After years of strife and dysfunction and the threat of being disbanded, Cal Poly’s journalism department is trying to stay positive as it tries to get along and change for the benefit of the students.
On Tuesday, Sept. 28, College of Liberal Arts Dean Linda Halisky and the interim chair of the journalism department, Harvey Levenson, spoke to and answered questions from worried journalism students about the status of their major. Students also wanted to verify if threats reported by Cal Coast News — that the department would close in March if the faculty did not start getting along — were true.
“Even in the worst case scenario, the journalism major is not going away,” Halisky said at the meeting. “It may be housed someplace else, but that’s a long shot at this point.”
Levenson began the meeting by telling students of presented opportunities, changes to the department and hiring new faculty.
“(You) have an amazing opportunity to be on the ground floor of some major changes in developing programs,” Levenson said at the meeting. “You are going to have the opportunity to help form and reformulate this department with the regards to staffing, faculty and so forth and so on; because over the next two years, we are going to be hiring four journalism faculty members, and you are going to be a part of that process.”
Outside of the meeting, Levenson wanted to additionally address the rumors that the department would “shut down.” Levenson said Halisky and university provost Robert Koob want to see the department grow and in order to do that, the faculty and staff need to have a “common movement in the same direction.”
“It’s not that everyone has to think the same way or agree, they just want to see some kind of harmony and a common goal on the part of the faculty and staff,” he said. “If they see that, the department is not going to go away.”
Halisky spoke about the department possibly being moved, however, as of now no plans or decisions have been made official.
“There is an option, and it’s still on the table, to move (the journalism department) so there would be a journalism major, but it might have a home in a different, more stable and healthy department,” Halisky said. “That might be all the concentrations together, or it might mean moving (public relations) separately.”
However, Halisky said, this is “plan B” and is no way the most preferable option. Yet, she also said that with Levenson’s leadership and the effect of promoting a stronger, more “vibrant” department, she has hopes the faculty will come together.
“I think (Levenson’s) started to help people come together, and he’s excited them about a new vision for the department,” Halisky said. “I think if the faculty can focus on something positive and exciting like the really vibrant, charged department, that may go a long way to helping with some of these past charged issues recede into the past.”
Professor Teresa Allen also felt that although the department has had problems, this is a new opportunity for beneficial change.
“I think the journalism department has a rare opportunity to refine and rebuild its program with new faculty, new ideas and new vigor,” Allen said. “I see or hear nothing to make me think this is not the unified goal of our current faculty or of the administration.”
Kelsey Magnusen, a journalism senior and president of Cal Poly’s Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA), said it is important to stay positive about the prospective changes instead of the past problems.
“We know that there’s no point to being negative, (especially) when it’s not the students’ fault,” Magnusen said. “We are really trying to (stay) positive.”
Magnusen also said it is important to know that it was not the students’ failures that made this happen. Rather, she said students should work their hardest to succeed so if the department does disband, they can say “we did great, we rocked (this year).”
“(For PRSSA) this is going to be our best year ever (despite the problems),” Magnusen said.
However, Krista Scarbrough, vice president of PRSSA, manager of Central Coast PRspectives (CCPR) and journalism senior, said the past problems should not just be ignored.
“We need to remember how tense it was,” Scarbrough said. “(Halisky and Levenson should have) acknowledged what happened in the past and (say) they don’t want to repeat it.”
Professor Bill Loving, the former chair of the department who was asked to step down this summer, also said it was necessary to remember what occurred when he had been replaced as chair.
“I’ve seen that students have been badly affected by the stress,” Loving said. “And I question the wisdom of putting the student, staff and faculty through this.”
Loving said asking him to step down when he felt he was making “progress” and then threatening to disband the department just caused more problems.
“I don’t know why she would threaten to shut down the department,” Loving said. “I don’t know why she decided to fire me as chair. I certainly didn’t see any good reasons.”
Loving felt that he has not had an adequate reason for being “fired,” and still has lingering questions as to why he was. He felt that Halisky did not handle the situation as effectively as possible, often siding with some tenured faculty members who were “resistant to change” and, since asking him to step down, sidelining previous progress.
“The progress that we’ve made in the past two years has been tossed into the trash can,” Loving said.
When questioned why she had asked Loving to step down, Halisky would not comment, but felt that the previous progress had not been lost.
“(Professor Loving) did make some progress,” Halisky said. “He was especially good at helping to bring the budget back in line. And I don’t believe any of the work that the program did moving in a positive direction has been scrapped. I think much more needs to be done, but we certainly want to give credit where credit is due.”
Even so, Halisky said as far as she can tell, the faculty is ready to move on.
“All of the faculty, including Professor Loving, are working very hard to move the program forward and that’s where I think our energies need to be,” Halisky said. “As far as the department moving forward, my understanding is he is being very helpful in that process, and that’s a great thing.”
Victoria Zabel, a journalism and graphic communications senior, said it was a “rash decision” to ask Loving to step down and that the “students weren’t really considered when the decision was being made.” However, she also felt it was time to put all of the previous unpleasantness in the past and to focus on the students.
“I hope that the department gets it together and starts to remember the reasons they are even teaching at Cal Poly in the first place — the students,” Zabel said.
Halisky also felt the students and the reinvention of the program were more important than past quarrels.
“Is it about you, or is it about this program and these students and the future of journalism at Cal Poly?” Halisky said.