Madison Ave. wrote:

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 Just where in the SACS guidelines does it say that there must be a faculty-driven process for press releases concerning incidents involving the University's physical plant? This is just another stretch.

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Madison Ave., you disagreed with Outside Observer's statement which read " A faculty member with a terminal degree in a specific field, who is contacted by the media for a comment on something in his/her field, has no duty to get it approved by some administrative office first."  I'm here to tell you that iff the administration adopted and implemented that type of muzze on academic freedom, you'd be reading about it in The Chronicle of Higher Education - both before and after the probation.

Madison Ave. wrote:

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Outside Observer wrote: I think the point was that the email said "all communications" with the media must be approved by PR.  A faculty member with a terminal degree in a specific field, who is contacted by the media for a comment on something in his/her field, has no duty to get it approved by some administrative office first. Wrong. If there is a policy, the professor has the duty to follow it, regardless of how much she dislikes it. If she chooses to ignore the policy, then she should be ready for the consequences.

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Wrong, Madison...if the media contacts me for a comment concerning something in my field, and I wish to make one, I will.  The university has no control over this.  I'm not representing the university.  Although, I think you'll find at the "better" universities, this kind of activity is actually encouraged.

I started to reply...then I thought...what's the use?

Madison Ave. wrote:

 I am arguing with people who cannot read!

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When all else fails, tell them they can't read; that their breath smells; that their toenails are too long; that they are wearing ugly shoes. The hospital administrator does not  "tell" the doctor what to do. They are professionals. Faculty members are professionals too. Has nothing been learned during the past three years? It's like the place is being run by ducks. Every day its a new world.

 

Madison Ave. wrote:
 The PR department is there to present a predetermined image to the public

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I believe these good folk understand that all too well. They saw in operation when the enhanced enrollment debacle unfolded.

 

constant confusion wrote:

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NOTE: ALL MEDIA CALLS MUST BE SENT TO 4491, THE PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICE.ONLY DESIGNATED PERSONS ARE ALLOWED TO SPEAK TO THE MEDIA.It appears that the above notice does only apply to the gas leak story. However, I'd like to point out that while there should be a protocol for emergency situations, the language in this message is simply inappropriate. I hope that PR corrects this situation ASAP so that everyone at the university understands the intent of this message.Amy Young

If you will look at the original post and then this explanation yuo would see why this thread went in the direction it did. Madison, the only thing I can really think of is maybe you typed the original email and are upset because it is being criticized.

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Let's get down to it, shall we?

On just how many press releases has this header appeared? Since press releases are archived, someone who has the time could check on that. My bet is that this is the first time the "tag" has appeared and that, even without such an uproar, it would not have appeared on other releases that have followed since then.

Young says, "However, I'd like to point out that while there should be a protocol for emergency situations, the language in this message is simply inappropriate." Dr. Young implicitly admits that this is an emergency situation, not an everyday operating situation. She also admits that there should be a protocol for emergency situations. Great! We're in agreement up to this point.

Now, is the language really inappropriate? It's not profane. It does not contain racial epithets or slurs. It has a gender-neutral quality about it. I think instead of the word "inappropriate," Dr. Young should have used the word "unacceptable," because that's really the argument being advanced here. Many of you think (or at least pretending that you think) that the "tag" infringes on your right to free speech. I am also assuming that it is the second second sentence, "ONLY DESIGNATED PERSONS ARE ALLOWED TO SPEAK TO THE MEDIA," that is the source of your discomfort. While that line may be unacceptable to some of you, it highlights a false "right" that many of you believe you have: the right to be heard anytime. The gas leak had othing to do with faculty, academics, coursework, degree granting, or any other academic issue. It had to do with an emergency situation involving the University's physical plant operation. It's none of your business. I suppose you think that you should get a say when and if a cherry bomb is dropped into the toilet in a dorm, causing damage to plumbing and flooding a floor of the dorm? Hardly. However, this highlights one of the problems of academics -- the thought that your comments are worthy of note even when you don't know what the hell you're talking about.

