Legal and Ethical Issues for Advisers.

Not sure what the CMA powers that be were thinking when they scheduled "The Socially Conscious Adviser" and this session for the same hour on Thursday morning. I tried to go to the first simply because I was running late and the room was closer than the other. However, the socially conscious were not spacially conscious. The room set-up was backwards, so that the speakers were by the door. This lack of feng shui made it difficult to slink into the audience without disrupting the entire panel. So, rather than cause a ruckus, I decided to ditch the social and head down the hall to the legal and ethical.

This session, led by Kathy Lawrence of UT and Karen Bosley of Ocean County College, more fueled than calmed my anxiety as a first-year student media adviser. I am in charge of both the campus newspaper and radio station, so I was already a little wild-eyed before I had even walked into the room. True tales of advisers canned for their involvement in student media send “get prescription for ulcer medication” higher up my to-do list. (Bosley had been fired from her position as newspaper adviser after 30 years, but she has since been reinstated with the help of the CMA.)

Because I double-booked for this hour, I arrived just as the session changed in a Q&A format. As advisers in the audience starting asking about this and that hypothetical situation, I suddenly wanted my mommy.

Advice from Lawrence, head of CMA’s Adviser Advocacy Committee and immediate past president of CMA:
- Do not become involved in the content of the paper.
- Get a formal, written description of exactly what the student media advisor job entails.
- Do not get involved in a reader’s problem with the paper. Refer the complaint to the editor in chief.
- Seek alliances within the university.
- If needed, CMA can assign an investigator to your case and help as ombudsperson, so contact them.

I did find it reassuring that the CMA has people who, according to Lawrence, would drop what they were doing to help a fellow adviser out of a jam. Now that's what I like to hear. Lawrence handed out her business cards at the end of the session, and I think we all took one. Yikes, you never know.