Spring '04 Edition
Students ask questions, get some answers
Andrea ZimmermannDaily Egyptian
Proposals can be seen on the web at http://mcma.siu.edu/proposal. Feedback can also be submitted on this site.
Students fought tooth and nail for what they believed Friday at the question-and-answer forum for undergraduate students of the College of Mass Communication and Media Arts to voice their opinions about their college's curriculum reform process.
Most of the discussion was about how to keep students more informed about the processes and of student representation on curriculum committees.
Emily Rollman, a senior in radio-television, said she hopes the "overdue" forum will be a trend that will continue into the fall semester.
"I would have liked for students to have been more involved from the beginning," she said. "There has been a lack of keeping students informed, and I think that is something you as officials have neglected. We are the paying customers."
Associate Dean Gary Kolb ran the forum in hopes of dispelling the many rumors that had arisen surrounding the restructuring process. Kolb was also the ex-officio member of the council that created the restructuring proposals, which were released in November 2002 and last March.
But the rumors continued to fly throughout the discussion as students said they were upset there had been so little communication to the students until then. Many students said they worried about the fate of the hands-on opportunities that have made the college unique.
The restructuring discussion in the college began in fall 2002 when the dean created a task force of faculty members to revise the curriculum that had barely been changed for 40 years. This discussion came on the heels of a 7.5-percent budget cut and a request from the provost to prepare for another 7.5-percent cut. By November 2002, the college had submitted a proposal to the provost, who approved it.
Kolb said most colleges faced with similar cuts went about restructuring by cutting programs, all of which involved people losing their positions.
"We chose to respond in a more proactive way," he said. "We decided to propose some potential changes in the curriculum that would save money by realizing efficiencies in the college and by creating programs that were more responsive to the needs of the students."
 Anthony Soufflé ~ Daily Egyptian
Gary Kolb, associate dean of Mass Communication and Media Arts, conducts a question-and-answer forum to discuss the proposed curriculum reform in MCMA with students from the Radio-Television and Cinema and Photography departments Friday afternoon in Communications Building Room 1046. h5> |
Although the initial discussion concerned curriculum reform, administrative restructuring was included in a new proposal that was submitted to faculty and staff in March. Talks began again after the Budget and Planning Task force, which released its report last fall, asked all colleges to look for areas in their college where they could save money.
Dean Manjunath Pendakur tabled the newest proposal after the Management Council received much negative feedback to administrative restructuring and reverted back to using the November 2002 proposal.
Kolb said curriculum reform would continue to be discussed this summer as committees are created within the departments to review the curriculum. He said he hopes student representation also will be on those committees.
Brittany Dost said she hopes some kind of listserv could be set up to inform students of developments over the summer. Others suggested an all-student panel be created along with the other committees.
Dost said she agrees changes need to be made, but she voted against the restructuring process during the Undergraduate Student Government election just to get attention from the administration to get a forum like this.
Phyllis Johnson, chairwoman of the Radio-Television Department, said one reason curriculum reform had to be looked at was because of the immense convergence that is happening in the media industry.
Many students were worried if the college restructures after they graduate, their degrees will not be as valuable. Rollman said the quality of learning has already started to decline.
"I've seen a sign of degradation in the quality of what students have learned from last year to this year," she said.
Kolb said any changes that come out of the fall discussions would take two to three years to implement. When the changes are implemented, those students enrolled in the college will not be affected. The current programs would be phased out.
Benjamin Doyle said as a peer adviser that is a direct contact with many prospective students, he doesn't know what to say to them about the college because by the time they are freshmen, it could be totally different.
"I've felt like I can't really encourage people to come to this school if the department isn't going to be here," he said.
Rollman and Greg Lederway both said they transferred to this school because of a certain professor or program but have been disappointed. Others were worried about open positions left by faculty that have not been filled.
"I came here from New York a year ago, and I am very disappointed," said Lederway, junior in radio-television. "If I wasn't a senior next year, I'd be looking for another school."
Dost, who is graduating Saturday, said she thinks the forum was more about venting frustrations than constructive because the students were so uninformed.
She said students don't understand they have the power to share their ideas that they see happening at other universities. She said she hopes the next meeting will not be about students upset because they weren't informed.
The forum took place in a classroom and was mostly full of radio-television majors, a handful of cinema and photography students and no journalism students. Jenny Hart, a sophomore in radio-television, heard about the forum through a friend's website. She said a few fliers and a couple of mentions of the forum in the Daily Egyptian do not cut it.
"I thought the problem was that it was not publicized," she said. "A lot more students would have been there to voice their opinions if they had just known about it."
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Last update: Tuesday, May 4, 2004 at 1:35:14 AM
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