Medill School of Journalism Dean John Lavine announced his retirement, effective at the end of the 2011-12 academic school year, in an emailed statement to the Medill community Wednesday.
The architect behind the Medill 2020 plan, Lavine has changed the direction of the school during his tenure, expanding the school’s academic scope and name.
“It has been quite an odyssey,” he said in the statement. “Together we’ve accomplished far more than was envisioned in our Medill 2020 plan. Along the way, we’ve faced and overcome major challenges, as well as some controversies; when you undertake seismic change, both are inevitable.”
Lavine told The Daily on Wednesday his decision has been planned “for a while now,” and he consulted University Provost Dan Linzer to formalize his retirement this summer.
“A year ago I said to the provost, ‘We’re at the end,'” Lavine said. “I’ve done a lot of the things I set out to do, and now I have other things I would like to go and do.”
Several Medill professors and close friends of Lavine said his decision to step down has nothing to do with controversy surrounding his highly publicized strained relationship with former head of the Medill Innocence Project David Protess.
“His timing is probably based on what he’s told us – he really wanted to get the new curriculum in place and working and making sure that everything was running smoothly,” Medill assistant professor Jon Marshall said. “His vision for the school was in place before he stepped down, and I think that’s probably the basis for the timing .. In my mind, he would be leaving on a note where he feels like what he set out to accomplish has been accomplished.”
Among other changes during Lavine’s tenure, the school now offers an Integrated Marketing and Communications certificate and its name was formally changed to The Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications in November. Lavine has also pushed the school to take a more digital approach to journalism, partnering with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to secure a four-year, $4.2 million grant to create the Knight News Innovation Laboratory.
Former University President Henry Bienen and former provost Lawrence Dumas suspended formal faculty oversight when Lavine came to NU in January of 2006, giving him authority to remaster the school’s curriculum and create the Medill 2020 plan.
Frank Mulhern, Associate Dean of Research at Medill, said Lavine pushed the school in a new direction, which inevitably sparked debate.
“He’s been controversial because there are different constituents within the school that want to do different things, and no dean’s going to be favored by all of them,” Mulhern said. “But he’s no more controversial than other deans.”
Personal “controversies” outside the classroom have also surrounded Lavine.
In 2008, Lavine came under fire for allegedly fabricating quotes in a piece he wrote about an advertising class in Northwestern alumni magazine. Prompted by a column in The Daily, Protess contacted the students in the class and determined none of the students had said the quotes Lavine attributed to them.
“The whole thing was silly,” Mulhern said. “It was a PR puff piece. It wasn’t a piece of journalistic work.”
Though Lavine’s name was eventually formally cleared by a committee of Medill professors, the “Quotegate” incident resurfaced again this summer when several national publications wrote about the strained relationship between Lavine and Protess, the high-profile former professor.
Protess retired from NU in June after the University’s nearly five-month review of his compliance with prosecutors who accused the 29-year professor and some of his students of ethical misconduct in investigating the murder conviction of Anthony McKinney. Lavine removed Protess from teaching his signature Investigative Journalism class last spring, sparking some debate on whether it was retaliation for Protess‘ role in the Quotegate incident.
Mulhern and several Medill professors said the timing of Lavine’s retirement was unrelated to recent press, and instead consistent with his plan to leave after implementing the new curriculum.
Lavine said the school will begin looking for its next dean this month, a process that could take the whole year.
“The question is who the next dean is and what that dean’s priorities are,” Mulhern said. “That’s more from the point of view of the central administration and what their vision is for Medill and what kind of dean they want.”
The full text of his statement is below:
Six years ago, President Bienen and Provost Dumas asked if I would lead the implementation of a new strategy for Medill. In t
he years that followed, we have joined together to deepen the quality of our curricula, provide our students with the best educational opportunities in the country and strengthen and diversify our offerings and resources.
Now, I’m writing to tell you that I have shared with President Schapiro and Provost Linzer my decision to step down as Medill’s Dean on August 31, 2012. I do so knowing we have a faculty, staff and curricula no other school can match.
When I became dean, journalism and marketing communications were being roiled by a digital tsunami, and soon thereafter, by one of the worst economic downturns in a century. In the midst of these difficult circumstances, we adopted unprecedented curricular change. Northwestern supported our plan with the addition of more faculty and staff with new skills, knowledge, and experience than at any time in Medill’s history.
It has been quite an odyssey. Together we’ve accomplished far more than was envisioned in our Medill 2020 plan. Along the way, we’ve faced and overcome major challenges, as well as some controversies; when you undertake seismic change, both are inevitable.
What counts is the progress we’ve made, the foundation for the future that we’ve built, and the validation of what we’ve done from external sources — including leaders of the industries we serve and the unprecedented evaluation last spring from the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications. Our faculty and curricula lead the country. Despite the tough economy, employers here and abroad seek out our graduates, and Northwestern University Qatar, our undergraduate school in Doha, is about to graduate its first class.
You are terrific colleagues. I treasure the opportunity to have worked with you, and I’m excited about completing the big projects we have before us this coming year.
When I step down, I will focus on an initiative that is also close to my heart — examining how the media can determine if people are truly informed by the content they provide, and seeking out new ways for the news media to remain viable. I’ll have more to share about this work in the future.
I will also spend more time with my wonderful wife, Meryl. As busy as we’ve both been in our careers – and as much as she has been central to all that I’ve done in my professional life – now, more than ever, we cherish having more personal time together.
Check back for more updates throughout the day.
***Correction (Sept. 21): The article incorrectly spelled Frank Mulhern’s last name. The Daily regrets the error.
