Administration and Orientation of Undergraduate Journalism Education:
Variables Affecting 'Best Fit' Between Higher Education Institutions and Programs
Douglas J. Swanson, Ed.D
Oklahoma Baptist University
Paper presented at the 41st Annual Conference of the Western Social Science Association, Fort Worth, Texas, April
23, 1999. The author is Frank W. and Pauline G. Patterson Assistant Professor of Journalism at Oklahoma Baptist
University. He may be reached via e-mail at:
RUNNING HEAD: Journalism Programs
Abstract
This paper addresses different perspectives on the best administrative 'home' for undergraduate journalism education,
from administrative and curriculum perspectives. The paper begins by reviewing the history of journalism as a
college discipline--showing that even from its earliest years, the founders of the field disagreed on administrative and
curriculum emphases. Some variables which affect 'best fit' between discipline, institution, and program today are
cited--they include individual academic program and goals, the institutional academic culture, collegiate
organizational structure and bureaucracy, and external environmental variables. Finally, the paper reviews typical
organizational structures chosen by higher education institutions today, as they continue to struggle with where
journalism belongs in academe.
Overview
From the time the first college journalism education programs were established in the United States more than a hundred years ago, there has been disagreement about journalism's status as a higher education discipline. Some believe journalism is an academic field unto itself, one which is deserving of significant theoretical attention, contemplation and study. Others believe journalism to be more appropriately viewed simply as a professional or vocational skill, and not as an area of deep theoretical import.
There has also been considerable disagreement about the form a college journalism education program should take, and the place it should occupy within the higher education institution. Some believe college journalism education is an extension of the liberal arts discipline and should be housed with humanities and literature. Others believe journalism should be identified with communication, and studied in league with speech, rhetoric, and perhaps film, television and radio broadcasting and electronic media.
In light of the options, journalism educators find themselves constantly "struggling to maintain, and even to initiate, curricular breadth that is relevant to developing professionals" (Stark et al, 1987, p. 3). There is no single answer to the question of how we should conceptualize the study of journalism within higher education; nor is there a definitive interpretation of the 'appropriate' place for journalism instruction within each academic hierarchy.
Rather than searching for a 'one size fits all' answer which cannot be found, the aim of this essay is to reflect on the
history of the journalism as a college discipline and discuss some of the organizational variables which affect 'best fit'
between institutions and their journalism programs. A brief illustration will be made of the two major philosophical
distinctions. It is hoped that an analysis of this type might serve to shed some light on critical issues of journalism
program leadership and administration for the 21st century.
History of journalism as a college discipline
The development of journalism into an academic field for study within the confines of American higher education traces its roots to the late 1860s and what O'Dell terms "natural social action" (O'Dell, 1935, p. 3) resulting from a variety of historical and social events: the Penny Press, general social progressiveness, and national expansion occasioned in part by the end of the Civil War.
Introduced to the U.S. from England in about 1830, the Penny Press was unlike any journalistic form previously seen in the U.S. It changed the concept of news from that of politics and events in Europe to "hometown events, particularly those involving crime and sex" (Whetmore, 1982, pp. 38-39). The format was embraced by publishers who realized greater financial gain by directing their publishing efforts toward a growing population of newspaper readers in municipal areas. Actions of the Penny Press greatly disturbed the status quo because Penny Press publishers eschewed traditional thought-provoking discussion of important social and philosophical issues for stories which sold more papers--and brought about greater profits.
With the Penny Press came the development of a different type of journalist--one who was no longer a dispationate observer reporting facts of record. Journalists of the late 1800s and early 1900s were much more likely to act as advocates reporting in the public interest.
At this same time, a greater degree of social progressiveness came about in American society. This progressiveness resulted in part from technological advancements including development of the telephone and automobile, the extension of greater civil rights for women, and new, expanded labor laws and protections.
The end of the Civil War contributed to change in America by allowing the nation to experience a heretofore unprecedented expansion in its physical size and population. The U.S. borders expanded westward with the opening of new states and territories while the population increased ten-fold between 1790 and 1860 (O'Dell, 1935).
