EDITORIAL: WHY?

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Experience teaches the importance of questions, communication

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Obviously this is useful for anyone whose occupation is gathering information. But the position of editor is more administrator than interviewer, more negotiator than writer.

I learned to listen and ask why from dealing with people, not from writing stories.

At the beginning of the year I, along with editor emeritus Kraettli Epperson and incoming editor Charles Klein, put together a journalism class. After it seemed to have gone through all the approval process and we had apparently received the support of the administration, a faculty member allegedly protested the class.

I say allegedly because I do not know for sure: he did not ever talk to any of the three of us. He spoke to the administration. He spoke to the college master. He spoke to the college presiden t, whose only relationship to the class was that he signed up for it. But he didn't talk to us.

If he had talked to us, if he had asked us why we did the things we did, he might have been convinced that we knew what we were doing. He might have understood why we planned the assignments in the way we did. He might have had his questions answered.

Instead, for reasons that are unfathomable from a practical standpoint (but which may be brutally apparent if viewed from the perspective of an expression of dominance), the professor caused undue confusion, killed worthwhile assignments in favor of pointless ones, and generally caused a great deal of undue stress. Power is important. Courtesy, however, sometimes makes things run more smoothly.

In another example, the recent parking question raises the two sides of the listening question in high relief.

Our new Student Association president recently sat with Associate Vice President of Finance and Administration Neill Binford for four hours to find out the details of the new parking plan. Binford explained to her exactly why each aspect of the plan was adopted, why each choice was made. This explanation will probably convince the student body of the merits of the plan. If it had been instituted without explanation, student protest would have been great.

Unfortunately, it almost was. More unfortunately, the plan, which has been confirmed as a virtual fait accompli, lacks the other side of the listen equation. It had no student input. From the student's perspective, it is just one more example of the administration's view that the university would run so much more smoothly if the students could be eliminated. From the administration's perspective, it should also be viewed as dangerous. The plan does not have the stamp of approval from the students, a situation that could only make an administrator's life more difficult.

Communication is good. I've always known that, or I never would have gone into journalism. Communication is more than talking or writing, however; it's about listening, and asking why.

--David Hale, editor

This item appeared in the Opinion section of the March 31, 1995 issue.

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