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Greek org honors Lamotta
Editor-in-chief says good-bye
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NJCPA General Excellence Award
MAY | 2019 WWW.KUTOWER.COM
TH E I N DEPEN D EN T VOI C E O F KE AN U N IV E R S IT Y
The Tower is awarded General Excellence Wins as a top NJ newspaper for 4th year The Tower, Kean’s independent student newspaper, has been recognized as one of the top three college newspapers in New Jersey, public or private, for the fourth consecutive year. In addition, Tower students won three individual awards in categories representing News Writing, Feature Writing, and Opinion Writing.
of The Tower being one of the top college papers in New Jersey.” Rosario said the Tower takes great care to provide a diverse newspaper with a variety of stories. The Tower is part of the academic journalism option in the School of Communication, Media & Journalism. “While most schools have better funded programs, we are lucky to have a team that makes up for that lack of money in their effort, their support of each other and with their curiosity,” Rosario said. “I would love to see some investment in the journalism program from the university. It’s done so much for me. I would like to see that continue and Photo by Jennifer Veiga flourish.” Award Winners Salimah McCullough, Rafaela Teixiera, and Joshua Rosario In News Writing, Rafaela Teixeira, a senior majoring in CommunicationJournalism, was awarded third place for her piece headlined “Second hold placed on student accounts,” about a new policy to register for classes. The New Jersey Collegiate Press Association Salimah McCullough, a junior awarded The Tower second place for 2018-19 Communication-Journalism major, received in the state for General Excellence, a category third place in Feature Writing for her story judged by professional journalists for its titled “Kean food pantry continues to make a overall coverage including writing quality, local difference,” which reported on the little-known appeal, copy editing, style, effectiveness, and campus food pantry started by Dr. Norma readability. Joshua Rosario, a senior majoring Bowe. in Communication-Journalism, is editor-inAnd Joe Hamilton, a senior majoring in chief of The Tower. He accepted the award at a Communication Studies and a volunteer at The ceremony on April 13. Tower, received third place in Opinion Writing First place went to Rider University’s, Rider for his article titled “A War We Can’t Win,” News, and third place went to The Equinox, which argued that America needs to take a new the student newspaper of Fairleigh Dickinson approach in the war against drugs. The Tower is an independent, student news University. Both are private universities. organization produced during the school year “Winning the award is great,” said Joshua in a journalism practicum led by faculty advisers Rosario, 2018-19 editor-in-chief of The Tower. Pat Winters Lauro and Lois DeSocio. “I’m happy to be able to continue the tradition
“I’m happy to be able to continue the tradition of The Tower being one of the top college papers in New Jersey,” said Joshua Rosario, 2018-19 editor-in-chief of The Tower.
University Instagram deletes post after negative responses By Salimah McCullough
The comments section was loaded with posts complaining about the dorm A post on the Kean University official conditions, faculty and staff cuts and lack of Instagram account advertising a newly on-campus parking, to name a few. renovated and im“I scoffed at the proved Miron Student announcement of the Center was taken down upcoming renovations by the university after because, in light of the it drew numerous university firing a huge negative responses. amount of professors The post on April for no good reason, 9 showed an artist’s I find it ridiculous rendering of a newlythat the university renovated MSC and is so pompous to said the improvements proudly post about will include a larger spending money in Greek Lounge, refurbunnecessary areas,” ished restrooms and an said Chloe Senatore, a Asian food station in sophomore majoring in the Food Court. both English Writing However, the exciteand Communication. ment wasn’t shared by “The fact that Kean all of Kean’s Instagram chooses to post about followers. Shortly renovations while after the post hit they’re letting go some the Instagram feed of the most positively of 12,700 followers, influential professors Photo by anonymous it was flooded with is beyond ridiculous.” Instagram comments section comments. The comments received likes and “Kean should prioradditional comments showing agreement. itize its budget on student progress or at One comment that brought a lot of least student convenience,” said Morgan student attention and agreement was Petzold, a Fine Arts major. “Something like a about the condition of the older dorms and parking deck or full-time advisors.” continued on page 8
Nearly half of General Education lecturers fired
Photo by Joshua Rosario
Five of the 10 GE lecturers laid off
