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What Made Him Run On About Sammy?
The souvenir tape of this year's Medill School of Journalism convocation isn't being sent to the graduates. The original plan was to make about 250 copies and distribute them with the school's best wishes. After Dean Ken Bode spoke that plan changed. I'd been hearing for weeks about Bode's various public utterances in the waning days of his deanship. What he said at the June 16 convocation was described as off-the-wall, outrageous, and nothing that wasn't true. But no one claimed his remarks fit the occasion -- a graduation ceremony in Cahn Auditorium attended by the Medill grads, their parents, and Medill's faculty. So just 15 copies of the master tape were ordered -- for private faculty collections. The tapes arrived on campus the other day, one made its way to me, and now I can say exactly what happened. Bode introduces the faculty, asks the students to applaud their parents, and then offers a few introductory remarks. "Imagine my surprise this week," he begins, "when I found on my E-mail the following from a graduating senior -- `This is notification that I will not shake your hand at Saturday's graduation ceremony.'" Bode says he E-mailed back "in pure Royko fashion, `Who are you and what's your beef?'" The audience in Cahn Auditorium titters. "And now we get to the nub of things," he continues. "He takes the `who' part of it very seriously. I summarize. `I am 20 years old, five foot nine inches, a journalism scholarship winner, and a Leo.'" Another titter. "I feel like I'm reading an ad in the personals column." Bode makes little attempt to disguise the identity of the student, whom he refers to as "Louisville Sam," as "Sam," and most frequently as "Sammy." Sammy's "beef" has provoked Bode into defending his legacy. "When I became dean Medill had a strong, strong reputation," he declares. "But our broadcast department had been behind the door for about 75 years. So the rap on my deanship is that I have improved the broadcast department. I plead guilty. The curious logic then sets in. If broadcast is getting better, newspaper and print must ergo be getting worse. If we add a new-media department -- because that's what's been happening in journalism all over the world -- then Newspaper at Medill must be going to hell." Bode is hitting his stride. "Sammy puts it this way in his E-mail," he continues. "`The print program has taken a serious slide. Professors there are turning journalism school into day camp at computer terminals.' Unquote. Now I want to tell you something, Sammy. The laws of baseball do not apply to journalism education. If the Cubs play the Sox and the Cubs win, the Sox must lose. That's true. But Medill has always been a strong print school. The Northwestern daily has been around for about a hundred years. If broadcast students finally get to do a news program on Evanston cable, if they finally get to make news documentaries that will be aired on Chicago cable, that's not going to drive the Northwestern daily underground. It'll still be here next year. It'll still be as good a newspaper as the print students can make it." It's disconcerting that Bode can't remember the name of the Daily Northwestern, but he does seem to be arriving at larger themes. "The world of journalism education today is a very competitive business," says the dean. "For us to be the best school in the country -- and that is our goal -- we have to be the best in every department. Journalism education is not a zero-sum game. If I win, you must lose. No. We all get better together." Now Bode does something odd. Calling on each professor by name, he asks the print faculty to stand, enlisting them in his rebuttal. "There must be a hundred years of experience in newspaper newsrooms standing here today. And another hundred years of experience in teaching print journalism.... Sammy my man, you may not think that you were well served by this faculty, but I'll tell you this. The people standing on this stage represent the best print-journalism faculty in the country. And as all of us at Medill get better, they do too." He asks for a round of applause for the print faculty. They sit. This break in the speech gives Bode a perfect opportunity to move on to other themes. But he can't. "Now Louisville Sam also advertises in his E-mail that he has a beef with the Medill placement office, and that his starting job will be with the Miami Herald. I infer from this that Sammy is not starting as editor of the Herald." There's another titter, giving Bode time to think twice about the next thing he says. "At this moment," he goes on, "I am hoping that Sammy has not smuggled in a large-caliber handgun under his robe." Bode wraps it up by telling "Sam" that he intends to offer him his hand, whether Sam shakes it or not, and reminding him "there will be hundreds of Medill alums all over the country waiting in whatever newsroom you fetch up to, with a hand out to shake your hand and welcome you there because you're a Medill alum." After nearly eight minutes of getting back at Sammy, Bode surrenders the floor to the guest speaker. The student, Sam Eifling, tells me by E-mail that he listened with "a mixture of anger, bewilderment, and a touch of pride." He believes Bode misrepresented his E-mails, which said nothing at all about the broadcast department. And he says his 12-week internship at the Miami Herald "is not quite a job." Eifling also tells me, "The only point in his remarks at which I boiled over was when he threw down the gauntlet, saying he would have his hand out, and I could leave him in the lurch if I wanted. That, I knew, would really put me on the spot." The awarding of degrees is on the tape. "The speech definitely made an impression," Eifling continues, "because I was the whopping fifth person not to shake his hand....I said hello to Asst. Dean Roger Boye, who was reading the names, and he looked back at me with an expression containing both disappointment and fear. Since it would have been monumentally gutless to shake Bode's hand after his speech, I had decided that I would instead tip my cap as he gave me the diploma -- a classy gesture, I felt, yet defiant. "Boye read my name and the place just caught fire. The audience had been instructed to hold applause until the end, so most people walked across to claps and calls only from their families. I got an impassioned ovation from the student section -- whooping, clapping -- and a pretty decent reception from the rest of the auditorium."
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