Columbia J-School: At Stake, 'The Value of Our $60,000 Degree'
Two girls scrambled to the door when they spotted reporters lingering in the hallway. One shrieked, "So they can just stand here and listen to everything?" The department intern, guarding the entrance with her trusty V.I.P. student list, shooed reporters away from the door. Word made it to dean of students and moderator Sreenath Sreenivasan within minutes and he (falsely) announced that reporters were "recording" the meeting, according to Barbara Fasciani, director of communications and special events for the J-School.
There were rumors and speculation. A student had contacted administration and accused classmates of cheating on an open-book, take-home final exam. Students accessed the test online over a 30-hour period and had 90 minutes to complete it once they logged in. Reportedly, one student submitted the test in 32 minutes. The administration revealed no names. Fasciani said the ambiguity of the situation and the anonymity of the source has students on edge.
Most students ducked reporters' questions as they exited the meeting. "There's no story here," one said.
"The more you guys write about it, the more the value of our $60,000 degree goes down the drain," another student said.
Maybe they were just rushing off to start working on the new final essay question, due this Thursday in hard copy. But the most popular response to reporters' inquiries was a phrase normally dreaded by journalism students: "No comment."
This was strange. Even stranger is that a student would cheat on a pass-fail essay test in the first place. Motivations are few. Were students trying to screw over Samuel Freedman, the Times columnist and class professor? Was it that oft-blamed culprit, Ivy-league pressure? It's not unreasonable that students might see their Columbia degrees as golden tickets to a tour of the media factory--a field that may be reducing more positions than it creates.
David Callahan wrote in his book "The Cheating Culture" that the obsession about advancing in the world "can easily justify the dishonest means." A plagiarism slip here, a source fabrication there--factor in a curmudgeonly professor for a required class and you may acquire a case of cheating on a take-home final.
But cheating on an ethics test only gets you kicked out of school and shamed by the media. And according to some students, the administration isn't trying hard enough to find the alleged cheaters, and whether it was two or ten of them, they want them exposed.
"There's not enough digging going on here," one said. "I don't want to sit next to someone who cheated on the test." She also surely doesn't want people thinking she is one of the tricksters. Another student pleaded with reporters: "You have to believe one bad egg doesn't spoil the whole bunch." —Gillian Reagan
This is by far the worst article I've read about this non-scandal. Seriously, it wasn't that dramatic. We had a meeting on private university property for students, faculty and administrators. It was not a press conference, and it was not in a public arena. Honestly I'm a little surprised you weren't immediately kicked out (you were, after all, trespassing). The administrators probably allowed you and the Times reporter to stay because they themselves are journalists, and they want to be open with the press. Of course in your original article, you falsely reported they told students not to talk to you. That was one of about four errors in your first story... seriously, where are your fact-checkers on this one?
a columbia j-school degree is a screening process for entry to media jobs: it screens out anyone who doesn't have 60k for an otherwise worthless degree
get a real job -- learn to be a plumber or an electrician
perhaps the writer would be better to try attributing some of the quotes to the students.
how hard is it to get a name, if you're actually trying?
Except that a lot of us are here on scholarship...
The Reagan article captures a certain emotion shared by some students about how the fiscal value of their degrees would be affected by the negative media attention.
More common I thought was the fear that a class that saw itself as deeply concerned about journalistic ethics and hoped to take that concern into the nation's newsrooms after graduation might be collectively tarred as unethical.
In other words, the good they intended to do had several layers of difficulty added for reasons beyond their collective control.
The article has one factual error. Dean Sree did not mistakenly say the reporters outside the room were recording the discussion. A student made that assertion and the Dean explained that the sound feed went into the hall where the reporters sat taking notes. He did say hall reporters were free to record whatever they wanted as were the students in the room.
It is hard to keep the news to yourself, he said, when you have over 200 reporters in the room.
It's unfortunate that the administration didn't look further into the accusations before calling a meeting with all 200 students, because now the entire school's reputation is marred rather than just a few individuals. But having recently graduated from (a non-ivy league) college, I can see how a student could complete a 500-word essay on that topic in 32 minutes. That's only 15 words a minute and the topic is a common one discussed in newsroom ethics classes. I had to write four essays in addition to taking an exam for my 3-hour ethics final.
As far as a Columbia degree being a "golden ticket" to the media world, I find that sense of entitlement irritating. There are a lot of hard-working, talented journalists that get looked over because they don't have a name-brand degree, to the detriment of the readers. I can't tell you how many times I've been offered a position by editors who hadn't read my clips by the time I interviewed. It seems to me that many of those hiring today look at simple things that don't take much reading - like if you have a degree, where it's from, and a clever cover letter - rather than actually looking first at what the readers will see, your clips. In my day-to-day reporting, I find that it's my thought process and life experience that make me a better reporter, with the voices of my mentors guiding me.
Everyone should have to prove themselves through their work. College should really just be one way to teach a reporter how to do good work, not a way to sidestep other reporters who weren't so priviledged.