20 -0500
Dear colleagues:

Over the weekend I read the editorial in Saturday’s Chicago Tribune.

I’m sad. Very sad. Extraordinarily sad.

If you want to know why, you’ll have to read on. And I promise you…this is a long letter.

Many of you don’t know me well. Some of you don’t know me at all. But I feel very privileged to serve on the faculty of one of the most prestigious schools, within one of the greatest universities, on the planet. I am quite proud to be a member of the faculty of the Medill School of Journalism, which as you know, we affectionately refer to simply as Medill.

For those who don’t know me, I teach courses in Integrated Marketing Communications, not Journalism. I came to Medill in 1998, first as an adjunct and now as a lecturer. I am a lawyer by education, and a 29-year marketing professional. I gladly accepted the dean’s invitation to oversee communications for Medill in addition to my teaching schedule.

I have taught IMC 303 since arriving in 1998. Students in my winter quarter 2007 class have unfairly become the object of much misinformation and speculation regarding a quote by Dean Lavine in the spring 2007 issue of the Medill magazine.

I find it interesting and troubling that only two reporters attempted to contact me throughout this fabricated media drama. I agreed to speak with one of the two. He seems to be a serious and sincere young man who writes for northbynorthwestern.com. Unless I completely misread him, he appears interested in getting to the truth. With all the things I’ve read over the past weeks and months, I sometimes wonder if there are any others out there searching for the truth.

But no one else has called me. No other faculty members. No one from the Daily Northwestern, not even the student who first wrote about the dean. No one from the Tribune. No one from the Sun-Times. No one from the wire services or other news organizations that picked up the stories and ran them. No one who has posted commentary on our alumni list serv. No one.

No one seems interested in what I have to say, but I’m going to say it anyway. Once. We’ll see if it shows up in the Daily, or on the front page of the Tribune.

As I stated, I’m sad. I’m sad that a very small number of students, faculty, alumni and unaffiliated journalists seem so intent on doing damage to Medill at such a critical and positive stage in its evolution.

But I’m happy because it’s not working.

Medill is in the midst of hiring the largest number of new faculty members in its history. Most of these will be tenured or tenure track faculty. All but two in the current wave will be Journalism faculty. Interest in the positions has been nothing short of overwhelming. Numerous faculty committees have been diligently screening and interviewing well-qualified and enthusiastic candidates. The greatest difficulty will be to select candidates from this abundance of talent.

Medill remains among the “hardest-to-get-into” of all the undergraduate schools at Northwestern. Undergraduate applications are at an all-time high.

Applications to the MSJ and MSIMC programs continue to be robust, both in number and quality.

The number of “name brand” companies who come to campus to interview our students continues to increase as well, for both Journalism and IMC jobs, residencies and internships.

From my perspective, the future of Medill has never been brighter.

Last fall I was fortunate to be invited to a conference whose attendees were primarily newspaper editors and other seasoned, senior journalists, and many of the major U.S. newspapers were represented.

I felt honored, as a marketing instructor, to be invited to attend a conference sponsored by journalists./CONTINUED

View Complete Forum Topic

Username
Password
New User? Signup Now
Poynter Careers
See All Jobs
Add Your Resume
Post Your Job
Become a Member
More media jobs