Communicating in poisoned atmosphere

In an external review of the communications department at Pitt, outside evaluators have… In an external review of the communications department at Pitt, outside evaluators have reported what they considered to be a disturbing culture in effect there.

The report, voluntarily commissioned by Pitt and carried out by three professors from other schools with noted communications departments, states that, while academics are improving, lack of and resistance to diversity is a problem, as is an environment described by some female graduate students as “unsafe.”

According to the report, graduate students and senior faculty members regularly carry on consensual sexual relationships, and these relationships “silence” other faculty and students. The report says, “hostile acts, e.g. pornography left on desktop computers in graduate offices” are also occurring. The report also states that faculty members vocally oppose diversity efforts, and are reportedly resistant to admitting minority graduate students.

The report also mentioned that junior faculty are made to shoulder so much responsibility — teaching many core undergraduate classes — as to possibly impair their ability to get tenure. By overburdening younger faculty, those with tenure could be entrenching more firmly the culture that the long-time tenured faculty members seem to be perpetuating.

The panel found that the department is on an upswing, and that is good news, and contributes to Pitt’s overall image improvement. That makes it especially troubling that some people in the department are said to be mired in such archaic and backward thinking. For the department to flourish and grow, such attitudes, if they exist, must be rooted out.

Department Chair John Lyne would not comment on the document, nor would School of Arts and Sciences Dean John Cooper. The report, which was confidential, was obtained by a source unwilling to comment on the record, and no one at Pitt or elsewhere has confirmed the report’s contents.

Clearly, no one wants to discuss these embarrassing findings. But ignoring them, or allowing them to fester behind closed doors, is not the way to fix them. That has seemingly been the order of operation in the past, and it hasn’t worked.

Based on the comments — supportive of the department — of two female graduate students, it seems as though a small number of people — not the larger whole — are responsible for this alleged mess. If that is the case, shedding light on the problem will expose the bad elements. Then, they will be forced to consider the harm their alleged actions are causing, and either change or be fired.