No Lackadaisical Press for SGA Faculty Advisor

M.P. Hassel

September 4, 2024

Our elected student officers in Student Government Association (SGA) have been very active over the summer terms. To arrange a meeting about an article on SGA activities for the upcoming semester, I contacted Dr. Jeffrey Markovitz, the faculty advisor for SGA, but he declined to comment on SGA affairs. In response to my asking why he was avoiding an interview on the club he is advising, Dr. Markovitz wrote “Off the record: I do not believe previous reporting on the subject has been ethical and fair.”

This response is emblematic of the patronizing tone administrators and certain faculty have taken with members of Student Government Association and Student Vanguard News.The “off the record” comment is a veiled threat. Dr. Markovitz, a self-proclaimed former journalist, likely knows very well the rules of the phrase.

According to an article by Poynter, “A source should ask a reporter first if something can be off the record. Then the reporter can agree or refuse. The source then can decide whether or not they want to share that information.” I firmly believe in my ability and right to report on injustice at CCP, from abuse of power to laziness.

The reporting Dr. Markovitz did not approve of was in a SGA election article, in which several former officers were left off the ballot because they simply did not know about it. In one case, Thomas Haley, a member of SGA the year prior, lost in a write-in campaign to Frank Scales, the only presidential candidate on the ballot and now the current president-elect of SGA. I asked Dr. Markovitz how this situation came to be, and, although he did not want any blame to fall on himself or his colleagues, I did quote his concession:

Professor Jeffrey Markovitz, the faculty advisor for SGA says he could “take responsibility for the lack of foresight,” noting that he gives the members freedom in responsibility, “I just assumed that those officers would have known already or [seen] the email.”

I repudiate Dr. Markovitz’s conflation of “ethical and fair” reporting with his utter agreement. My reporting did not represent all of Dr. Markovitz’s opinions on the previous matter, nor could it have; I am a reporter for students at CCP, not his biographer.

Achieving fairness is incredibly challenging without open communication.

Dr. Markovitz has declined transparency on SGA before. In our previous interview, he declined to comment when asked whether the former SGA President was indeed enrolled at Drexel University. Instead, recommending students should work around the president’s “TBA” office hours and email him directly to reach him. That did not work.

I must note that I apologized if my previous coverage had not met his expectations and expressed a desire to discuss his views on ethical writing in a future interview. Dr. Markovitz is a published author and – if you have taken a class of his you would likely agree – a great English teacher. As editor of The Independent, I acclaim contribution of all kinds. including a letter to me, the editor, addressing concerns with SGA, my reporting, or the like. I would surely publish and share with my classmates a viewpoint from an SGA advisor.

Still, my worry remains that his rejection of further interviews and direct negation of my reporting is an attempt at subjugation and subversion. SGA President-Elect Frank Scales has lamented on the advisership Dr. Markovitz has offered over the summer, saying “he’s very good at what he does, unfortunately what he does is suppress students’ voices.”