Tuesday, March 18, 2008
"It's Hard Out Here Being a P.I.M.P" Online Petition
While eating my customary healthy lunch -- today Cosi meatball pesto pizza -- I received an email from a fellow CCT peer about Professor Diana Owen leaving the program to go on a sabbatical. Although I never had the opportunity to take a class with her, I only heard good things about her knowledge of online media and politics (not to mention her background in statistics). This email was sent prior to the program's memo about her leaving (your call if the second email came in response to the first).
But what was interesting about the initial student email was that it came with an action alert. The "CCT Loves Media and Politics: Petition to Invigorate Media & Politics" or as it was cleverly named by it's acrononym "P.I.M.P." is asking 100 students to request that Dr. Garcia and the other faculty replace Dr. Owen with a full-time faculty member.
Losing Dr. Owen hurts CCT. She was the only remaining full-time professor in the Media and Politics cluster. Although their are a couple adjunct professors, the service that a full-time professor can provide is vastly different than an adjunct.
Although this is my last semester at Georgetown I take a lot of pride in the fact that I am a CCT student and I want to make sure the name of our program withholds and builds on itself...so I signed the petition. In about 5-6 hours from when the action alert was sent, I was the 41st signature on the petition. I compared the lose of Dr. Owen to the lose of Professor Kathy Wallman last year. A lot of my consideration of where to go to grad school was directly related to who was teaching there. Prof. Wallman stood out as a professor that I wanted to work with and learn from -- as she was a technology counsel for the Clinton Administration (something I can easily see myself doing further in my career).
To some Dr. Owen was that same light that brought them to CCT. I know Dr. Garcia and the rest of the administration will do the right thing. I think they would have done it without the petition, but with this grassroots outcrying of constinuents...they will certainly be prone to act faster.
But what was interesting about the initial student email was that it came with an action alert. The "CCT Loves Media and Politics: Petition to Invigorate Media & Politics" or as it was cleverly named by it's acrononym "P.I.M.P." is asking 100 students to request that Dr. Garcia and the other faculty replace Dr. Owen with a full-time faculty member.
Losing Dr. Owen hurts CCT. She was the only remaining full-time professor in the Media and Politics cluster. Although their are a couple adjunct professors, the service that a full-time professor can provide is vastly different than an adjunct.
Although this is my last semester at Georgetown I take a lot of pride in the fact that I am a CCT student and I want to make sure the name of our program withholds and builds on itself...so I signed the petition. In about 5-6 hours from when the action alert was sent, I was the 41st signature on the petition. I compared the lose of Dr. Owen to the lose of Professor Kathy Wallman last year. A lot of my consideration of where to go to grad school was directly related to who was teaching there. Prof. Wallman stood out as a professor that I wanted to work with and learn from -- as she was a technology counsel for the Clinton Administration (something I can easily see myself doing further in my career).
To some Dr. Owen was that same light that brought them to CCT. I know Dr. Garcia and the rest of the administration will do the right thing. I think they would have done it without the petition, but with this grassroots outcrying of constinuents...they will certainly be prone to act faster.
Labels: grassroots, petitionsite.com
// posted by Jason Langsner @ 8:38 PM 
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