Pub Notes 22: A hope grows in Buchtel

[This is an expanded version of the letter that originally appeared in the June 2016 issue of The Devil Strip.]

It’s only fitting it happened this way. Frustrating, but fitting.

I was 700 miles away from the trustees’ press conference at the University of Akron, when Scott Scarborough’s resignation was announced. But still, we had it covered. We were lucky, as we’ve been since the start, because of our connections and our community — our relationship to Akron. Preparation meets opportunity.

This happened on deadline for us so I was up at 4 am, working at my little sister’s dining room table to put this issue to bed: reading proofs and tweaking stories; checking in with ad clients; increasing our print run; setting up drop-off for distribution; organizing the “Liberal Redneck” comedy show featured on our back cover; prepping the next Live at Lock 4 event; working out plans for Unbox Akron’s future; and thinking about what to say in my Pub Notes …Hm, probably something about the Mark Mothersbaugh talk or my Weird Al interview, or both!

Then I got a call. The same network of sources that enabled us to break so many big stories — UA’s failed ITT Tech deal; TrustNavigator’s lack of experience; the massive freshmen enrollment drop; the plans for a “Grand Entrance” at the baseball team’s expense; issues with trustworthiness; cuts to support services proven to help retain and graduate black students; the state funding request to demolish parts of Quaker Square and all of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church (update on pg. 21); questions about new administrative hires and questionable job searches for handpicked candidates; and One World Schoolhouse, an overlooked effort to start a private K-12 school on campus — came through again.

Suddenly I was chasing down sources and searching for someone to cover the press conference, finding Chris Drabick (pg. 24), who had written for us about faculty job cuts that were unreported, in time to pack up and hit the road again. Riding shotgun while my wife navigated Atlanta’s ever-awful traffic, I posted Drabick’s photos on social media, gave our new managing editor a plan for the web and decided to push this issue back a day so we could update the magazine appropriately.

It reminded me of the day a gas tanker exploded in a fatal 20-car pileup three years ago on national signing day in Macon, Ga. I was a news manager at the market-leading TV station. Scores of high school athletes in our 26-county coverage area were committing to college scholarships so practically every available reporter — sports, news, weather — was already out the door when we first learned of a tanker explosion and 20-car pileup on I-16 caused by dense fog. The crash claimed four lives but the morning rush hour had just begun, so our small crew went into panic mode to warn the public, afraid that the problem was about to get much worse.

And I — a print-turned-web guy — was in charge. You need a tweet, I’m your dude, but making the call to break into network programming? Yikes. Fortunately, the station manager showed up and took over the heavy lifting, but I’ll never forget how we all pulled together. Especially, the three bright folks who reported to me on our web team.

The work I want to do is “slow journalism,” not breaking news, but I can’t help thinking about that morning now because I wonder how much The Devil Strip could accomplish with three paid editorial staff, let alone any for digital media. While other outlets scramble to get “community reax” or ask officials what they think about the thing someone else said at a press conference, I want to do thoughtful, contextualized reporting. Why? Because we are nakedly pro-Akron and our only reason to exist is to foster connections and build community among people who love this place too.

It’s also why I want to end on this note: The work is just beginning.

Finding a new president is just the start of an uphill climb. For UA to grow again, the community at-large must be as engaged as it has become over the past year, manifesting our love of Akron into attention on and effort for the university. The good news is we know now that attention can affect change so it isn’t enough to blame the administration or the trustees. We have a role, as a community, in what happens next.

Be good,
Chris