My Crazy, yet Biggest Pitfall to Recruiting

 Photo Credit: Toronto Sun / Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons.

After the first successful year of our newspaper being both a class and a print edition, I received an email from a disgruntled former staff member. He had been placed on academic probation at the University of Utah and was being forced to take the equivalent of English 12 at the institution so that he could resume his coursework and reinstate the funds of his scholarship.

Prior to receiving his complaint, our course handbook stated that Newspaper could be taken as credit for English 12. In addition to this being in the handbook, both the school counselors and I had used this incentive as a means for recruiting for the class at events and on posters around the school. "I thought you told us that Newspaper counted as an English credit," my former student said. I thought that it did. 

A number of students ran into the same problem that year and contacted the school to complain. After investigating the situation with a number of colleagues and counselors, we learned that the University had in fact taken Newspaper and a number of other classes, that we had advertised for English 12 credits, off of their accepted list. Our counselors contacted the admissions director at the U, who was quick to inform us that we were out of luck. The students in question could file appeals which explained the situation and could include a letter of recommendation and explanation from their adviser, but that was it.

The University also explained that they were tailoring their admissions to the requirements for the Regents' Scholarship. In said requirements, 4 years of English Credit are required. Courses that meet the 'requirements' for English are regular English classes or AP and IB English classes. Classes that don't meet the requirements, among others, are newspaper, speech, debate, humanities, drama, or any literature class.

I was reminded of this situation when I saw the surprised-baby meme on the ASNE Facebook page which stated, "You mean I have to write in journalism?" 

When I made my own phone call to The University to discuss my students being placed on probation, the admissions counselor I spoke to said something which really irked me. She said, "The university does not feel that a journalism class teaches enough writing and rhetoric skills to students preparing for college." Now, I know this counselor was not an official spokesman for the university, however I couldn't help but argue with her and provide plenty of examples of how a journalism class teaches a lot more than writing and rhetoric.

A lot of higher education institutions in our area still consider Newspaper the equivalent of an English 12 credit, but that's not enough. I fear it will soon be gone from all of them and students will have very little incentive to take my class.

Have any other educators run into this problem? Is it already the common case for everyone and am I the last one to arrive? Is my school behind the times?

Steve Haslam

Copper Hills High School

West Jordan, Utah