A promise is a promise

While 'The Man' is not any one person, he continues to tug at the marionette strings of university administrators Ü most recently in the Department of Media Arts.

When some media arts seniors returned to school this fall, they had the rug of justice rudely swiped from beneath their feet.

The independent senior film projects they were promised were suddenly not so independent. In fact, they faced the prospect of being randomly divided into groups for a consequential project that amounts to a senior capstone.

Media arts department head Mary Beth Haralovich chalked up the changes to university-mandated downsizing and said a document stating each student would write, produce, direct and shoot their own film should never have been circulated.

"It was created in an optimistic and idealistic moment," she said during an Aug. 27 meeting to discuss the curriculum changes.

"It's regrettable it was distributed," she added.

Regrettable or not, the document was disseminated, and these students paid tuition believing that their degree program, and indeed the university, were high-class institutions capable of keeping their word.

As it stands now, they were mistaken. The current situation amounts to an ex post facto law, or one whose authority extends before its inception.

Haralovich and the rest of the Media Arts Department should reverse their decision against independent upper-division films and allow departing seniors to complete the requirements set forth when they entered the degree program. That much is simple.

However, this entreaty is by no means a call for a campus-wide freeze on program changes. That is not only unrealistic, but thoroughly unwise.

Requirements do change. This is a fact of life at a university and allows for modernization efforts alongside budget shortfalls.

However, if cutbacks are necessary, they should be made for the future - not retroactively, as in the Media Arts Department.

Everyone, especially university administrators, should take care to plan for the tomorrow - not yesterday.