Since then, Student Affairs’ actions have disproved their words.

By “restructuring” they meant “destructuring,” as fewer student media outlets have advisers today. And by “moving student media forward” they meant, most recently, allowing the student body president to unilaterally appoint a plagiarizer as leader of the TV outlet after he used TV outlet footage, FAU equipment, and FAU’s name and logo to help him land a gig with Playboy.

The public Facebook photo of the new manager of FAU's student-run TV station. Screenshot: Taken Sept. 14, 2011

Owl TV, FAU’s student-run TV station, was among the outlets that lost their adviser in May 2010 — and it’s still awaiting a new one. In the absence of an adviser…

Presidential behavior

Owl TV has gone through at least half a dozen station managers in the past year (instead of one every six months).

At least two quit before their terms ended. At least two were only interim to begin with. One was deemed ineligible after the selection committee voted on him and he had started the job. And last month, two were forced out for unclear reasons. (They declined to comment on the record, but what I know of their side of the story doesn’t match the Office of Student Media’s side.)

When our new student media director, Michael Gaede, deemed those last two outlet heads allegedly unfit to continue in their positions, Gaede had been on the job for less than two months. So, he told me, he consulted Student Body President Ayden Maher, who decided that he would appoint an interim station manager to run the problem outlet for the entire fall 2011 semester.

The thing is:

1. It’s not in the rules. Maher says that Student Government statutes allow him to do so, and Gaede says he confirmed that with his boss, Associate Dean of Student Terry Mena, who is Student Affairs’ third-in-command. But the statutes posted on SG’s own website only state that the student body president may appoint interim chief justices and interim elections chairs in certain situations: They do not address interim student media outlet heads.
2. It’s not the norm. At FAU, student media outlet heads are chosen by a selection committee of at least five members, which include the student body president (or more often, his delegate — Maher has been in office for at least two sets of three selections but has never attended).
3. It might be illegal. According to the Student Press Law Center, this depends on state employment laws and where the money for the outlet head comes from. “Alarm bells are ringing,” SPLC attorney Adam Goldstein told me last week. “A deviation from that [usual selection] practice looks shady, I have to say.” The SPLC is now looking into the matter.
4. It’s a conflict of interest. Our student media outlets cover our Student Government; therefore, for the head of SG to appoint the outlet heads is a conflict of interest that would call all SG coverage into question.
5. It wasn’t advertised well. One of Maher’s and Gaede’s defenses is that the appointee was the best candidate out of everyone who applied for the position anyway. But it’s easy to be the best candidate when few students apply because few knew the position was open. Besides a tweet and a Facebook update, I don’t know that Student Government, Student Affairs, or the Office of Student media advertised the position. Even the guy who got the job told me he wouldn’t have known it was available if someone hadn’t told him.

Playboy leadership

Because the appointment was a closed process, the only details I have are secondhand. The one confirmable fact is who got the position: Alberto “AJ” Jordat Jr.

Here’s what I can tell you about him:

He didn’t appear to want the job. Jordat worked for Owl TV in the past but wasn’t working for them in any capacity when he applied to run the outlet. Further, it wasn’t his first choice. Jordat applied for the station manager position after applying for Student Government’s elections chair position but not getting it.

He sees “nothing wrong” with a student leader representing the university in a Playboy contest. A few weeks before he was appointed, Jordat entered the 2011 Be A Playboy Producer For A Day Contest, sponsored by video-sharing website Dailymotion.

The thing is, he entered as AJ Jordat the FAU multimedia major, not AJ Jordat, some unaffiliated guy whose dream job is to work for Playboy.

In other words, rather than create a video specifically for the contest and entering it as if he had no affiliations to FAU, Jordat compiled existing Owl TV footage — which includes shots of Owl TV’s logo, Student Government’s logo, and FAU’s logo — and entered it with FAU’s name attached. (Click on the three links below for examples.)

“It’s relevant to what I do,” Jordat told me, explaining that he included his university and major so that Playboy would know who and what he is. “It’s not an FAU association.”

But regardless of why he did it, FAU’s name and logos are still all over the three videos that Jordat submitted to the Playboy contest.

