Jim Rodenbush was a student media adviser, First-Amendment advocate and champion for experiential learning in journalism at Indiana University until he was fired one year ago. In discussing the stupidity of his firing, he was open about the way in which university officials were disingenuous in their dealings with him and how his unwillingness to forsake the student journalists led to his dismissal.
He also talked a lot about how what was the start of the worst year of his life ended up reminding him of why he fought in the first place. All the people he knew over the years, and many he’d never known, popped out of the woodwork to offer help and support, something that really meant something to him.
Jim is no longer a student media adviser, but he is still actively involved in shaping student journalists in his new gig at Western Kentucky. He remains a First-Amendment advocate and champion for all the good things that great educators do for their students.
To encapsulate this crazy year is beyond my ability, but fortunately, Jim took to LinkedIn to give his friends and colleagues a recap. It’s published below with permission from Jim:
One year ago today, I was fired from Indiana University.
A lot can happen in one year. You would think being fired would be a defining event. Turns out, it wasn’t even close.
One week later, my dad died. Three months after that, my sister died. I moved twice. I started over in a new place, with a new job and a new community.
Along the way, I experienced pretty much every emotion you could imagine. When you feel like you’ve been kicked to the curb by your employer, it’s not a happy time. You go through it all — sadness, anger, defiance. Then, a period of really weird quiet. There were days when I considered if my career was over. Days when I wondered whether I had somehow ruined my life. Days when I wasn’t sure what would come next. When you’re unemployed for months, you have time to sit with all of those questions.
When looking back over the past year, it’s easy to first think about the person who went through everything with me.
My wife Jackie received a crash course in the First Amendment that she never asked for. She lived through every one of my emotions, every uncertainty, every move, every conversation about whether I had somehow blown up our lives. She watched me struggle with not knowing what came next while dealing with her own upheaval.
Through it all, she was strong, patient and graceful. She was willing to go through this with me, even though none of it was something she had chosen. I don’t know how you adequately thank someone for that. I’ll spend the rest of our lives figuring it out.
So many other people showed up too. Students, former colleagues, friends, journalism organizations, people I hadn’t heard from in years and people I barely knew. Then there was Bowling Green. I found a welcoming home at Western Kentucky University. The Hilltoppers have made starting over feel less like starting over. I’m grateful for that in ways I can’t fully explain just yet.
In the end, it’s weird. One of the greatest gifts of the past year may have been getting fired. Not because getting fired was good. It wasn’t. It was bad in all the possible ways. But because that moment will forever show people who I am.
When I had a choice between protecting my job and protecting what I believed student journalists deserved, I made my choice. A year later, I know that choice cost me something. I also know what it gave me, and that’s a much better understanding of who I am when things get hard.
So today isn’t really an anniversary of getting fired. It’s an anniversary of looking back at a year I never would have chosen and realizing that, somehow, there is a lot of good in life on the other side of it.
Oh, and, if there is ever such a thing as a cool souvenir from an awful moment in your life, this screen grab of an email from Mark Cuban to an IDS reporter is it. For Mark, I can be Jim Rosebush.
