Tartan Spotlight Correction
The Clarion received a correction on a contributed piece from a student. Associate Professor Nadine Cichy issued this correction on her Tartan Spotlight.
My correct title is Associate Professor, I do teach in the Department of Communication.
I am from Virginia, not Maryland as was mentioned in the article. I did teach at the College of Southern Maryland before coming to Sinclair, but I always lived in Virginia and commuted to Maryland.
I was not at Virginia Tech in 2007, I was a student there 1995-1999. I also would not characterize any aspect of a mass shooting experience as fun or exciting, as was implied in the article. In the interview, I did discuss how people were surprised in 2007 at media reports of the supportive and close-knit community at Virginia Tech and said that those reports did match my recollection of the campus environment when I was there (in the late 90’s).
I did not say “I would say that definitely the epitome of my belief is certainly inclusiveness and diversity.” I certainly value diversity and inclusivity, but it’s not the epitome of my belief system. In the interview, I remember talking about compassion as something I value over tolerance, because compassion is active and engaged. I also recall that we talked about my commitment to social justice and my commitment that all students should feel welcome on a college campus. The interviewer added, “even conservative students,” and I agreed that I meant all students.
I have been the course coordinator of Interpersonal Communication online for many years, and I do focus on curriculum development for that course, but I did not coordinate the transition to online courses. I was very fortunate to have inherited an online course that was already excellent; I did not in any way initially develop the course online. In the interview, I specifically discussed my role in adapting the assignments and the assessment for that course.
I do believe that the dynamics of the student-teacher relationship are always changing and that we do need to routinely change and update curriculum and assessment. I do not recall saying “teaching needs to be adaptive based on students.” This would imply that I think students should guide curriculum, and that is not my belief. I think students should be collaborative partners, and curriculum is ultimately the responsibility of content experts.
Some students tell me they “see the world differently” after taking a class I teach, but I think “most” is a gross exaggeration of my impact. I also wouldn’t clarify students who pass or don’t pass. I did not say “Most of my students who pass my classes say that they definitely ‘see the world differently,’” that was misquoted.
Edition 23 Correction
In our most recent newspaper, the April Fools edition, there was an editorial error on the spelling the word “tuition.” It was misspelled to “tutition.” We sincerely apologize for the error.