Note the description below the video. Screenshot: Taken Sept. 14, 2011 (click to enlarge)

(Click here to view more screenshots from this video. NOTE: Some may not consider these images work-safe and/or child-safe.)

All of the footage seen in this video was shot at FAU on-campus events. Screenshot: Taken Sept. 14, 2011 (click to enlarge)

(Click here to view more screenshots from this video. NOTE: Some may not consider these images work-safe and/or child-safe.)

Note the description below the video. Screenshot: Taken Sept. 14, 2011 (click to enlarge)

(Click here to view more screenshots from this video. NOTE: Some may not consider these images work-safe and/or child-safe.)

FAU’s name is also all over the dozens of public tweets that Jordat has made in order to promote his entries. (The contest winner will be selected based in part on how many hits his entries earn.) For example:

Screenshot: Taken Sept. 14, 2011 (click to enlarge)

(Click here for more such tweets.)

I doubt FAU’s Division of Marketing & Creative Services — which tightly controls the university brand — would approve of Jordat’s including logos in his entries.

“A key component of FAU’s brand, the University’s visual identity is the sum of all the images and visual impressions associated with FAU,” their web page reads.

And I doubt the head of FAU’s Division of Student Affairs, Charles Brown, would approve of Jordat’s entering the contest as an FAU student and remaining in it as a student leader.

“In terms of when you take on leadership roles, everything that you do represents the university. You don’t want to create a bad impression,” Brown told me when I was editor-in-chief. “I tell students that all the time.”

Plus, if the editor-in-chief entered the Playboy contest as Jordat did, Student Government leaders would be up in arms, and the heads of Student Affairs would call him into their offices for a series of lectures. The EIC even gets dirty looks when FAU and Playboy happen to make news together and the University Press simply reports that news.

When I reported in October that FAU may party Playboy-style, I caught more cold shoulders and upturned noses than usual in the halls of the Student Union. When we reported in our 2010 New Student Edition that FAU’s quirky former students include porn star Mary Carey, I (EIC at the time) heard all about how badly we made the university look.

What’s funny about that last example is that, based on his public tweets, Jordat actually knows, is friends with, and hangs out with Mary Carey — and has the photos to prove it.

He plagiarized. By entering the 2011 Playboy Producer For A Day Contest, you “agree to the terms and conditions,” as it says beneath the contest directions.

Those terms and conditions state that “all Videos: (a) must be a wholly original, audio-visual performance created by the Contest Entrant” and that “all elements used, incorporated into or otherwise appearing in a Video must be entirely original, created and performed by the Contest Entrant or be in the public domain.”

But Jordat was but one of at least nine people involved with the creation of the Owl TV footage that he compiled to create his contest entries, according to the original footage credits.

Jordat denies plagiarizing and told me that he edited all of the original Owl TV footage himself. “I put those [other] people’s names on the credits because they gave me creative input,” he said.

The thing is, by entering the contest, Jordat didn’t agree that he did all the editing himself: He agreed that he did all elements himself.

But Jordat admitted that he didn’t take the photographs in the first and third videos above and that he didn’t film the footage in the second video. And taking credit for someone else’s work is the essence of plagiarism.

No wonder

In Jordat’s defense, I’ve heard positive reviews of his efforts as station manager from the student media director. (Granted, Gaede supported the student body president’s closed appointment of Jordat.)

“I’m trying my best,” Jordat told me. “I’m trying my best with what I’ve got.”

And it’s not Jordat’s fault that what he’s got still doesn’t include an adviser.

It’s official: Local freelancer Dan Sweeney will be the full-time, paid adviser to FAU’s student newspaper a week or two from now.

He’s accepted the offer and completed most of the paperwork stage. According to Sweeney’s new boss, new student media director Michael Gaede, he’ll start on Sept. 6 or 12, depending on how quickly his paperwork gets processed. They’ll know for sure by the end of tomorrow (I’ll update this post if you check back on Thursday).

In the interim, I’ve been asked for my take on Sweeney by a couple of non-newspaper members of the Office of Student Media. I’ve answered them pretty bluntly but don’t think it’s fair to opine publicly before Sweeney even gets started.

So instead I asked him what he had to say about himself and his new gig. We spoke by phone for about 15 minutes yesterday.