"The entire social order had to be remade," O'Dell observed. "The educational institutions, servants of the communities in which they were located, naturally were called upon by the people to assist in solving the many troublesome problems involved" (1935, p. 9).
Although there were dozens of newspapers and other similar publications produced and distributed on college campuses by the mid-1800s, most were associated with literature groups, English clubs and societies. Often, as at Princeton in 1835, these publications contained mostly "college productions in prose and verse" with a smattering of news of current events (McClure, 1883, p. 63). None was associated with a journalism program, because no such program existed.
The first call for establishment of formal journalism training within the academic environment came in 1869, when General Robert E. Lee, the newly-installed president of Washington College, wrote to his board of trustees asking for establishment of 50 scholarships for "young men intending to make practical printing and journalism their business in life" (O'Dell, 1935, p. 15).
Lee saw a rehabilitory role for journalism education, in that it could help provide professional skills trailing for men of the impoverished South. Unfortunately, General Lee died shortly after making his proposal. The scholarships were never awarded, and the college abandoned plans for journalism curriculum in 1878.
A similar, vocationally-oriented proposal calling for professional certification in journalism was proposed at Cornell University in about 1875. It, too, was abandoned a few years later, after the death of a financial backer. (Interestingly enough, the qualifications for earning the Cornell certificate would have included "knowledge of telegraphy"--something which perhaps indicated Cornell administrators' concerns about including journalism within an early mass communication framework.)
Instruction in journalism at the college level finally took root at the University of Missouri in 1878, where independent courses were offered in association with literature, history and studies of politics. In 1908, Missouri's program became the first stand-alone Journalism School at the college level (Jeffrey, 1994), adopting the philosophy first espoused by Dr. Charles Eliot at Harvard, who saw journalism as first and foremost a business--and felt prospective journalists needed both editorial and management training.
Close behind Missouri was Columbia University, where publisher Joseph Pulitzer awarded a $2 million endowment in 1903, with the aim of establishing a journalism school "making it possible for journalism to rise to the level of other professions, through the medium of formal education" (O'Dell, 1935, p. 65). After several lengthy delays, the Columbia School of Journalism opened in 1912.
Other institutions, including Denver University, the University of Illinois, University of Michigan and others were soon to follow. Professional associations were formed--the American Association of Teachers of Journalism in 1912 and the American Association of Schools and Departments of Journalism in 1917. By 1934, 455 collegiate institutions in the U.S. offered journalism instruction (O'Dell, 1935).
Although traditional print journalism education developed markedly in subsequent years, by the late 1950s a new force--that of education in communication studies--was impacting on journalism programs. As new technology expanded the size of the audience for various types of communication related to journalism, and as academic researchers began to delve more into studies of communication in social action, many academics within the discipline began looking to lead the field of journalism into new relationships.
"The uniting of communication studies and journalism grew, in substantial part, out of a mix of bureaucratic expediency and a lack of understanding of journalism," Medsger writes (1996, p. 55), claiming that the absorption of traditional journalism education into the larger discipline of communication studies was politically and economically motivated. "The union did not result from an altruistic desire for new philosophical understandings and/or a new commitment to academic or professional excellence" (1996, p. 55).
In 1995, college journalism education was well into its second century with at least 427 colleges and universities known to be offering some form of journalism degree--from small programs with just a few students in a journalism subject area, to the University of Iowa's massive Journalism School with an enrollment of almost 2,900 undergraduates (Kosicki & Becker, 1996).
College journalism enrollments did grow strongly in the 1970s and '80s (JMC Education. . ., 1995; Cowdin, 1985) and continue to show growth in the '90s (Jeffrey, 1994). The field "remains largely devoted to undergraduate education" with an estimated 141,167 college students, 91 percent of whom are studying at the undergraduate level (Kosicki & Becker, 1996, p. 6).
But, as in the early years when there were distinctly different perspectives on journalism education--Robert E. Lee's
framing of journalism as a vocation; Joseph Pulitzer's framing of journalism as a profession with close academic ties;
and Charles Eliot's framing of journalism as a business with editorial and management implications--there remain
today great differences within academe as to what journalism education is, where it belongs, and how it should best
prepare students for career realities.
