To the editor,

After reading the edit note in the September19 issue, I found myself slightly offended. Deanna D’Alfonso and Nikki Adamo lament the lack of respect they receive as comm. majors, but then go on to characterize themselves as the exact type people that drag down the prestige and value of the major.

As a comm. major myself, I face the same kind of condescension that Deanna and Nikki describe. It is a deserved criticism: I am surrounded by people like them who don’t really know what comm. is, who have a vague idea that it has something to do with “the media,” that it can teach you job interview techniques, and that it will still allow you to get into law school. Too often, comm. classes are tailored to these folks. Teachers repeatedly acknowledge that students don’t remember what they learned in the core classes and are forced to repeat basic curriculum. The degree itself is basically a note telling future employers that the individual put their four years in somewhere and is prepared to start learning job skills on the first day of work.

However, there is vast potential for comm. majors who want to take a more intellectually stimulating path. This is why I am offended by the condescension I face. The field of communication is loaded with high-quality academic research (which most students only have to deal with in one or two electives, if at all). If desired, students can even take the route of applying critical theory and psychoanalysis to their studies of media and human interaction, which is about as rough as it gets for English majors (though much more practical).

If anyone found themselves unimpressed and/or laughing after reading “I Swear We’re Not Dumb,” keep in mind that the authors’ assessment of the comm. major is tragically common, though not adequately representative.

Thanks,

Steve Gordon

In your last issue, you ran an article written by Caitlin Tremblay on the school of informatics. The entire article was reminiscent of the yellow journalism that used to run rampant many years ago. Right from the caption on page six, “UB closed the school this summer, leaving students like Robyn Baxter searching for answers as to what went wrong,” you make it sound like the school has closed up shop for good. This is far from the truth, as I am currently a student of the informatics program, and it is doing quite well. The dismantaling of the school was simply a logistics and political move, it had nothing to do with the academic programs. None of the courses have really changed at all, and moving informatics into the school of arts and sciences allows the informatics program to use a lot more courses in its major that it couldn’t have otherwise. The only thing the absorption of informatics and communication into the arts and sciences school will bring about is good. A professor of mine that teaches several informatics courses and is heavily invovled in the administration of the program spoke with one of our 400 level courses about the article after we brought it to his attention, and very frankly told us that the change of schools will have almost no impact on the undergraduates, and will eventually only benefit graduate students; I don’t know if Caitlin is a friend of Baxter and they just wanted 15 minutes of fame, or if they had an axe to grind with this piece or what, but it is unecessarily negative and doesn’t accomplish anything. There are always growing pains with new programs, including working out faculty. This is no reason to paint a picture of informatics that does nothing but forecast doom when the program is simply reorganizing to better serve the students.

Travis Allen