Part of Dan Sweeney's freelancer profile at MediaBistro.com. Screenshot: Taken Aug. 30, 2011 (click to enlarge)

Sweeney seems genuinely excited about getting involved with student media and likened it to “a dream job.” Hopefully that means we’ll get to meet him early at this Friday’s University Press staff meeting (I heard he’s been invited since last week).

Sweeney seems to understand that a student newspaper adviser’s role is just that: advisory. When I asked if he had any plans going into the job, he first acknowledged that his role may vary somewhat from one editor-in-chief to another since the level and manner of his involvement will depend on the editor-in-chief’s needs and wants. I was impressed, as that realization indicates that he grasps the nature of his new position in a way that most candidates for the job didn’t — and that most of the Division of Student Affairs still struggles to, in my opinion.

He also demonstrated an informed and ethical stance on prior review and prior restraint. He claimed to be against both but did say he’d hope students would want to share their work with him before it’s published. (I told him that would probably happen naturally if he gains their trust and they become comfortable with him.)

My one disappointment was a lack of concrete details. When I asked Sweeney about his plans, he volunteered few specifics. When I asked how much of the UP he’s read and what he thought of it, he only mentioned the past three issues, about which he had generic comments (e.g., a new student guide is helpful to freshmen) rather than journalistic commentary.

====================

NEXT WEEK: What the new adviser means for his predecessor

After deliberating on Friday, the search committee for the position decided on the local writer — with one string attached.

Such committees usually have three options at the end of a search, as I explained last week: (1) hire one of the finalists, (2) return to the applicant pool for other possible hires, and (3) close the search and start over. The committee chose No. 1 with one contingency: They reserved the right to reconvene at the end of the fall semester to re-evaluate whether Sweeney is the right fit for the position.

“We all agreed after our deliberation that Sweeney was a strong candidate but that there’s no way to see what he’s like under fire,” committee member and UP editor-in-chief Gideon Grudo told me. “This is a great opportunity for us to see how he acts in certain situations and see if he is the adviser the UP needs to have.”

Technically, this arrangement isn’t that different than any other hire. FAU’s probationary period for support personnel is six months, which basically means that those hires are evaluated at the end of their first six months so that the university can determine whether they want to commit to them or cut them loose. As FAU’s Probationary Guide puts it, “An employee must successfully pass this initial probationary period in order to continue employment with the University.”

So, the search committee just added on the right to do their own evaluation before the Division of Student Affairs does its.

Michael Gaede, the new student media director and would-be boss of the UP‘s adviser, told me yesterday that if Sweeney accepts the position quickly and his background check goes smoothly, his first day on the job could be as early as the day after Labor Day.

While we’re waiting to hear whether Sweeney accepts the gig, let’s get to know him a little better:

• Cover letter and application
• LinkedIn profile
• Mediabistro profile
• City Link, the Sun Sentinel‘s alternative weekly newpaper that he’s currently the associate editor of
• Huffington Post page
• Twitter

A search that started last month will conclude this morning.

The process began after the UP‘s editor-in-chief petitioned to get the position opened (more on that later). In early August, the search committee met for the first time, narrowing the pool of 30-odd candidates down to six. After interviewing those semifinalists by phone, they brought three finalists to campus on Monday, Aug. 15.

Today, the committee meets to make a decision about the finalists. The standard options are (1) hiring one of the finalists, (2) returning to the applicant pool for other possible hires, and (3) closing this search in order to open another, which would give the committee a new applicant pool to pick from.

If you’re interested, the public meeting is at 9 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 19, in the Dean of Students Conference Room, located on the second floor of Building 8. If not, you can still check out the finalists for yourself:

• Harold Koplowitz
• Travis Reed
• Daniel Sweeney

Michael Gaede may or may not become FAU’s second-ever student media director on July 5.

The SMD search committee and hiring manager have settled on the communications instructor at Oklahoma’s Northeastern State University. Gaede has not yet officially accepted the gig, however, so I will update you as soon as I have further information.

In the meantime, check out my “Paper-pushing” post if you aren’t already familiar with Gaede’s background. The post contains the cover letters and resumes of Gaede and the two runners-up.

