Issue date: 5/29/08 Section: The Weekly

PRESIDENTIAL CORRESPONDENCE

When Weinberg senior Matthew Braslow sent an e-mail to Henry Bienen complaining about the choice of Richard Daley as commencement speaker, he didn't expect the university president to respond. But he did get something back: "You sound like a very unhappy person," Bienen wrote. "I am sorry for that. Hopefully things will improve for you over the years." What merited such a personal attack? Braslow's incendiary e-mail called the choice of Mayor Daley an "unequivocal slap in the face" that shows "the university has proved again why it is falling rapidly in the national rankings."

Bienen took this one step further, suggesting to Braslow, "By the way you think a commencement speaker has any thing to do with the national stature of Northwestern tells me we failed here in educating you." Ouch. Meanwhile, Braslow e-mailed back, asking Bienen for a personal apology. "The president of a university should not be interacting with a student in this way," Braslow says. But maybe he shouldn't have sent a rude e-mail in the first place.

GRADES, NOW PUBLIC

"Smart student but fairly immature and she needs some serious coaching," Mark LaMet, a Medill faculty member, wrote about one Medill junior. Another student "seems very young at times and is a bit confused." You're not supposed to see these notes - and neither were the students who received them in their inboxes.

On Tuesday afternoon, LaMet, the coordinator for the Journalism Residency that Medill students must participate in, sent an e-mail to the seven broadcast students who will be going on their internships next fall. The e-mail was supposed to let the students know where they were placed, but LaMet accidentally attached the wrong file. The seven students - and now, thanks to rapid e-mail forwarding, many more - received their placements, but also got LaMet's personal bullet-point notes and the grades they each received in journalism classes.

"I feel bad if anybody felt bad, but there was nothing too provocative in there," says LaMet, who meets with every Medill student before their JR placement. He put together the notes so that he would remember each meeting; they were meant only for him and Michele Bitoun, the director of the program. "They shouldn't be surprised by anything in there, anyway," LaMet adds. So is that why he didn't send an apology e-mail?

Continued...

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