Cancel Culture, Student Journalism, and Administrative Oversight

 WEB DRAKE

Joan Gallos and Lee Bolman’s new book, Reframing Academic Leadership, seeks to provide academic leaders at various levels of university responsibility with the tools and vision to survive, manage, and thrive in the post-COVID landscape. The basic outline of the book casts the academic leader as architect, politician, coach, and artist (xiv). These four roles constitute the basic functions necessary to successfully navigate the ever-increasingly complex waters of academia.  

I serve as Dean of the College of Communication and Fine Arts at a Christ-centered university. My college comprises the outward-facing, public academic units of the university, including our journalism program. Our campus newspaper is online.  

Recently, we posted an article on what our students believed was a relatively innocuous topic. The paper has a social media presence, and within hours, the article was, well, not exactly going “viral” but certainly gaining a lot of traction in relative terms. 

In a day and age where everyone from the unknown to the notorious are routinely finding themselves in trouble, “canceled” so to speak, for what they said or how they said it, this had the potential to “blow up” in the very worst way. Instead, what followed was a portrait in grace, servant leadership, and practical pedagogy. It was also a clinic in how a university leadership can, collectively, successfully play the four roles delineated by Gallos and Bolman. 

Architect  

I am currently in my fourth year as Dean. Our President is in his sixth year. When I was hired, he told me that he views the student newspaper as an academic laboratory. As a former English professor, he understands the power of the written word. It would only be natural for him to desire to harness that power for the use of the university. Instead, the approach he promotes is one of academic and journalistic freedom. 

Our program is predominantly student-run, with minimal oversight from the journalism sponsor. She has sponsored papers at two other universities and overseen this one for a decade. She considers it her job to equip the students with the intellectual and practical skills necessary to run the paper predominantly autonomously. As such, the students have the freedom to post most articles without her prior approval. She chose this model for pedagogical as well as practical reasons. 

I was only in my position a brief time before I noticed that the students tended to shy away from covering campus news stories, especially those which may cast the university in a negative light. It only took a few conversations to realize that they were all gun-shy. The previous presidential administration had viewed the paper as a public relations arm of the university. The students and sponsor had eventually capitulated to this reality. 

It reminded me of the story of the full-grown elephant that stayed tied to a stake because, as a child, it lacked the strength to break free. The journalism program now had the freedom to write stories that they didn’t trust the new administration to be okay with. They hadn’t tested their wings. Thus, this story and the way that the administration responded to it were particularly significant. 

Politician

During an unrelated conversation on the morning after the story posted, one of my senior administrators brought the article to my attention. “You should check this out.” I did, and in a subsequent conversation, he told me that “they” were concerned because the article contained factual errors and because no one on the faculty or staff had been contacted for comment. He said that the content had the potential to be embarrassing to the administration and cause unnecessary strife among our alumni and campus community. But. . . BUT. . .  

What he didn’t say was, “Pull the article.” What he didn’t say was, “You need to deal with this.” What he didn’t say was, “The sponsor needs to do her job!” 

What he said was, “This can be a teachable moment for everyone involved.” His nuance and grace gave everyone involved the oxygen they needed to work the issue, not the personalities involved. 

Coach 

Meanwhile, the journalism sponsor had also been monitoring the online comments generated by the story as well as taking a close look at the story itself. Naturally once she reviewed it, she recognized the same failures of reporting as the senior administrator. Independently, she had met with her staff, debriefed the major concerns, and discussed possible courses of action.  

He contacted a different member of the administration for comment, something to mention should they decide to issue a retraction. This led to a new concern, perception. If the paper quoted a member of the administration in their retraction, would people think that the administration forced the retraction? Would that create a perception of a prior restriction, freedom of the press issues, etc.?  

And why pull the story in the first place? At this point, it had been shared a significant amount of times on social media. It was “out there.” There was no way to find all of the feathers released from that particular pillow. Would pulling it do more harm than good? 

My administration’s response was to defer to the judgment of the sponsor and the student editor, allowing the structure we had in place work. They acknowledged the reality that we will take some public relations and relational hits, but that’s part of the game. A portrait of humble, servant leadership. 

After discussing professional ethics and standards, consequences, and yes, campus politics, the student editor of the paper decided to pull the story. We were more interested in being correct than looking correct. 

Artist 

As the wheels started rolling, I reached out to my direct boss, the Provost. He isn’t a micromanager. He trusts his deans. He trusts his faculty. But neither does he want to be taken off-guard, surprised by something under his umbrella that could affect the university. The situation was negative, but not disastrous. Still, I wrote a quick email just to loop him in. He responded that he already knew about it. (Because, of course he did!) My takeaway was not about his seeming omniscience. (Seriously, how does he know about stuff so quickly?) My takeaway was that neither my journalism sponsor, nor my Associate Dean, nor I had received an angry phone call, a panicked email, or even a visit. He hadn’t even asked me to make the call, write the email, or pay the visit. 

Our Provost is the Dean of the Faculty. He is responsible for the educational product of our university. And he “gets” it. He understands that students are going to make mistakes. That it is only by being allowed to make mistakes that they are going to get better. He trusts his faculty to be the first line in catching and correcting those mistakes. He understands that a call from the Provost to a student journalist carries with it a chilling effect no matter what the intention. 

He gets it to the degree that our administration has invested a great deal of time and effort in reminding our student journalism program that their job is to cover our campus, to report the news. To practice their craft in the greenhouse of the university environment. He knew that mishandling this situation, “big-footing” the journalism sponsor, could have counteracted years of relationship-building, countless conversations building trust. He understands that the mission of the university is education. Public relations is a nice bonus, but when forced to choose, choose education! He understood the gravitas of this moment. 

Teachable moments happen in the manufactured environment of the classroom every day. Unscripted, extemporaneous teachable moments are precious- few and far between. Often, though, it is these moments that our students most remember, that contain the greatest lessons. The young journalist who wrote this article will learn to source her stories, to get the facts right. The student-editor who approved the story will learn to look at stories from a wider variety of perspectives. The sponsor will learn how to balance freedom for her students and faculty oversight. The dean will learn. . . well, there may be no hope for him! 

I am proud to serve at a university that sets aside ego so that our students get the Christ-filled education that our marketing department trumpets! Grace-filled, servant-hearted, practical pedagogy from architects, politicians, coaches, and artists. 

 Web Drake is dean of the College of Communication and Fine Arts at North Greenville University