Asbury Park Press: CMA seeks reinstatement of Prof. Bosley

Here is some positive news from today's Asbury Park Press...

Group: Reinstate professor
Report cites power struggle at OCC

Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 02/25/06

BY MICHAEL AMSEL
TOMS RIVER BUREAU
A report by a College Media Advisers Advocate Program on the firing of Professor Karen Bosley from Ocean County College in Dover Township recommends that she be reinstated to her journalism and English classes and her position as newspaper adviser...

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More bad news for collegiate journalists...Supreme Court declines to hear Hosty v. Carter appeal

Well, when you consider that U.S. citizens are being illegally spied on by their own government and that municipalities can take away your property just to build a strip mall, I guess that little thing called the U.S. Constitution doesn't mean much anymore.

And now, we have the U.S. Supreme Court refusing to hear an appeal in Hosty v. Carter.

From Student Press Law Center:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court announced this morning that it will not hear a case that questioned the authority of administrators at an Illinois university to censor a student newspaper that published articles critical of the school.

The Court rejected a request by former student journalists at Governors State University in Illinois to review a lower court decision that could give university officials in three Midwestern states the authority to censor some college student speech based on a legal standard that had previously been applied only to high school and elementary school students and teachers.

As is its usual practice when ruling on whether or not to accept a case, the Court did not issue a written opinion to explain its decision.

The Court's ruling lets stand a June 2005 decision by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that could open the door to providing university administrators with authority to censor school-sponsored speech by public college students and faculty, including speech in some student newspapers, at schools in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin...

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Macs not used in the newspaper industry? Somebody should tell the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Ocean County College officials have said that one of the reasons Prof. Bosley's contract as Viking News adviser was not renewed is because of her use of Macintosh computers in the news office. The administration's stance is that the Macs should be replaced by Windows-based computers because, as OCC Director of Student Media Joe Adelizzi says, "the prevailing standard at newspapers nationwide is a P.C.-based system."

Maybe Mr. Adelizzi and the rest of the clueless members of the OCC administration should take a look at an article on Apple's Web site that describes how the operations of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution are powered by Macintosh computers and servers.

Don Morris, manager of publishing technology at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for 33 years (so I assume he's more of an expert in these matters than a hack writer like Mr. Adelizzi), has this to say about the newspaper's production of three daily print editions — a process handled by 850 Macs and 38 Apple Xserve G5 servers, running Adobe InDesign and InCopy as part of a DTI editorial pagination system:

“We’re a Mac shop here, from editorial to advertising...we chose Mac in the early ’90s, and we’ve been very happy with it ever since...

...The new system has met every single one of our needs. It’s easily able to keep up with our heavy page flow demand. It’s very fast, very reliable, with minimal if any manual intervention. Our error rates are so low they’re almost negligible. We’re now pretty much on target every morning with everything we’re expected to deliver.

So I urge the Viking News staff members to stand by their Macs!

(Photo: A Mac-based publishing system keeps the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's presses running smoothly.)

A few more news articles

Tuesday's Asbury Park Press included a story with the headline OCC wants teachers' lawsuit dismissed.

Well, maybe if the administration didn't try these strongarm tactics in the first place, there wouldn't be any lawsuits. Here is an excerpt:

Calling charges brought by mathematics instructor Patrick Mitchell and English instructor Karen Veselits "without merit" and a "misuse of our legal system for the advantage of a few disgruntled employees," Tara Kelly, the school's vice president for student advancement, said OCC will be filing a motion to dismiss in coming days.

Kelly said the school's attorney, John C. Sahradnik, would not specify the grounds for the requested dismissal before filing.

On Jan. 20, the two teachers, represented by Somerville attorney Stephen Hunter, filed a civil action in state Superior Court, Toms River. In the suit, the teachers allege "there was no educational justification" for the nonrenewal of their contracts, and that the school further violated their rights by never giving the teachers a reason for not rehiring them.

The suit asks that the court void the nonrenewal decision of the OCC board of trustees and let the teachers have another chance to make their cases for rehiring.

The Chronicle of Higher Education has published a couple of stories that I had not seen until now. The first story was originally published Dec. 15, 2005, and was picked up by Kentucky Community and Technical College System's news site so I can link to that one here:

Professors at 2-Year College in New Jersey Say Criticism of President Led to Their Ouster
Writer: JAMILAH EVELYN

In a controversial decision on Monday, Ocean County College's Board of Trustees voted unanimously to reassign the adviser to the student newspaper and not to renew the contracts of three untenured professors, recommendations that came from the New Jersey college's president.

The moves, the professors say, are retaliation stemming from articles criticizing the college administration that ran in the student paper, the Viking News.

Jon H. Larson, president of the 8,500-student community college in Toms River, N.J., was not available for comment on Wednesday.

A spokeswoman for the college, Tara B. Kelly, said that none of the decisions had been made out of retaliation. College officials would not comment further about the three professors, she said, citing a college policy not to discuss personnel matters...

A second story was apparently published on Jan. 6, 2006, but it requires a password to read it on The Chronicle's Web site.