“Despite impassioned pleas from her supporters, the Ocean County College board of trustees voted unanimously Monday not to reappoint Karen L. Bosley as faculty adviser to the student newspaper, a post she has held for 35 years. ‘Are you committed to free speech and free expression on this campus?’ William Kanouse, an associate professor of English supporting Bosley, asked the trustees following the vote. ‘Because there seems to be an element of retaliation in this decision.’ Kanouse and other teachers and students charged that Bosley’s termination at the Viking News was in response to the newspaper’s periodic criticism of college President Jon H. Larson and his administration’s policies. The administration flatly denied the accusation,” Joseph Picard reports for The Asbury Park Press. “Bosley, a tenured humanities professor, will continue to teach, although she also has been reassigned from teaching journalism courses.”
Picard reports, “The teachers and their supporters, on the other hand, had plenty to say. The board waived its privacy policy regarding personnel matters at the request of the four teachers, and each addressed the board prior to its vote on their contract. Bosley rebutted the two reasons she was given for not being renewed as newspaper adviser — that the paper contains too many errors and that student staff, because they use Macintosh computers, are not being prepared for the real world.”
“Bosley pointed to awards the Viking News has won from the New Jersey Press Association and the Society for Collegiate Journalists. She also quoted research showing that 75 percent of U.S. colleges use Macintoshes, and claimed that Viking News students do not lack technical expertise. She then strongly implied that neither errors nor technology were at the root of her removal. ‘I hope you will not allow yourselves to become part of a pattern of punishing students for what they publish,’ she said to the board,” Picard reports. “‘This is not a reflection on the work of the students at the newspaper, but on the supervision there,’ said trustee Stephan R. Leone, as he moved the vote on Bosley’s nonrenewal. Stoically and without further comment, board members voted her out.”
“Elizabeth Mitchell, mother of Patrick Mitchell and a teacher at the college since 1968, was the most blistering in her comments, claiming that Larson had her son dismissed to retaliate against her. ‘I’m furious. I’m indignant,’ said Mitchell, an English professor and outspoken critic of Larson. ‘They’ve harassed Karen Bosley, trying to force her to resign. Now they’ve taken away her position. And her only fault was her failure to make the Viking News into a house organ under Larson’s control.’ Mitchell said administrators were Larson’s puppets and the board his rubber stamp. Bosley, who will remain as newspaper adviser until June 2006, said she is exploring possible legal action against the college. ‘They have not heard the last from me on this,’ she said.”
Full article here.
[bold emphasis added by MacDailyNews]
Macintoshes dominate newsrooms around the world; appropriately so, since Apple brought desktop publishing to the world with the Mac. To not use a Mac for a student newspaper would be a fine example of not preparing your students for the real world. But, you don’t teach platforms, you teach concepts. Platforms change too rapidly (recent Windows excepted). Schools should use Macs, since they’re easier to maintain, virus-free, and just plain better quality hardware and software overall. Students will be as okay as they can be with whatever Mac operating system copy that Microsoft has on the market when they graduate. It’ll still be a disappointing step down to learn on Macs and be stuck with Windows in a cubicle, but they’ll know how to use a computer when it’s working just fine. That’s the point, right? The amount of ignorant people in the world, who are for some reason or another allowed to make decisions affecting others, sometimes boggles the mind.
Contact information:
Ocean County College President Jon H. Larson
jlarson@ocean.edu
(732) 255-0400 x330
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What “real world”? Email? Surfing the net for porn on your lunch break. A couple of Excel spreadsheets. Word.
Sadly, this is the ‘real world’ they speak of. Sadly, the people making the criticism probably barely know how to do three of the tasks I listed.
Why is this Mac news? It seems to me that the reasons cited by the board, among others, the use of Macs by the student newspaper staff, are canards which are easily refuted. On the face of it, this appears to be an attempt by the college president, using the board as hatchetmen, to suppress criticism of his tenure. If what the dissenting faculty members say is true, and the pathetically thin excuses given for the board’s actions appear to support their assertions, the lawyers are going to stomp mudholes in the president’s ass.
Good thing they don’t burn people at the stake any more. This reeks of the same blatant fear and ignorance from Salem in 1692. It’s really all about power and the easy path to corruption and greed. I weep for humanity.
Hammer,
Just wanted to thank you for not doing the childish “First Post!” thing. I really appreciate it.
