Spring Break
OMBUDSMAN: Academic intellectualism
by Maura Farrelly
Ombudsman | 11/13/07
Posted online at 12:22 AM EST on 11/13/07
Well, students aren't the only ones who begin to feel the semester getting away from them after midterm exams have taken place. It happens to professors, too-and this professor, for some reason, was under the impression that just three weeks had passed since her last ombudsman column. Apparently, it has been FIVE weeks-and I didn't realize that until this past weekend, when I sat down to write my column. Please accept my apologies.
The extra two weeks only served to confirm a trend I have noticed in this year's coverage, though-and it's a trend that I would like to publicly applaud the Justice for. I hate to say it, but ordinarily in this column, I try to find something negative to say about the Justice's coverage. I couch the criticism in praise, of course (My German friend, Susanna, calls this an "American Sandwich"-a layer of negativity between two slices of self-esteem-boosting whole wheat), but the general trajectory is usually that there is something the Justice could be doing, and it isn't-or shouldn't be doing, and it is.
This week, though, I want to congratulate the Justice on its coverage of the intellectual climate that students, faculty and administrators have been working very hard to create at this University. I have written in the past on the obligation that journalists have to empower citizens to shape and participate in their communities. In order to do that, journalists must be keenly aware of what it is about the community they're reporting on that makes it unique or different-and in the case of a university, what makes the community different is the unabashed effort on the part of the community's leaders to foster a sense of intellectualism. A university like Brandeis is a community in which citizens are very deliberately given the opportunity to hear, learn from and challenge some of the greatest thinkers the world has to offer. This is the reason for the community's existence-and so far this semester, the Justice has done a fine job of emphasizing that raison d'etre in its coverage.
The extra two weeks only served to confirm a trend I have noticed in this year's coverage, though-and it's a trend that I would like to publicly applaud the Justice for. I hate to say it, but ordinarily in this column, I try to find something negative to say about the Justice's coverage. I couch the criticism in praise, of course (My German friend, Susanna, calls this an "American Sandwich"-a layer of negativity between two slices of self-esteem-boosting whole wheat), but the general trajectory is usually that there is something the Justice could be doing, and it isn't-or shouldn't be doing, and it is.
This week, though, I want to congratulate the Justice on its coverage of the intellectual climate that students, faculty and administrators have been working very hard to create at this University. I have written in the past on the obligation that journalists have to empower citizens to shape and participate in their communities. In order to do that, journalists must be keenly aware of what it is about the community they're reporting on that makes it unique or different-and in the case of a university, what makes the community different is the unabashed effort on the part of the community's leaders to foster a sense of intellectualism. A university like Brandeis is a community in which citizens are very deliberately given the opportunity to hear, learn from and challenge some of the greatest thinkers the world has to offer. This is the reason for the community's existence-and so far this semester, the Justice has done a fine job of emphasizing that raison d'etre in its coverage.
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