education

Now that Vin Crosbie's year of teaching at Syracuse is drawing to a close, he's talking about what he found in about a quarter of the faculty:

"They're obstructionists because they either deny things are changing (for example, one still thinks the Internet is a fad that will disappear) or they've grown too comfortable teaching the same curricula year after year for 20 or more years. They are tenured and so can't be fired, and the doctrine of academic freedom allows them to teach whatever they see fit."

Here's another item I wasn't going to touch: The uproar at Northwestern University, where Medill Dean John Lavine is being raked over the coals for writing a letter promoting the school in which he used an anonymous quote that he can't back up. But I am inspired by Gawker firing both barrels of double-ought snark into the middle of it:

Martin Stabe recaps the ongoing debate about whether simple tools like Dreamweaver -- which no professional journalist is likely to ever use -- have a role in journalism education.