Things That Made Us Weep Today

According to an anonymous comment, the Dean’s reaction to the creation of this site and the content of our posts was not to evaluate her design and implementation of the SILS site or to to take a hard look at the public image she has created for Pratt SILS.  No, instead Dean Giannini decided she wanted to root out the SSS rabble rousers and…do something to us.  We find it fascinating that the Dean’s response was immediately punitive, rather than reflective.  Not surprising, but certainly fascinating.

How can we discuss the core values of librarianship, including freedom of expression and privacy while the Dean of our School of Information and Library Science wants to hunt down bloggers writing about the School’s site, how it impacts students, faculty, and alumni, and how the site itself reflects an overall Luddite sensibility within the School’s administration?

Nonetheless, SSS knows Tula will not ask herself this question and posing it any other way is an exercise in futility and, apparently, dangerous to your academic (or professional?) career.  No wonder SILSA has quietly created a site that incorporates IA and stopped wasting their breath trying to convince the Dean to improve the SILS site.  No wonder they have not acted as student advocates in this regard.  Why publicly challenge Tula when she has shown she will punish those who don’t fall in line?

Duly noted, anonymous commenter and thank you for the warning.  SSS will be watching its back at the Pratt Institute School of Information and Library Science.  A sad state of affairs, no?

Where is Pratt?

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from developing this blog, it’s that the site appears to be under the total control of the dean. We have a completely embarrassing site which does nothing to sell the school to prospective students or help current ones, and yet faculty and students stay silent.

Now that the dean has floated the idea of creating a PhD program at SILS, it makes the site even more of an embarrassment. What sort of PhD candidates would we get with such a terrible site? How is the school going to become any sort of legitimate research institution without even the most basic web information standards not being followed? The current site does not lend SILS to be taken seriously.

The Thing That Made My Eyeballs Bleed Today

The actual definition of a visiting professor according to thefreedictionary.com

Noun.

Visiting professor – a professor visiting another college or university to teach for a limited time.

Pratt SILS’s definition of a visiting professor

Visiting professor – any adjunct faculty member teaching a course at Pratt SILS, academic credentials not required.

Note – This is in no way a criticism of the many excellent adjunct faculty at Pratt SILS, rather a criticism of the SILS site and it’s incorrect content.