I also wrote a response to the editorial in The Daily today.  I'd really like some feedback before I send it off.  Thanks, Lauren

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The words “How Gaylord College Falls Short” made me pick up the newspaper today.  I was actually heading to my first class in Gaylord and was excited to read the article.  I thought that maybe finally someone was addressing the shortcomings of the college, how certain majors (majors like Professional Writing, for instance) are overlooked or given the barest of resources.

I was only sort of right.

I did not expect to see the major I had in mind, my major to be mocked in what can only be described as juvenile slander.  As journalists, I’m sure the significance of that last word is not lost on you.

I agree that Gaylord is “riddled with systemic problems” and can even be persuaded to entertain the idea that because The Daily hasn’t been moved to the college that maybe journalism is lower on the priority totem pole.  But attacking other majors in the college was not only uncalled for, it was also extremely offensive and childish.  First of all, it’s the “Gaylord College of Journalism AND Mass Communication.”  Journalism is not the only major and, to be blunt, it shouldn’t be treated as such.  If you truly wanted to make a case for how the Gaylord College values money over education, you should have researched into how other majors are getting raw deals.  I can’t speak on behalf of other majors, but I know that Professional Writing only has two professors and we had to beg to get a third to open another section of Introduction to Professional Writing.  We also had to kick and scream just to get a small, vacant room (in Copeland, your home turf, by the way) for the Profess
ional Writing Student Association to meet.

You lament about being separated from the journalism college (after you insisted that wasn’t the point and completely ignore the fact that your offices are in the original journalism building, hence the separation) and then you essentially alienate students of two other majors by questioning the relevance of PR in journalism and demeaning PW degrees by declaring the major as “a farce.”  You clearly don’t respect us, so why would want to be in the same building as us anyway?

I’ll end my letter with the first thing I thought when I read about how your signs requesting page designers usually go unanswered; you think it’s because the college doesn’t teach certain programs or skills to the students.  I think part of the reason might be because students don’t want to work for your paper.  And after reading the journalistic equivalent of a hissy fit from a spoiled eight-year-old, who can blame them?