By Joshua Rosario Ten of Kean University’s 21 General Education lecturers who advise and oversee about half of the freshmen class as well as teach will be let go this summer and were not given a reason. The group of GE lecturers let go consist of all four of the GE lecturers in English, two of the GE math lecturers, three lecturers who teach research and technology and one who teaches GE-1000-3000. GE lecturers advise and teach all incoming freshmen, undeclared majors and transfer students. Heather Connors and Straubel Cetoute, lecturers for three years and Kean University alumni said they believe the School of General Studies was targeted because they publicly criticized a controversial move to open office space, which they thought could jeopardize federal FERPA rules. “If I’m talking to you about [how] you’re failing the course, guess who hears you?” said Connors. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) grants students certain rights, privileges and protections relative to individually identifiable student education records maintained by Kean University. “We’re not going to comment on individual personnel recommendations,” said University Spokesperson Margaret McCorry. “Each lecturer contract is reviewed carefully and equitably to determine whether it will be renewed for the maximum educational benefit of our students.” The majority of the people terminated in GE are either women and/or people of color, according to several people who pointed it out. All three of the male AfricanAmerican lecturers in GE received notices. New Jersey Assemblywoman Mila Jasey (D-27th district) issued a letter on April 18 to President Dawood Farahi and the Board of Trustees on behalf of the lecturers. “I write to respectfully request reconsideration of what I believe to be an ill advised decision to not renew the contracts of a significant number of your professional staff and lecturers,” said Jasey in the letter. “I find it concerning that virtually all of the nonrenewals which have already taken place are women and people of color.” Based on numbers from the university, a total of 13 lecturers were not reappointed, including the 10 GE lecturers. “To the best of my knowledge all of them got very strong reviews from their immediate supervisors and were recommended to be retained by their supervisors and their dean,” said Kean Federation of Teachers President James Castiglione. Additionally, four professional staff with multi-year contracts have been let go as well, Castiglione said. All four (who are not in GE) are Latina. “A total of 130 Kean USA lecturers are seeking reappointment. The President is
recommending reappointment of 117, or 90 percent, to the Board of Trustees,” said McCorry. The GE lecturers first raised the problems of moving from second-floor offices to a large open space on the first floor of the Center of Academic Success room 111 a year ago as soon as they heard about it. They met with Dr. Suzanne Bousquet, associate provost. “This is really the first time as a department we spoke back and said this isn’t going to work for our students, having discussions with them about grades, having discussions with them about things that are happening in their personal lives, this isn’t going to be conducive to grading, this isn’t going to be conducive to prepping,” said Connors. Later, they also met with College of Liberal Arts Dean Jonathan Mercantini. After nothing changed, several GE lecturers became more involved with the KFT about the issue and speaking up at its meetings. In October 2018, The Tower published a front-page story about the issue. Then at a prescheduled mandatory luncheon with Farahi and Dr. Jeffrey Toney, Kean’s chief academic officer, on Oct. 26, 2018 they voiced their concerns directly. “The big thing is, and this is what’s important, is the president had asked, ‘so how do you like the new space?”’ Connors said of the lunch with Farahi. “One of the lecturers, [and] I won’t name that person, initially said we don’t like it and followed up with the problems.” Connors stated she spoke out next and then soon others followed, leading to a 40-minute discussion. Every person who participated in this conversation was not reappointed, they said. “With all the things we spoke about,” said Cetoute, “all the president took out of this was, ‘Oh, so you guys need your office back?”’ “He even asked, ‘if you…never had an office before, would you have the same sentiments [about] the open space and the cubicles?”’ On Dec. 17, the lecturers received a letter from Toney personalized to each and stating “In our efforts to continue our investment in General Education, it’s faculty and our students, I am happy to announce that any lecturer returning to us in the Fall of 2019 will have their salary increased.” Connors said she had excellent evaluations by students, and also had done a lot of service for the university. “Why would [Farahi] let me be a part of building a textbook for the English department? Why would you approve my travel for a national conference?” said Connors. Neither Connors nor Cetoute had any disciplinary issues and both had fulfilled all of Kean’s faculty requirements, they said. The university had just approved travel funds for Connors and Cetoute was already offered overload pay for extra teaching duties for next fall. Duties like those are only
“I find it concerning that virtually all of the nonrenewals ...are women and people of color.” - Assemblywoman Mila Jasey
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