Also in the news: “Governor to talk the ‘Promise’ at EMU.” From the Echo:
Granholm will be visiting campus from 9 – 9:30 a.m. Monday at the Student Center to discuss the scholarship.
“Promises should be kept, not broken,” Granholm said in a radio address Friday. “It’s time for the Michigan Senate to take action and keep the Michigan Promise.”
To be honest, while I of course I wish the Michigan Promise Scholarship program would be restored, I really wish the governor and legislature would just up funding to education across the board, period. Granholm says it’s going to take education to help Michigan’s overall economy, but the state hasn’t really matched those words with any action, largely because they’re all too scared to raise taxes. Anyway, a good chance to see and possibly meet the governor, and also have your views on the matter heard.
And my complaint to the Echo: You know, I realize that you are more or less a self-funded entity, selling ad space and all of that. But I think it’s kinda uncool for the Eastern Michigan University supported student paper to be selling ad space to Oakland University to promote their graduate programs. So, you know, you might want to think about that a tad….
I have asked the powers that be about Oakland U. advertising in the Echo. The answer: We advertise in their student newspaper.
Thanks for being a regular reader of the Echo — to the point of noticing the ads in print and online. I have a document available to anyone interested about how the Echo works — mission, funding, governance, etc. Just email me at kevin.devine@emich.edu and put Echo Access in the subject line.
As for the ads like Oakland University, you ought to see the EMU ads in Oakland’s paper — and all the other college papers EMU advertises in! Contact Ted Coutilish in the Marketing Office and ask where our ads run. The bottom line is the bottom line — your comment that it’s uncool for us “as the university supported paper” to run these ads is off base. We need the revenue because the paper itself does not receive any General Fund or General Fee money from the university except in the form of ads purchased by on-campus entities (at the discounted on-campus ad rates). Even there, on-campus advertisers, though regular and often prominent, are by no means our biggest (by dollar value) advertisers. Our operations are funded through ad revenue, and our expenses are high — printing, payroll, delivery, pro-rates, utilities, etc. As for payroll in particular, we have a core student staff of about 30 students who do the bulk of the heavy lifting with another 75 or so each year who contribute stories, columns, photos and videos. Our students not only benefit from the on-the-job experience working at the Echo, but they also need the money to stay in school so they can eventually graduate (part of that whole discussion relative to the book “Crossing the Finish Line”), etc. In addition, there are two very important things about the Echo that I think will soften your negative take on the Oakland ads — one is academic and the other relates to free speech.
First, I view the Echo as a Level IV evaluation of the classroom learning that our students receive (Kirkpatrick’s evaluative scale, 1994 — Donald, not Samuel). Here’s a link to a decent summary of Kirkpatrick’s model: http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/Articles/k4levels/index.htm
In brief, Level I evaluation of learning is: Did they like it?
Level II is: Can they do it?
Level III is: Can they do it on the job (or a real-life, outside the classroom setting)?
Level IV, the confirmative stage, is: “Can they do it on the job AND does it make a difference? (or Does it matter? Does it change the situation/workplace/community/world for the better?)
The work the students do at the Echo is “on the job”, with the proof being in the pudding, and I think most people, upon reflection, would agree, the work they do does make a difference. Think back on a few Echo stories over they years, like back when the Echo was hammering away about University House and the University kept responding with the document, “Straight Talk about University House,” which came out in three (or was it four?) different versions — straight talk, straighter talk and straightest talk? Or how about when the Echo broke the story about how the baseball team had been hired to count football attendance and the whole double-clicking debacle led to the shake-up of the athletic department as well as reverberations throughout the MAC and ultimately the whole NCAA, which ended up revising attendance rules because of widespread attendance fudging. I can go on, but there are also the myriad smaller stories that have an impact on day-to-day lives on campus and the community — even something so small as a 300-word article on depression screening or a column about the Promise scholarship, etc.
As for the second point, free speech, the Echo serves as the open forum for discussion of ideas and events on campus and in the community free from oversight, vetting, censorship and spin from the University administration. Isn’t this alone worth an occasional Oakland U ad? The other option is a public radio route, where we ask our readers to sponsor the paper or a wholly-funded (and supervised — like at private universities and public middle and high schools). We feel the ad route works well.
Thanks for the forum, Steve. Keep up the great work as a gadfly!
–Kevin Devine
Director of Student Media
http://www.easternecho.com
What’s the difference between OU advertising in the Echo and say going into any of the CAS Departments and finding information about other schools’ grad programs on bulletin boards?
Well, I was bothered by the prominence of the ad, seeing that it was a banner ad across the top and almost as big as the headline for the newspaper. It struck me as a little much.
But if we’re doing the same thing in Oakland U’s paper, well, that makes it a little better, I guess.
Hello again — did you get my longish post about how the Echo works? I sent it last week.
Kevin, your post got labeled as a spam by my filters because of the links. Sorry about that; it’s there now.
I think the funding and the relationship that the Echo has with official structures at EMU is complicated– I think that’s true for most student-run university publications. They don’t get funding, true, but they do get office space and a lot of connections to the institutions. I guess the ads for OU are fine (though maybe not as a banner across the top, ‘kay?), but I would assume there is stuff that the Echo might advertise that EMU might complain about. Nothing but extreme things comes to mind right now though….
Anyway, sorry for the delay in posting, and thanks for the info.
I guess the same holds true for ads from local bars and strip clubs? Certainly these establishments don’t create a positive culture at EMU. Then again, I support Kevin’s comments, so keep those ads (and money) coming.
No publication affiliated with a university should accept ads from bars. To do so is to engage in contributing to the problem of alcohol abuse among college students, and it is thus unethical.
I don’t see a problem with Oakland ads. There are various majors here that might not have a graduate program, so students might look to another school. Or one might go to grad school for a different major.
In the art department, I have told students the pros and cons about going to a different school for a masters, for art, I usually encourage it if it is financially possible. I don’t think that is “not cool” it’s my views for art majors going elsewhere to develop a broader pallet of inspiration and skills.
Having worked for a newsweekly before, I know the ads don’t reflect the editorial of the paper. Having had several students work for the Echo, them having self revenue means they can write about anything they want without pressure from faculty or administration. Not every school paper can say that.