Alumni of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism have sent a petition and letter to the university expressing their dissatisfaction with recent curricular changes and asking that faculty governance be reinstated, according to a posting on the Chicago Reader’s News Bites blog.

The petition, which had been signed by more than 75 alumni, went to the university’s Board of Trustees and provost. Northwestern officials had not responded when the letter was posted by the local weekly on Friday.

The new curriculum, which was unveiled in August, has prompted intense debate over the roles technology and marketing should play in training journalists.

The university’s dean, John Lavine, has said that integrating multimedia techniques and the study of “audience understanding” makes the curriculum more relevant today.

The letter’s authors wrote that they were “appalled at the manner in which these changes are being implemented. Because faculty governance has been suspended, Dean Lavine has been making changes unilaterally or with staff members that support him indiscriminately.” Critics, they said, had been demoted or forced out.

They also objected to changes in a program that had allowed students to work in Washington as correspondents for various publications. —Katherine Mangan