Penn alumni publications chair resigns

Sam Maitin, chairperson of the University's Alumni Publications Committee, resigned March 7 after University President Judith Rodin and General Alumni Society President Elsie Howard rejected his plan to share oversight of the Pennsylvania Gazette with a group of professional alumni journalists. The Gazette is Penn's alumni magazine. Maitin and several other publication committee members participated in a conference call on March 7 with Rodin and Howard, who is also a University trustee. According to Maitin, the purpose of the call was to gather more information about the November resignations of Gazette editor Tony Lyle and publisher Doris Cochran-Fikes and to discuss ways to guarantee the magazine's editorial independence. In his resignation letter, Maitin said he did not believe Rodin's assurances that the Gazette would be able to retain its independence, in light of the administration's handling of the University's alumni magazine in the past. "I received no encouragement that any mechanism to protect editorial independence, and to insulate the Pennsylvania Gazette from administrative demands and direction, would ever be forthcoming," he said. He also reiterated his position that "only an executive group of professional alumni journalists, sharing authority with the administration, will permit the Gazette to retain its independence." And Maitin complained that his committee's recommendations have been ignored by the administration and that they were "kept in the dark concerning serious matters." Robert Shayon, a committee member and professor emeritus of Communications, resigned before the conference call. He said he was angry that Rodin did not schedule a face-to-face meeting with the committee members, who all live in Philadelphia. Shayon also said he decided to resign because he felt the administration "mishandled" the committee and Lyle. "The administration did not react in the tradition of a great metropolitan university in defending free speech and editorial independence," Shayon said last night. Immediately after Lyle retired in November, Michael Zuckerman, a publications committee member and History professor, also resigned from the committee. He said in his resignation letter that he resigned because of the administration's behavior toward Lyle. "I didn't want to be party to something that seemed to me to stink," Zuckerman said last night. Zuckerman and Maitin both said last night they thought the University reached some kind of settlement agreement that forced Lyle to resign and not talk about it. "The question is whether he wanted to resign or whether they set up a situation in which he had no choice but to resign," Zuckerman said. Shayon also said he felt Lyle was unable to talk about the situation. And Howard said last night she was disappointed that Maitin chose to resign, and that he had not been able to accomplish the goals they discussed when she appointed him chairperson of the committee last June. She said she asked him to focus his committee's work on how to increase the Gazette's circulation and advertising revenue. They also discussed his idea of establishing a mentoring program between the committee and undergraduates who are interested in the print journalism field, she said. Rodin could not be reached for comment last night.