Less than a year ago, Nancy Carlson, chairwoman of the department of telecommunications, said, "We think we are a national model of a convergence newsroom providing a multi-media outlet for undergraduates."
For Ball State University, that model may soon be nothing more than a thing of the past.
The $20 million iCommunication grant from the Lily Foundation is quickly approaching its end, and some of Ball State's programs will be, too, if the university cannot find enough funding in the coming months.
Amongst other things, contracted faculty members and professionals, an immersion program and NewsLink Indiana could all be eliminated this summer if replacement funding is not available.
Which leads us to wonder: How could this be allowed to happen?
Carlson's words were taken from a Dec. 12, 2003 article in the Daily News regarding NewsLink's future. At that time, it was mentioned that NewsLink, as with other iComm initiatives, was running out money and time.
In speaking of NewsLink's future, Dave Ferguson, Director of the iComm supported Center for Media Design, said in that same article that what he would be most excited if "we come out of this process with a sustainable model for local convergent news, we'll have something that's nationally significant."
Economists will tell us, however, that it is impossible to sustain an infinite product with finite resources. Unfortunately for Ball State, this is exactly what the university has been trying to do with its iComm programs. And, at the cost of possible faculty and award-winning programs, it is finally catching up with the school.
Ball State made a mistake in setting up permanent programs with temporary funds. At the very least, whoever was balancing the iCommunication checkbook should have been paying closer attention to how, why and where the funds were being used.
At the same time, the university and its departments should have had enough foresight to develop a backup funding plan to kick in when the Lilly grant was set to run out.
In either situation, the foresight and planning would have been for tremendous help for when the grant expires.
Because this did not happen, faculty now have to worry about their job status while students must worry about the future of their hands-on experiences and programs. All these parties can do is hope that the university pulls in enough funds to continue the program running as it has. At least then, the "interactive" part of iCommunication will truly stay alive.
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