Written by Abby Kellett
This statement is indisputably obvious: College students have to do a lot of things they would prefer to avoid. That being said, there is a fine line between necessary and futile, and while Harding University’s College of Communication may not have crossed that line, the college is definitely flirting with it.
To gain a bachelor’s degree in Public Relations from Harding, one must put in his or her semester writing for the university’s newspaper theBison. The benefits reaped from this experience are unbounded; not only does this requirement help the student gain experience writing for a publication, but the articles help pad a future portfolio. In some instances the articles get picked up by an even bigger media outlet, which brings the student even more experience and accreditation. There is no doubt Public Relations majors can only win by writing for theBison, which explains why it is required.
The staff at theBisonis hardworking, talented and go above and beyond the call of duty to ensure that each edition of the paper is well written, grammatically correct and soundly accurate. Subsequently, the staff’s expectations extend to those obligated to take the Bison’s one-hour credit class and submitting an article a week, regardless of the fact that the paper is not printed weekly.
It may not sound like much, but an article a week can be quite the time-consuming affair, assuming the article is well developed and written. Multiple sources have to be interviewed, facts have to be checked, stories have to be written and then proofread . . . and here in lies the problem: the amount of time and effort put into a similar one-hour class, such at TV or Radio Practicum at Harding is significantly and astoundingly less.
Therefore, the College of Communication is serving its students an inequality along with their degree; all one-hour credit classes should require the same amount of time and work.
The answer to this inequality, however, is not to give more credit to balance the fairness scale. The answer, in the simplest form, is to ask a bit less of the student writers on theBisonstaff. A well-written story a week is too demanding. The complications that come with giving students more credit is too complicated; students would be required to pay more and take less elective classes to graduate. Giving students more credit would be too much of a hassle for students, staff and administrators.
Regardless, theBisonstaff will not always receive well-written stories because those who fail to have a passion for journalism will only meet the bottom quota for the week; those students will get their story assignment and turn out an article in the least amount of time possible. Why should they do anything different? Who can blame them? The class is exhausting and draining, no matter how beneficial.
TheBisonneeds dozens of articles and plenty of writers to publish respectable editions of the award-winning paper. However, the staff should not rely so heavily on student writers. Student writers should have less responsibility when they are receiving so little college credit for their efforts. Less needs to be expected from these writers because it is too problematical to give them more credit. The solution to this injustice is not in giving, but taking away.