The appropriate media contact point for this emergency situation was the PR Department, and the appropriate information came from Physical Plant, not the physical sciences. This is just one more example of grasping at straws to try to punish and humiliate the Thames Administration. Just like after Katrina, a certain element of the faculty stands poised to criticize whatever action is taken just for the sake of criticism. Of the probably 1,000 issues that arose surrounding the gas leak at the Panhellenic dorm, is this the only one that you have an issue with? Or can you find the "next thing" to gripe about?

For the average, non-faculty reader, I would say that this whole thread is a witch hunt.

Madison Ave. wrote:

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Frog wrote: Madison Ave. wrote:  I am arguing with people who cannot read! When all else fails, tell them they can't read; that their breath smells; that their toenails are too long; that they are wearing ugly shoes. The hospital administrator does not  "tell" the doctor what to do. They are professionals. Faculty members are professionals too. Has nothing been learned during the past three years? It's like the place is being run by ducks. Every day its a new world.   Actually, Frog, some of the posters on this thread cannot read. Or they read too well, as in they read things that simply aren't there. A press release about a gas leak gets turned into some sort of academic freedom issue. One more time, there is no professor on campus who has more information about the gas leak in question than those who were working to find and stop the leak. If a professor of education were called about the leak, one would expect her to simply refer the caller to the central administration. However, at USM, where certain individuals take every opportunity to use the spotlight to place blame on the administration, one should not blame the administration for placing special caveats on sensitive, non-academic releases. Again, though, apparently few understand the function of a PR department. The PR department is there to present a predetermined image to the public, not to report all sides of a story with quotes from all parties involved. Reporting is for newspeople.

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you are correct a professor in education dept probably should not speak to a gas leak issue, but what are the chances someone in the pr dept would certainly speak to an academic issue in the education dept

the last sentence in mr madison statement is very interesting.."predetermined image", how far should the pr dept go to keep this image?   remember the pr dept at a tax payer supported university and the pr dept at radio shack are 2 different animals

invictus--amy's later message made the link to the gas leak at USM. however, and this concerned me because i saw the original message, amy's first message to begin this thread was a cut-and-paste job that took the statement out of context. only later did someone downthread provide the entire context. and subsequent messages from PR did not contain the offending statement.

"Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity" is a good general rule, but you can hardly blame people at USM for assuming the worst in these situations.
Who would have thought a professor's office would be opened and his hard drive copied at night? Who would have thought long-time tenured professors would be locked out of their offices and their computers seized? They would have seized a GA's computer but she happened to take it home the night before.
Let's not forget the context of Dr. Young's concerns.

ASTONISHED wrote:

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It appears that this issue is like many things lately, not a conspiracy or have evil intent, but just plain dumb.

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When any institution gets to the point where its lies outnumber its truths, it no longer deserves to exist. Unfortunately, we have become a nation of liars, and lying is now considered the norm. And it seems that the best liars win......

A couple of very perceptive entries. Check out "resumes are us."

Madison Ave. wrote:

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 . . . . which would allow the University to be portrayed in the best possible light.

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Madison Ave., some defense attorneys have occasionally been accused of employing a forensic scientist to examine physical evidence with the understanding that the resulting report or testimony will be couched in terms which will put  their client "in the best possible light."  If the forensic examiner agrees to such an arrangement, God forbid, he is called a "hired gun." Surely you are not suggesting. . . .

you chose to cut-and-paste the first paragraph, capitalized, of a 5-item news release dealing with the gas leak--what buildings had been evacuated and the like. nowhere does it single out faculty! you took it out of context, now realize it, and are trying to save face. now you're trying to extrapolate it well beyond the original press release. what's worse, given that this board doesn't have easy access to USM's press releases, is that in the context of subsequent press releases it was a one-of-its-kind, dealing with a public safety issue.

yeah, it's me!

Hey - maybe it's all a reaction to SeeMore's latest post!! Kidding of course, but I'd listen to SeeMore more attentively than I would USM's current PR person.