====================

From: Corey King [dean of students and chair of the search committee]
Sent: Monday, May 02, 2011 2:38 PM
To: Terry Mena [associate dean of students and hiring manager for the SMD position]
Cc: [every search committee member except the University Press editor-in-chief]; Charles Brown [head of Student Affairs]
Subject: Search Committee for Director for Student Media (recommendation for hire)

Greetings!

The search committee for Director for Student Media met today (Monday, May 2nd, 2011 at 2 pm).  The search committee after discussion of evaluations on each candidate, voted to recommend to you, the hiring authority, to hire Michael Gaede for the position of Director for Student Media at Florida Atlantic University.

We look forward to your response.

Dr. Corey A. King
Associate Vice President & Dean of Students
Student Services Building (SS #8), Room 226
Florida Atlantic University
777 Glades Road
Boca Raton, FL 33431-0991
Office:  561-297-3542
Fax:  561-297-2502

Confidentiality Notice: This E-Mail is intended only for the use of the Individual or entity to which it is addressed and may contain information that is privileged, confidential and exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you have received this communication in error, please do not distribute, notify the sender by E-Mail at the address shown above, then delete the original message with any attachments. Thank you for your compliance.

[Note: The above notice is false because FAU, as a public university, is an agency of the state. As the Office of the Attorney General of Florida puts it, "'E-mail' messages made or received by agency employees in connection with official business are public records and subject to disclosure in the absence of an exemption."]

====================

From: Terry Mena
Sent: Friday, May 13, 2011 7:37 PM
To: Corey King
Cc: [every search committee member except the University Press editor-in-chief]; Charles Brown
Subject: Director for Student Media

I want to thank the members of the search committee for your commitment and diligence in completing your recommendation.

After conducting the reference checks for all of the candidates, I spoke with Michael Gaede. He has unofficially accepted the director position with a proposed starting date of July 5, 2011. We hope to complete the official offer letter by earlier next week. An official announcement will be sent out to faculty, staff and students, shortly thereafter.

Sincerely,

‬Terry C. Mena
Associate Dean of Students
Office of Associate Vice President and Dean of Students
Florida Atlantic University
Student Service Building, Room. 226
777 Glades Road
Boca Raton, FL 33431
(561) 297-3546 phone
(561) 297-2502 fax‬

====================

TOMORROW: Deja vu

LATER: A skeletal excavation

If you’d like to see, hear, or question them for yourself, be sure to stop by FAU’s Boca Raton campus during their open forums. Below are the visit schedules along with a preview of sorts based on the phone interviews. (And here are their cover letters and resumes if you missed them.)

Michael Saffran: Tuesday, April 26

In my opinion, one of the three candidates stood out based on his resume, and another stood out based on his phone interview. Saffran is neither.

His inability to discern public relations copy from journalistic news may make him attractive to FAU’s Division of Student Affairs and Student Government, but I fear it’d result in another embarrassing SMD fiasco for the university that would end in a search for FAU’s third student media director. During his phone interview, Saffran actually said, “The independent student press makes the official [public relations] office better, ultimately.”

The most curious thing about Saffran, however, may be his schedule. For some reason, FAU flew him in on Sunday — and paid for him to spend twice as many nights in a hotel as usual. Past candidates — and the other out-of-town candidate for this position — have always been brought in only the day, if not the night, before.

Michael Gaede: Wednesday, April 27

Gaede may have already blown his chances. During his phone interview, he used words like “transparency” and “First Amendment.” He used phrases like “I loathe prior restraint, prior review” and “The role of the paper should be to … find the truth.”

In my opinion, he’d be an excellent advocate for the students of student media, which we’re in sore need of. The thing is, as good as Gaede would be for students, he’s the worst nightmare of a control-hungry administration.

Joseph Schwerdt: Thursday, April 28

I think Schwerdt’s resume is the strongest journalistically, and he’s the only FAU alum and the only local professional still in the running. But I’m yet to identify additional strong suits.

He certainly didn’t do himself any favors by committing one of the biggest interview sins: not doing your homework. When asked for his opinion of our three student media outlets, Schwerdt admitted that he hadn’t even glanced at the websites of two: “I have really no exposure to Owl TV or Owl Radio.” His excuse? “I’m kind of slammed here these days. … It’s just a matter of hours of the day, I guess.”

