I’m angry.

I want to throw rocks and scream at the top of my lungs.

As much as I want to temper my words with the wisdom of my newly framed college degrees, I am in a corner where I want to strike out at the same school that has taught me so much.

Gladys McKie and Lincoln McKie are good teachers.

They’re people who have dedicated a big chapter of their lives to educating Northeastern students, and we all have to look upon that school now as they abandon these two great leaders.

Gladys McKie is someone who took me under her wing. At the end of my middler year, I still had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. Then, on a whim, I took an introductory public relations course-one of the ones only Gladys teaches.

By the end of the semester, I was so enamored with the media, so intrigued with it all, that I decided to double major in journalism, outside of my native College of Criminal Justice and put off what would have been an early graduation.

But moreover, by the end of that semester, after countless conversations with Gladys-who like many in the journalism field never let me address her with formal titles-I finally had some direction in my life. I finally felt like I knew where I wanted to go.

I have joked about it, but many people in the School of Journalism have heard me refer to Gladys McKie as my “journalism mom.”

That’s just how Gladys treats her students-like her children, who she wants to see do well by her. And that’s how Link McKie approaches his students. Like a father, he has high expectations, but only expects what he knows we can achieve.

Because of Gladys McKie’s teachings and the time she dedicates to bettering her students, I came out of college and walked into a managerial role as online editor/coordinator at the Attleboro Sun Chronicle newspaper, which I think is one of the top newspapers in the state.

Hundreds of us who go through the School of Journalism will be successful in our careers and in our lives because we found professors like the McKie’s who challenged and engaged us and forced us to realize our potential.

And that’s a gift a piece of paper can’t give someone.

So, yes I’m angry at Northeastern. But moreover, I’m hurt, and I’m sad.

In the same breath that I want to scream I want to cry, because my school is telling me that the same professor who took the time to convince me I had a gift is actually not qualified to teach. And in some abstract way that makes me question myself.

Well, you’re wrong, administration at Northeastern.

This just isn’t about our favorite professors or gifted educators losing their jobs. This is about Northeastern needing to remember its students, its image and itself.

We’re being told what’s good for us; being given our opinions on the silver platter of the U.S. News and World Report Top 100 list.

Force, however, runs contrary to the educated mind. It must be remembered that educated people have minds of their own, and they–we–will not sit idly by and watch our peers have an education that’s packaged and stuffed down our throats, pre-sliced and cookie-cut.

This institution will either learn that lesson now or learn a much harder one too late.

Let’s not forget that student input and satisfaction play a part in those U.S. rankings too.

Sign the petition: www.ipetions.com/petition/Save_Professors_McKie

– John Guilfoil is a 2007 graduate of the College of Criminal Justice and the School of Journalism. He is a former Student Government Association vice president and a former member of The News staff.