Better safe than honest?

Interested in learning about something? The next natural step, for most people, is to look online. In this day and digital age, wesleyan.edu makes the University’s first impression on prospective students, parents and alumni donors. The Headlines section on the homepage gives Internet surfers a mix of articles culled from publications and briefs on University happenings.

With the upcoming presidential election creating an intriguing topic for those in academia and beyond, the University website did not include a link to Assistant Professor of Government Melanye Price’s op-ed in The Hartford Courant that endorsed Barack Obama (D-Ill.). This resembles a November 2006 decision to not link to a New Haven Register article that covered protests by Students for Ending the War in Iraq. Media Relations maintains that, due to the University’s not-for-profit status, it cannot publicly promote a political agenda. But at what point does this conservative interpretation of IRS regulations paint a limited picture of Wesleyan?

Media Relations admittedly works with a “better-safe-than-sorry” approach to selecting links but, in contrast to Middlebury and Yale, the University seems to turn a blind eye on the political undertones of on-campus activity. For example, in December 2007, the administration altered the political speakers policy to allow any politician to come to campus, in response to student outcry. This illustrates the narrow-mindedness of the University’s understanding of IRS code and, with the reworking, we had the opportunity to hear speakers like Ned Lamont.

Not all of the website’s limited scope has to do with politics. Alumni band MGMT hasn’t been bestowed the honor of a link. How about the Film Studies alumni who form the notorious “Wesleyan mafia” in Hollywood? Their accomplishments shouldn’t be relegated to the pages of the Wesleying. The Wesleying speaks to a broader student audience than the University’s website because the site posts information that truly appeals to the Wesleyan-interested masses.

With the administration’s new goal to reconstruct the communications department, we ask Media Relations to highlight the University’s distinction from other schools. Media Relations must think of a creative—and not a conservative—way to portray the public face of the University, and that’s not by hiding behind a computer screen.