Bad Credit

Chips practicum program raises departmental concerns

Date 12/10/1998 12:00 AM | Topic: News

The opportunity for students to receive academic credit for their involvement as reporters for Chips has raised concerns between the communication/ linguistics department and the English department.

The semester long course by arrangement, "Newspaper Reporter Practicum," allows participating student reporters to earn one hour academic credit in the communication/ linguistics department. Now winding up its semester as a pilot program, the Chips practicum advances to the decision-making process that will decide whether or not to allow students to continue to receive credit while working for Chips.

Said Kim Powell, communication/ linguistics department head, "The communication/ linguistics department has had discussions with the dean of the college and members of the English department. We are still in the process of figuring out who should be involved in the decision making process."

According to Mark Muggli, professor of English and former Chips advisor, the English department has started to discuss the matters of the program, but regrets not being part of the conversations that led to the current pilot program arrangements.

The English department has been invested in Chips for the past 20 years by contributing as advisors, initiating the production of E-Chips, the newspaper website, and developing the first Chips handbook.

"The Chips Handbook attempts to define legal status for the paper," said Muggli. "It navigated between the institution concerns for reputation and student education as well as freedom of the press. An institution shifting to a new model should be careful about its thinking."

"Historically, there have been more English majors involved in Chips. The English department is interested because our students are interested," Muggli said.

According to Muggli other major issues to address include whether students not participating in Chips for credit lose out on the learning experience, whether or not students not receiving credit will have equal access to good stories because interns have article assignment priority and how Chips fits into the whole educational program.

Said Jerry Johnson, Chips faculty advisor, "The program has clearly changed the structure and direction of Chips by offering the practicum course for reporters by making it more of a laboratory experience. The program has made it less of a student newsletter and more a professional newspaper, which I don't necessarily see as a bad thing."

In response to concerns about selective article distribution, Johnson does see that the potential for a problem does exist, but during the semester-long pilot program he did not see any such problems surface.

"No students that weren't writing for credit were refused an article," Johnson said.

David Anderson, dean of the college, manifested the pilot program idea based on a suggestion by Gretchen Wikan, former Chips editor and '98 graduate.

According to Anderson, the paper belongs to the whole college.

"No one department has a claim on Chips. The credit program is not about department issues, it should be treated more like any other internship on campus," said Anderson.

Anderson already sees the pilot as a functioning program until there is evidence to the contrary. "The program is subject to evaluation," Anderson said.

Chips interns are in the process of writing an evaluation about the program and putting together a portfolio of their work throughout the semester. These items will be received by Powell in the communication/ linguistics department.

"When I started this course, I did not know anything about journalistic writing," said Jenny Welp ('01), Chips intern. "I think Jerry Johnson was an ideal advisor for the course. I am not certain a professor would be able to approach the program with the same journalistic thinking and with the same straightforwardness that Jerry did."

According to Anderson, it seems logical to continue with the same advisor since Johnson has had the most interaction with the students.

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Amy Domaszek
Chips Staff Writer

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