Why didn’t NTU renew Cherian George as journalism head?

COMMENT

By Lin Jun Jie

Last month, we learnt that journalism associate professor Cherian George's tenure at the Nanyang Technological University was denied for a second time.

But I want to take a step back, to more than two years ago, when the university made a hasty decision not to renew George's term as the head of journalism in the Wee Kim Wee School.

Hasty—because there wasn't even a replacement lined up for him at the point the decision was made.

Instead, what happened was a series of temporary replacements.

Today—almost two-and-a-half years after his term as head of journalism was not renewed—there remains no permanent head of journalism.

Quite on the contrary, we now have the head of the broadcast and cinema studies division, professor Stephen Teo, doubling up as the acting head of division at journalism and publishing.

What is most perplexing about this is that Teo's profile lists neither any background in journalism and publishing, nor any research interest in this field.

In fact, Teo was not even part of the journalism division until his very curious appointment.

An archive of the journalism division website in March 2012 proves that.

I can think of two reasonable explanations why an institution would abruptly replace the head of a division.

One, they have already found a better person for the job.

We can rule this out by now. Clearly, the fact that no other journalism professor has taken up the job, and that the University couldn't even find a suitable full-time head after two years of search, says that George was, and is, the best person for the job.

Two, the head has made a grave mistake and must leave, like, immediately (think Michael Palmer).

I was not aware of any grave mistakes made by George, a former journalist with The Straits Times who has spoken out against media control. If there was, perhaps the university could shed some light on it.

That only leaves us with an unreasonable, but definitely more plausible, explanation: whoever made that decision not to renew George's term, and to deny him of his tenure, clearly does not like him very much at all.

So much so that he or she would rather journalism students have a part-time head of division than a full-time one recommended by the school.

In a statement, NTU defended their decision not to grant George tenure: "The tenure review process is purely a peer-driven academic exercise comprising internal and external reviewers."

The university said it counts distinction in research and scholarship, and high quality teaching as criteria for granting tenure, suggesting that the reviewers believed George was either bad at teaching, had subpar research, or both.

His calibre as a teacher

Externally, at least two reviewers have since refuted that. One tweeted that "Cherian George's tenure case was watertight", and that denying him tenure "on grounds of research and teaching… makes no sense". Another suggested that it’s more likely that George’s career is being “derailed by the political elites”.

Internally, the chair and assistant chair of the Wee Kim Wee School—short of making a press conference—have thrown their weight behind George in a meeting with organisers of the petition last Thursday

The chair said in the meeting that the school had endorsed George's tenure on both occasions, nominated him for the teaching excellence award in 2009, and recommended him to be reappointed head of the journalism and publishing division in 2010. He said that it was the university that had turned down the recommendation.

The faculty too, seems baffled by the university’s decision. One lecturer said: “We’re concerned now because if even he (George) can’t get tenured, what does it take?”

Students of George, both current and past, have also come out in droves to express indignation over suggestions that his teaching was not up to scratch.

The massive outpouring of support for the professor is not surprising.

Having been taught and supervised by George, starting from my first lecture at the Wee Kim Wee School in 2006, my experience corroborates with what many others have already said of his teaching.

In the course of my study and the interactions that I had with students from various schools across the university, the common gripe is that many professors seemed to value their research over their teaching and supervising commitments.

George, however, has always come across as a professor who enjoys and takes pride in teaching and supervising his students, on top of his research work.

Take for instance the university’s eLearning week initiative. A handful of professors, perhaps unused to the electronic medium, would declare the week a break. The rest would attempt to faithfully transfer their offline lectures online by superimposing a video of their themselves lecturing over their slides.

Such an approach, while acceptable, clearly does not exploit the digital medium effectively. George was the only professor I knew who went beyond what was expected, and effectively exploited the digital medium by creating an interactive quiz to check on the knowledge of his students.

What reason is there to deny tenure in the face of solid affirmation of his academic credentials—from external reviewers to internal faculty, from past and present students to luminaries?

The university has chosen to repeatedly deny both the school and its journalism students of George’s services, starting from the non-renewal of his appointment as head of journalism division, and culminating in his implicit removal by denying him tenure.

Likely end result

Students and alumni at the Wee Kim Wee School ought to be furious at being short-changed, that decisions have been made without considering their best interests.

Regrettably, a petition started by four final-year students, which has gathered close to 1,000 signatures now, will likely go unanswered until it is forgotten by most.

How do I know?

Back in October 2010, when we first learnt that George's term as head of journalism was not renewed, a group of 42 alumni wrote and signed a hardcopy letter, delivered through normal and even airmail to every member on the university's board of trustees.

Three of them were even registered mail (to the chairman of the university's board of trustees, then-president Su Guaning and MOE's permanent secretary).

In our letter, we sought clarification from the board about why George's term was not renewed, and what will be in store for the journalism programme under the new head.

We didn't get any response, except from Jennie Chua, who said she had spoken with then-president Su, who had asked that the letter be redirected to him for follow-up.

We didn't, however, get any response from anyone else after that.

It is unfortunate that the university has played the waiting game before, and would likely play it again until the controversy is forgotten.

On the other hand, it is not entirely surprising either. How else would they explain the inexplicable? That George was a bad teacher who had won the university’s teaching excellence award, that his academic credentials were subpar yet impressive to external reviewers?

Between producing proper academic grounds to quell the indignant public, and looking silly for a day or two by reversing its decision to deny tenure, some how the latter is looking a whole lot easier.

Lin Jun Jie, 27, was a student at the NTU Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information from 2006 to 2010 and graduated as valedictorian for his cohort. He was also chief editor at NTU’s college newspaper, The Nanyang Chronicle, from January 2008 to January 2009.