Reads like an article in a SimCity 2000 newspaper.
More close minded thought at the universities. They think and say they are diverse, but they are not. They are ONLY open and free thinking in their narrow smart by a half thinking. Maybe they should live in the real world and get out of the ” academia cult ” “Liberalism is a mental distorter”
This guy was president where I went to college… he screwed that place up too… they, however, used Macs until after he left.
Yeah, that first post thing is really annoying.
this is outrageous. i implore everyone here to use the above contact information the idiot our comments. forward this article to everyone you know – especially those in the media. this needs to be brought to the light of day for the whole to see.
let the flames begin on this one. i want this to be hotter than hell on this guy, and the college.
There are a lot of reasons to be mad about this story, but the stupid throw away comment about “Macs not preparing people for the real world” is not one of them. This is clearly a bullshit statement thrown out by idiot administrators as an excuse to remove this woman. Of course its ridiculous, and they know it.
Are some folk in the US defending Microsoft because attacking it is like attacking the US and what the US stands for?
If that IS the case, then the country has suffered more brainwashing than anything that ever took place in the USSSR…
“The real world” is a mug if it thinks it should continue with the most insecure computer operating systems ever made. The “real world” jeopardises all our future’s…
“She then strongly implied that neither errors nor technology were at the root of her removal.”
The board and the president obviously have issues. Karen also may have some legitimate problems. However, this issues is not about Macs. Yes, it was a lame excuse, but that’s all it really was, not some conspiracy against Macs.
OK OK I know its USSR (or was..)!
Land of the free? Something is rotten in the state of New Jersey.
Oh yeah. I get this all the from some schools, parents, teachers and whatnot. But when asked to clarify their views these people stumble, saying something about Windows is a “standard” and such.
Most of them will consider a Mac when they learn more about the platform, but a few are so hard-headed, no reaching them. Some get really snotty and hateful.
Now when Apple market share grows even more, they may find themselves on the other side of the tracks.
Wow,
the last statement on ignorant people deciding for others hits the nail right on the head. Truly ignorant people run to consultants to tell them what to do and then engage the same consultants who rape and pillage and then claim they did the best they could.
The biggest problem with New Jersey education is that every podunk town has it’s own school board whereas in most states education is controlled at the county level. In larger jurisdictions petty politics play a much smaller role in decisions like this.
“… student staff, because they use Macintosh computers, are not being prepared for the real world.””
This reminds me of what certain radical atheists have claimed about students who go to Christian private schools. Just because they go to chapel and take a couple of courses in Bible and Theology (in ADDITION to — not instead of — state-approved courses in Science, History, Civics, etc), some radical atheist-activists have stated that students who have attended Christian private schools are not qualified to function in the “real world.” This charge is always amazing to me when one realizes how FAR above public schools such students consistently perform on the standardized tests and in the class rooms of higher education.
The claim that students who use Macs “are not being prepared for the real world” comes straight from a similar bigotry and lack of knowledge masquerading as intellect.
And the second biggest problem with New Jersey education is that it’s illegal to run a self-serve gas station, thus the schools must be ready to prepare you for those high-paying pump jockey jobs.
Duh,
Are you retarded? Clearly, this adviser was a liberal muckraker and a Mac user and was fired by the president precisely because she was both. It was people like you who got her fired with their McCarthy-like tactics.
Why don’t you go burn some of those “librul” books?
Sounds like some technological discrimination going on and the US Federal Gov’t needs to be nipping her in the bud!
Anyone here up for protest (at their campus)?
Now now, Herion I was once a liberal, very much so. I still am in some areas. But in others I really believe that Liberalism is a mental disorder. I am on both sides now. Call me what you want, You need to accept others views, not just your professors views on the world. You need to have some conservative friends to balance your views. You just can’t hang out with just liberal friends and just have liberal debate with liberal “feel goodism” and think you are right.
^^ Uh, DudeMac . . . I’ll be happy to nip her bud.
Careful, Tommy Boy (isn’t that a perfume?) — all of New England uses the town meeting/local level government system. County control of anything is WORSE, because you’re giving up even more direct control over your life.
If you really think that politics plays a lesser role in county-level government you are crazy.
I’ll take the local, closer-to-the-people type of government we have here in New England over what the rest of you have any day.
*And no, NJ is NOT part of N.E.
why is it that the stupid people always wind up in charge?