We are pissed off.

We are pissed off at how the bachelor of business administration program was handled, destroyed and most importantly at the dismissal of the man who is probably the most respected and admired professor, not only in the music industry program, but in the whole College of Business.

For the last few years, Loyola’s unique and nationally lauded music industry program has been offered in three colleges, respectively. The College of Business offered a business focused program, the College of Music and Fine Arts a performance focused program, and College of Social Science offered a production focused program.

According to Dean Boomgaarden, the cross college program caused too much confusion and drew concerns that the college would lose its accreditation if it employed “unqualified” professors.

The decision to discontinue the program was based on flimsy reasons, such as difficulty in coordination and confusion on the part of administrative staff. These problems are fixable. Many schools around the country, such as Belmont and Berkely, have functioning programs like this one in their business schools.

Alex Hertz, among other students, even suggested several workable solutions. Despite the reasonable, and often pointed nature of most student’s questions, Dean Boomgaarden never gave a clear answer. Quite to the contrary, he refused to answer the vast majority of questions presented to him.

The whole episode was exacerbated by the fact that students were left without information, uncertain of the future of their major, for a long time, until forum. Despite the importance of the issue, forum was co-opted by glitzy guest, to make matters worse, the prime mover in the situation, Dean Locander was not even present, even though he was a person who could have answered some questions regarding the repercussions of cutting the business program. His replacement was associate dean Angie Hoffer, who appeared unknowable of the discussion or decision-making process. Yet she was left as cannon fodder for angry and distraught students and remained mute during the questioning process.

These problems could have been forgiven had it not been for the dismissal of Professor George Howard.

Granted, Howard’s dismissal is collateral damage rather than an end in itself, yet this shows a callous disregard for the will of the students, the people for whom this program was created. Students come to the program from all over the country, and all of them claim him as one of the best teachers they have had. At the forum, alumni and students alike testified that he was the single most valuable part of their education at Loyola.

It must have felt incredibly awkward for George Howard to sit in uncharacteristic silence as the student body unanimously asked for Loyola to renew his contract for next year. To his credit, rather than responding to his tentative firing with bitterness, rather than riding the wave of anger, Howard responded with the dignity and absolute dedication to his students that we have all come to expect.

“All I want is what’s best for the program, whether I’m a part of it or not,” Howard said.

Frank Bombaci is a music industry studies major and can be reached at [email protected]