Newsroom note

As the national student financial aid scandal was reaching its peak last week with the release of a U.S. senate committee report mentioning Emerson, among many other colleges, we decided to look into the Emerson angle. After all, the college’s vp for public affairs had told our reporter last March 30 that the college had made about $1300 from one of these “preferred lenders” and that the money had been put in a scholarship fund for needy students. The reporter was also told that the college had reviewed and changed the way in which it was dealing with such contributions.

In an effort to find out what the college had changed, we assigned reporter Somsavath Phanthady to talk to the head of our student administrative services Dan Pinch, to whom the Emerson student financial aid head reports. The interview took place at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday. By the end of the day, the college was announcing that Pinch was being put on an administrative leave because of the allegations included in the senate report. The story turned out to be by far more substantive than we had anticipated.

The college community is shocked and eager to learn more about what went on. We’ll stay on top of it.

mp