Editor’s note: The following letter was sent to President Pamela Whitten and Provost Rahul Shrivastav after the publication of the IDS’s letter from the editors. Media School Dean David Tolchinsky responded to the letter, but at the time of publication, there has been no response from Whitten's office.
Dear President Whitten and Provost Shrivastav,
We write in response to the IDS letter from the editors published April 18, which came less than 48 hours after messages from both of you assuring faculty that collaboration and confidence can be built in the aftermath of the vote of no confidence April 16. Your letters gesture vaguely at a “we” that is never clearly defined, avoiding reference to responsibility for the loss of trust and signaling only the role of outside forces that push you towards making austerity budgetary measures to ensure our university and students’ success in the 21st century marketplace. We read the letter from the IDS as a reflection of choices made by the higher administration to potentially force the IDS into measures likely to drastically reduce its budget in response to these outside constraints. But those constraints do not force you to radically reduce the opportunity that our students have for professional development, at the exact same time as “career readiness” courses are being proposed as new requirements. Many faculty agreed to embrace and work with the new emphasis on preparing our students for specific career paths. This decision appears to fly in the face of that demonstrated willingness to work with you on a new initiative.
The IDS has been an important space for our journalism students to become professionalized and career-ready upon graduation. It has done that successfully. Moreover, it both sets a standard and provides an outlet for many other students who might pursue a career in media and/or journalism, whether from Kelley, O’Neill or the College. It is also a news outlet that has kept the rest of the university community informed and connected with the perspectives that our students bring to both “the college experience” as well larger institutional matters. We cannot imagine having as good a sense of where many of our students stand on matters like the graduate workers strike, DEI, sexual violence or free speech issues, to enumerate just a few themes in the past few years, without the IDS.
The editors and reporters at the IDS greatly value these opportunities and consider them a key component of their college experience. The walk-out scheduled for April 25 reflects that passion and commitment, as well as the deep disappointment in the lack of care that the higher administration has shown toward the IDS. To treat it like a failing business, cut off essential parts of the operation and present it as just a necessary change is to not care about the fate of training our students in a profession we have committed to nurture. Why have a school of journalism if we can’t train the students in how to be journalists on the ground? Will taking a course at the Walter Career Center provide the adequate training? Or is the goal to eliminate the journalism major?
How can we believe your words about collaboration, confidence and building trust, when your actions show the opposite?
How are you demonstrating that students and their future are the center of our universe, a phrase often repeated and increasingly, it seems, devoid of actual meaning?
Signed,
Maria Bucur, John V Hill Professor of Gender Studies and History
Alex Lichtenstein, Professor of History and Chair of American Studies
Amrita Chakrabarti Myers, Ruth N. Halls Associate Professor, Department of History, Director of Graduate Studies, Affiliate Faculty, Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies; Affiliate Faculty, Department of American Studies; Affiliate Faculty, Gender Studies
Leah Shopkow, Professor and incoming Chair, Department of History