Variables which affect 'best fit' today
The typical institution of higher education is a large and complicated organization with many layers of structure. Even the smallest community college can have dozens of administrators, managers, support staff and instructional personnel spread out in many different departments in one or more campus communities. A large research-
oriented university can have tens of thousands of people in its employ, carrying out innumerable tasks either directly related to or indirectly supporting the educational mission.
When attempting to assess how and why things work the way they do in such an organization--as Bohlman and Deal point out--"[a]lmost anything can affect anything else, and it is often difficult to know what happened, much less why (Bohlman & Deal, 1984, p. 11).
For that reason, administrators and others who look for explanations of institutional behavior in higher education attempt to identify theoretical frameworks through which to establish cause-effect links. These frameworks help make sense of situational complexities (Bohlman & Deal, 1984), allow for explanation of shared patterns of behavior witnessed within the organization (Peterson & Spencer, 1991), and can guide research with the anticipation that the researchers' subjective predispositions are as far removed as possible from the conclusions reached (Stark, Lowther, Hagerty, & Orczyk, 1986).
Frameworks have been created to identify educational organizations as administrative systems (Dill, 1991), as professional bureaucracies (Mintzberg, 1991), as distinct cultures (Masland, 1985) as rational, bottom-line oriented institutions (Chaffee, 1991), and as political systems (Deluga, 1988). Colleges and universities have been looked at as "cybernetic institutions" which provide direction through self-regulation of inherent processes (Birnbaum, 1988), and as collegial systems where "[w]ith deep emotional commitment, believers define themselves by their organizational affiliation, and in their bond to other believers they share an intense sense of the unique" (Clark, 1991, p. 51).
The decision-makers who lead and manage higher education organizations have been characterized as rational individuals who "match marginal resources with preferred priorities" (Chafee, 1991, p. 264) or--particularly in the case of university presidents--as leaders who should act as symbolic visionaries and constructive mediators (Kerr, 1995). They have also been portrayed as somewhat hapless bystanders in an organizational process which operates at least in part through the "garbage-can decision making" strategy which allows "problems and solutions [to] become attached to choice opportunities" to facilitate change (Birnbaum, 1988, p. 162).
Of course, different administrators approach issues differently, and the overall picture of a higher education institution can be as much a product of the administration, environment, policies and politics as it can be of the men and women who make decisions within the institution itself.
That said, we return to the question at hand: What variables determine 'best fit' between a higher education
institution and the orientation and administration of its journalism education program? The author's professional
experience, coupled with an examination of the literature, allows for identification of at least four:
Academic program and goals
Much of what a colleges or university honors as its program and goals comes as a result of what it is--a public or private institution; a community college, regional four-year institution, research university, 'liberal arts' college, 'Ivy League' school, etc. The definition of what role the institution plays is frequently elaborated in the oft-cited but seldom understood rhetoric of the institutional mission statement. The mission statement serves in effect as a test of what organizational and educational inputs are anticipated and what outcomes will be expected.
Of course, in many instances, collegiate mission statements are subject to a great deal of interpretation based on the organizational culture and norms. "The exact meaning of [mission statements] was always in the eye of the beholder," Medoff writes, noting that mission statements are, a best, "general enough to allow much interpolation and interpretation" (1994, p. 3). At worst, he writes, they are so nebulous as to be virtually worthless. A university may claim, for example, that it supports 'strong written and oral communication skills', but the mission statement claim is likely to make no reference to what academic programs will be responsible for imparting those skills, what exact skills will be transferred to students, how skills will be compared to one another, or how students' proficiency will be measured.
The existence of a college press, and resulting potential for legal problems, may also directly or indirectly impact an
educational institution's program and goals--and, thus, dictate whether a journalism program is housed within the
institution, and what form that program might take. Cook's article on journalism administrative strategies (1989)
points out that the college press is "intimidating or threatening" to many higher education administrators. Despite
Cook's contentions that a free college press can "enhance the information process and exchange of ideas at the
institution" (1989, p. 11), the fact remains that many colleges and universities have done away with journalism
programs simply because administrators were unwilling to take the legal risks of running them and dealing with their
student publications.
