Director of School of Journalism asked to resign

I’m sorry to hear it. Jane is at the top of a long list of people who made my graduate education worth while.

This is shocking and horrible. The news was broken on TWITTER of all places, and the college refuses to explain itself. It’s disgusting and shameful.

Jane has taken the J-School leaps and bounds forward. Whitten is making a huge mistake, and Denbow’s comments are nothing but PR fluff. The students of the J-School deserve a proper explanation.

I am saddened to hear of this. Jane Briggs-Bunting is a great friend of scholastic journalism, and of the student press rights movement.

Perfect. The one person who should be asked to step down is asking others to step down. Whitten — you didn’t deserve this position, don’t abuse it before the chair is even warm.

That’s sad and frustrating to hear. She was moving the curriculum in a direction that helped students be prepared —- and in some cases more advanced —- than the working world they’re stepping in to. I was very thankful for her leadership and advice when I was a student. Her efforts helped me be ready for the work I now do.

I too am very disgusted about the situation. I found out through Twitter when as a being a top ranked Communications College I should have been informed of this decision. I believe the choice to give Whitten the position was a mistake and an even bigger mistake for her to force Briggs-Bunting to resign. Ive been a part of the School of Journalism for four years and must say that Jane has done a amazing job with the students within.

I call bullshit! Pam Whitten calls herself the Dean of the College of Communication Arts and Sciences? How? When she has not been communicating she deserves to get her title revoked, not Jane Briggs-Bunting. Look at what this has stirred! JBB is obviously doing something right if former and current students are using their journalism instincts to get to the bottom of this story. F U Pam Whoretten!

I’m shocked and disappointed to hear this. Jane helped me make an important decision when choosing between internships. She was excellent and always available to J-school students.

Gotta love the hypocrisy of those at the top of the profession of journalism.

Jane should leave MSU and start her own college. I would leave MSU to attend JBBU.

This news has came as a total shock yesterday afternoon. Since then CAS has refused the answer any inquires or even return calls. There has been a lively discussion on Twitter regarding the news, but it appears that the the college is too disconnected from the changing world of communications to be bothered with a 24-hour news cycle. It is beginning to look like the new leadership is unprepared to teach students about the future.

W-T-F is the CAS doing?! Flushing down known expertise for… what?

regardless of the decision, the true problem here is that TWITTER broke the news. isn’t there traditionally a formal process involved in communicating this sort of decision? whitten isn’t winning any fans here..
1- COMMUNICATION is bad, didn’t take proper steps to inform everyone
2- JOURNALISM no press release? let’s leak it to twitter! we are keeping up with the times (no you’re buying into a trend)
3- PR is horrible, what kind of face are you saving by not discussing a largely controversial decision as your first act as newly appointed dean?

just sayin.

Ahh, finally some time to breathe and reflect on a decision to move forward. Let’s recognize that change is the only constant in the journalism business. It’s been that way since the 35 words of the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution were authored in the 1700’s. While the current journalism landscape has been affected by social media technologies, trust me, Facebook and the 124 characters allowed on Twitter do not a journalist make.

To be clear the story was not leaked to Twitter. It appears that CAS was attempting to keep it quite until a formal release could be drafted. Disseminating the information via Twitter is not buying into a trend, but it instead illustrates that we operate in a landscape that makes it extremely difficult to keep things of this nature under wraps. I do agree the College of Communication Arts and Sciences looks extremely unprepared after the fiasco that has ensued.

Carlos, I do agree that this could provide an opportunity to move forward, but the curriculum that Briggs-Bunting was working on implementing in fall 2010 was extremely forward looking.

I just graduated from Michigan State with a degree in journalism and personally disliked JBB, but I always respected her vision and never felt she was leading the department in the wrong direction. I’d like to know the real reason she was ousted.

And, here’s something else to consider. Journalists, in my opinion, need to couple, and decouple, their passion for discovery and fact-finding with a realistic view of organizational management. While journalists are to be applauded for their passion for discovery of fact, they also need to reconcile that passion with a broad view of organizational goals. Organizations such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the L.A. Times, etc. “tip-toe” around this fundamental issue everyday. I champion their investigative efforts, but there should be a realistic view of the monetization goals of the organization as they ply and nurture their craft.

Aaron— There exists a significant difference between “forward looking” and “forward successful”. In addition to working as an executive for four broadcast new organizations, I am also a veteran of academe’. I can tell you that the goals of an organization, whether institutional or corporate, are based primarily on the contribution to said organization. Like it or not, we live in a world where investigative discovery is typically secondary to the goals and expectations of a given organization.

Did anyone think it might have been more than simply wanting to take the J-School in a new direction? Asking someone to resign usually results from a bit more than mere ideological differences. And based on what I’ve heard, there have been several instances where people have questioned her decisions and how she carried them out, in more settings than just the J-School.

The new J-School curriculum Jane was seeking to implement was not driven just by her.

In fact, leading faculty members (not including Jane herself) worked for months to create a whole new curriculum that would teach students the skills they need to succeed in a digital, multimedia-based journalism world. In April, the faculty had a chance to see the proposed curriculum and make comments or suggest changes.

Thank you for clarifying that for everyone. I think what we all want to see is confirmation from CAS that the plans for the future that were already in place and approved by the faculty are carried out and not changed during the transition to “a new direction.”

Wow. This is simply shocking. Jane is one of the few profs at the J-School who not only knows her stuff, but can convey her knowledge to her students. Future journalism students are being robbed of knowing a great teacher, leader, and mentor.

I completely support this decision. Beside the fact that I dislike JBB, if any of you ever had a complaint or problem w/in the J-school, you’d soon learn that you were wasting her time by being in her office. Funny thing is, I thought as this major was all about questioning and changing things.

Other than that, let’s face it. MSU’s J-School, as much as I love it, is behind. We don’t have a convergence journalism program/classes. Big mistake. If MSU actually wants successful journalism grads in the newly web-based world it has to move on. Maybe they outed her because of this.

Who knows. Who cares. I’m just glad it was done.

I didn’t know people would play politics when it came to the J-school. This is ridiculous.

Carlos, good journalists separate their work from the monetary expectations of the organization. That is one of many ways they maintain their objectivity. The NYT, WP and LAT are not good journalists. They are organizations which employ good journalists. The J-school is not educating organizations to be good organizations, it’s educating people to become good journalists.