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Marketing alumna starts petition to return professor to marketing class

Former and current Cal State Long Beach students have started a petition to restore a marketing professor to the class he has been teaching for 12 years.

Before registration for fall 2013 began, marketing professor Michael Tomlin was assigned a 300-level marketing class, according to Dean of the College of Business Administration Michael Solt.

In May, however, Tomlin said he was informed via email by marketing professor Ingrid Martin that she instead would teach the course this fall.

Tomlin’s removal from the class resulted in the change.org petition, started by CSULB alumna Brittany Meinhardt, which calls for Solt to reinstate Tomlin back to the marketing class.

The petition, which started in August, had gathered 372 signatures as of Tuesday and is looking to gather 1,000 votes.

Students and alumni who support the petition have created wristbands and posters displaying the phrase “Students for Tomlin.” An advertisement for the petition has also been placed on a bus stop at Stearns Street and Bellflower Boulevard.

Meinhardt, who graduated in 2012 with a marketing minor, said she started the petition because she believes Tomlin’s industry experience and connections greatly exceed that of Martin’s, making Tomlin more qualified to teach the class.

“I went to Tomlin for an internship, and he helped me get it,” Meinhardt said. “I was able to start my career three days after I graduated college. If it wasn’t for Tomlin, I wouldn’t be where I am right now.”

Martin, a tenured faculty member who was previously chair of the marketing department, was not re-elected for the chair position this academic year. As a result, she has returned to fulfilling the duties of a full-time faculty member, according to Solt.

With the shift, Martin needed to teach more classes to fulfill her duties as a full-time professor. Tenured faculty members are required to maintain at least 12 units worth of work, which can include research and teaching classes, according to Solt.

Tomlin said Martin could have chosen other classes to teach, but she didn’t. According to the petition, Martin “just so happened to choose Professor Tomlin’s MKTG 330 course.”

Tomlin also said he believes Martin isn’t as qualified as he is to teach this particular class.

“When you’re replacing someone who has an expansive background in the field … with somebody who just decides to fulfill her workload but has never worked for an agency … [and] never worked for a company in the marketing field … you’d be doing a disservice to the students,” Tomlin said.

Solt said his decision to allow Martin to teach the class wasn’t inappropriate.

“We had limitations on the schedule,” Solt said. “And to fill the former chair’s teaching load in the area for which she had a master’s degree … Tomlin’s teaching was reduced by half.”

The dean also said that the department chair assigns classes to professors each semester and that no faculty members are guaranteed a course. Solt said that the department went through the process in the best way it could, and although “passionate people” weren’t satisfied, there wasn’t much they could do.

“In a sense … this is trying to compare two instructors and saying only one is qualified, therefore the other must not be qualified,” Solt said. “If you look at Dr. Martin’s background, her teaching experience and her guest speakers, I don’t know how big the difference is.”

Martin said that she has the skills and experience to teach this class.

“I have a master’s [degree] in advertising, and I did internships while doing my master’s,” Martin said. “I consult for companies in terms of advertising, and I have experience in that area, so it [the 300-level marketing class] seemed like the best fit for me.”

In addition, Martin said that all faculty participate in projects with companies and bring in speakers from the marketing industry.

“No, I didn’t work in the industry,” Martin said. “If you look around, most people haven’t … but we have contacts in [the] industry and do consulting work for [the] industry … and if they come and ask and pay us to help them, does that mean we have an understanding of what goes on in the industry?”

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