Northwestern University has opened an investigation into the journalistic practices of its journalism dean, the Chicago Tribune reported. The dean, John Lavine, has faced growing criticism since the student newspaper, The Daily Northwestern, raised questions last week about quotations attributed to anonymous students that he used in columns for his alumni magazine.

In the quotations, students extolled new courses that were part of a controversial curriculum overhaul at Northwestern’s prestigious Medill School of Journalism that Mr. Lavine put in place last fall. A number of Medill School alumni protested the curricular changes in a petition and a letter to the university’s governing board in November.

On Tuesday, 16 faculty members at the Medill School wrote to university administrators that they were “deeply troubled” about Mr. Lavine’s use of anonymous sources and called on him to provide proof that he did not fabricate the quotes. The provost’s office is reviewing the complaints and “the veracity of the quotations,” a spokesman told the Tribune, declining to comment further. —Charles Huckabee