Like I said in January, I believe Student Affairs likes employees they can control, and FAU’s first SMD was a perfect example of that.

$53,000/year wasn’t that much for a student media director. But when you made $30,000/year at your previous job and told Uncle Sam your debts outweigh your assets by $40,000, I think it’s a safe bet that you’ll protect your paycheck signers before you’ll advocate for students’ rights when the two are at odds.

While that’s all in the past now, I think it’s critical to examine past mistakes so they aren’t repeated in the future. And there’s no better time to reflect on our first student media director than while we’re preparing to select our second one.

That’s why I asked the guy who signed the first SMD’s acceptance letter — Student Affairs head Charles L. Brown — how this happened in the first place.

I was particularly curious how a senior vice president justified putting someone with severe financial issues and a theft-by-check charge in a position that oversaw at least $400,000 of tuition-payers’ funds this school year. He didn’t seem as concerned, though. In an email comment, he justified his hiree’s past with policy:

But if that’s the case, why does Brown hold students to higher standards when we too must abide by “approved policies and procedures“? Because over the summer he told me:

“I tell students that all the time. In terms of when you take on leadership roles, everything that you do represents the university. You don’t want to create a bad impression,” he explained. “As a leader — just like I represent the university, I don’t want to create a bad impression — as a student leader, you represent the university. You want to do things to make the university look well.”

So, does Brown hold paying students more accountable than paid employees, or is Brown saying bankruptcy and criminal charges “represent the university”?

Either way, to be fair, he probably didn’t know about the theft charge (1980s). In fact, I don’t think anyone at FAU knew about it — just the bankruptcy, five-page-long credit check, and pot possession charge (1990s) — because HR ran only a 7-year background check. In fact, they only knew about the drug charge because the SMD admitted to it on her application.

So, it seems FAU knowingly took a big risk on the other 40-plus years of her life. It makes me wonder what other employees may have been able to hide from HR — but that’s literally a whole other story. (Although the University Press has recently written several stories about two other examples of checkered hires in other departments: Manjunath Pendakur, the now-resigned dean of Arts and Letters, and Jimmy Dac Ho, the now-jailed former FAU police officer.)

He’s correct that FAU’s hiring rules call for HR, not the hiring department, to conduct screenings. Nothing in those rules bars him from accessing the paperwork on an employee-to-be, however (that would be unlawful). So, it’s his word against his word.

Besides, if Brown did sneak a peak at our first SMD’s paperwork before signing her acceptance letter — and you’d think it wise of a department head to learn all he could about a prospective employee before hiring her — it’s not like he would admit to it now.

====================

NON-HUMAN SOURCES: The unattributed facts and figures in this post were all obtained from U.S. Courts records, Dallas County criminal records, and FAU and Dallas County Community College District personnel files.

====================

UP NEXT: Speaking of our next student media director

They’re looking for a “press journalist,” according to him. “Press experience” is “high on the radar,” experience in a “college setting” is preferred, and TV and radio experience would be an “added bonus.”

I wondered if he was just telling me what he thought I wanted to hear by prioritizing journalism experience. After all, when we were searching for an assistant student media director, Student Affairs was clear that TV and radio experience was most important.

We’ll know soon enough, though: The search committee should recommend a hire before the month is out. In the meantime, the finalists’ documentation is below.

• Michael Gaede: cover letter, resume
• Michael Saffran: cover letter, resume
• Joseph Schwerdt: cover letter, resume

====================

UP NEXT: If past is prologue

When I wrote my previous post, I was unaware that the search committee had already finalized its decision about which three candidates to bring to campus. So, here’s the latest:

• April 8, 2010: The committee chair, Dean Corey King, updates the search committee about the in-person interviews:

Date: Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 12:41 PM
Subject: Search Committee for Director for Student Media (RESPONSE NEEDED ASAP)

Greetings!

We have reached a majority.  We will invite the following candidates for campus interviews for Director for Student Media:

Michael Gaede

Michael Saffran

Joseph Schwerdt

We are looking to have on campus interviews the week of April 25^th.

Dr. Corey A. King

====================

UP NEXT: The paperwork