For years, journalism has been one of the few blessed fields where it was safe to be a Mac user. Unfortunately, Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, one of the leading institutions in the country (and my alma mater, I'm ashamed to say), ditched all of its Macs over the summer.
Read all about it. The move was initiated as part of the "Medill 2020" plan, an initiated by new dean John Levine to make sure the next generation of Medill students graduate with the skills and know-how to be Kevin Sites clones, travelling the world with a laptop and a digital camera and getting the real stories inside the world's hot spots. Sites is a Mac user, Levine. You can look it up.
I've had a lot of concerns about Medill 2020 in the months since it was announced, most notably that a brochure unveiling the program claimed that its faculty would be trained to write the news for many platforms, including SMS and the vPod. O RLY? The actual vPod made my Vapple?
But I haven't been moved to write an angry letter threatening to withhold my $10 a year contribution to Medill this year until now (they'll be feeling the pain, boy!). Especially because the school isn't even using good excuses for why they've switched:
But will they teach you how to write text messages? So frustrating. Nothing says the future like Windows XP. Anyone else's colleges making the switch to the dark side?
Seriously, this is why the work we're doing with Donors Choose is so important. We're giving kids the Macs they need to really create great work at a time when the march of the institutional PC has never been stronger.
(Thanks, K.)
