Opinion
 

Staff Editorial

                            Bridget Brown    Matthew Dulin 
Geronimo Rodriguez      Keenan Singleton     Lisa Street

Thumbs down

The students at Texas A&M University won't need any dry kindling or jet fuel to set aflame a swirling bonfire this year. 

Charles Johnson, the school's dean of the college of liberal arts, has advocated extinguishing the university's journalism department, calling the college obsolete and claiming repairs to the department would be too costly. The findings were discovered in 2001 after a consulting firm said enrollment was too large and the curriculum was antiquated.

Thumbs down.

The editors at A&M's student newspaper, The Battalion, are circulating a petition in an attempt to save the beleaguered department.

"If this program is cut, we fear our degrees will be worthless," True Brown, the paper's editor in chief told The Associated Press. "We might not be able to change the administration's decision, but we aren't going down without a fight."

What Brown doesn't realize is that Johnson already believes their degrees are worthless.

He argues that "many prominent and award-winning journalists came from varied academic backgrounds other than journalism."

OK. Many prominent and award-winning novelists didn't graduate with an English degree, but no university is going to eliminate its English department. Bill Gates didn't graduate from Harvard, but one doubts that venerable institution is tossing its computers out of the windows.

Although there have been no public releases, UH has trimmed the fat of its J-school to almost skeletal remains. Classes are almost as scarce than a 55-degree day in a Houston summer.

But this really isn't an issue of AP style or newspaper ethics; it has nothing to do with letters at all.

You guessed it. It's a money thing. Since A&M is $20.5 million over budget, Johnson raced to the front of the line to hack the J-school.

The change would not happen overnight or even over-semester, A&M has wisely decided to allow current students pursuing a journalism degree to finish their coursework. The school would also still offer journalism courses.

The Aggies didn't totally lose their minds, an agricultural journalism degree will still continue to be offered at A&M.