For the second time in three years, the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, one of the top three journalism schools in the country finds itself in an embarassing position: after two national searches, it still can’t find someone willing to be its permanent dean.
Two years ago, Dianne Lynch, who was dean of communications at Ithaca College withdrew within weeks of her much anticipated arrival on campus, amid much dissension within the school itself about her appointment. Lynch was recently named president of Stephens College in Columbia, MO — a clear indication that her Berkeley deanship imbroglio was hardly a setack to her career.
The school then appointed Neil Henry, a former Washington Post reporter on the UC Berkeley faculty, as interim dean, who by all accounts has acquitted himself well in the post. But last fall, Berkeley initiated yet another national search. Nearly 400 applicants applied — far more than the previous go round – and the search committee selected four finalists. Two withdrew before coming to the campus for public interviews. Barbara Cochran and Lincoln Caplan, the remaining two candidates, pulled out after showing up in Berkeley.
A central question is how much the rebuff has to do with the floundering state of journalism — and how much with the internal divisions in the school that have not healed since the departure of former Dean Orville Schell two years ago.
At a moment of crisis for the state and the nation, the world’s greatest public university should be taking the lead in developing new strategies for covering the central issues of our time — especially in California, where coverage of the state is shrinking in every medium. Forgive me for putting on my editorial writer hat again — but UC Berkeley must do whatever it takes to find a permanent dean without delay.
LOUIS FREEDBERG