Academic culture
Closely related to the program and goals is the academic culture of the institution. Academic culture has been defined as the set of social values expressing the attitudes and beliefs of the organization and the people who function within it. Academic culture includes the many stories and legends which surround a college: Who the people were who came together to found the institution, why they saw the need for the type of education it could offer, what trials and tribulations they went through in their efforts to launch the institution, and so forth.
The culture of an institution has a great bearing on what type of journalism education program could be set up there, and how it should continue to operate. At Oklahoma Baptist University, for example, a committee worked for an entire academic year to determine whether the best organizational location for the journalism program was in a merged communication studies program. In the end, it was decided that, due to the particular academic culture of OBU as a Southern Baptist liberal arts school, journalism should remain within the confines of the Division of Languages and Literature, where it has an academic home with English, history and foreign languages. At the same time, the committee affirmed that communication studies and telecommunication should remain within the College of Fine Arts--an odd location, indeed, when compared to other similar programs at other institutions, but a location which proves to be a good cultural fit for the peculiarities of OBU's religious private-college church-training culture.
Other variables related to academic culture include the particular sequence and structure orientation of the
journalism program (Jeffrey, 1994), the number of doctorate-degreed journalism faculty (JMC Education. . ., 1995;
Dickson & Sellmeyer, 1992; Cowdin, 1985), the extent to which journalism faculty members have the ability to be
involved in academic research (Medoff, 1994), and the extent to which the academic culture implicitly or explicitly
demands faculty research production (Bodle, 1993).
Collegiate organizational structure and bureaucracy
The development and growth of a journalism education program is greatly affected by the collegiate organizational structure and bureaucracy of the host institution. The nation's top ten journalism programs--including Iowa State, Michigan State, Penn, Syracuse, and California State-Fullerton--are all housed in independent schools of
journalism which have the physical, financial, personnel and bureaucratic structures in place to deal with thousands of undergraduate students and their needs.
Smaller programs, on the other hand, will most likely be identified in the organizational structure as a division, department, or program sequence.
The drawing of organizational boundaries for the collegiate journalism program results in part from the size of enrollment--which in turn dictates the size of the faculty, the number of classes offered, the extent of financial support from the institution, classroom and laboratory space, library resources available, even the number of newspaper subscriptions to which the journalism program can afford to subscribe.
When forming almost any professional bureaucracy, administrators will attempt to create a system of standard-designed hierarchies operating fairly autonomously, in which professional skills are standardized, routine tasks are decentralized, power flows from the lower hierarchies to the top and authority flows from the upper ranks to the bottom (Mintzberg, 1991).
Other important aspects of organizational structure and bureaucracy include the degree to which the institution's
inputs and outcomes are tightly- or loosely coupled (Weick, 1991), the size of a journalism program and its
"centrality in the academy" as related to the general political climate and allocation of funds (McCall, 1994, p. 8), the
blending of journalism with other institutional programs and the sharing of faculty from different academic areas
(Medoff, 1994), the location of and amenities contained in faculty offices which facilitate teaching, advising,
research and other tasks (Medoff, 1994), and even the extent to which the institution promotes access by students to
journalism program sequences (Jeffrey, 1994).
External environmental variables
Journalism education programs are affected by a number of external environmental variables, including but not limited to: Opinions of working professionals, technological change, opinions and actions of university alumni, and influence of the community at large.
The attitudes and opinions of working private sector journalists may be the strongest influence--at least in terms of the volume of survey research material illustrating their opinions. In November, 1995, a task force of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication released an extensive report which examined no fewer than 25 studies dealing either fully or in part with changes working journalists would like to see in journalism education (JMC Education. . ., 1995). Many of the demands of working journalists are contradictory: Some journalists want journalism education to offer "greater emphasis on the practical skills needed to prepare students for work in the newspaper industry" but "less emphasis on techniques that can be learned on the job." Other journalists asked for faculty members to would be better trained as teachers--but have more professional media experience. Still other respondents indicated their desire to see "more rigor" in journalism education, but also "a greater emphasis on the liberal arts" (JMC Education. . ., 1995, p. 4).
Other surveys cited by the task force criticized journalism educators for their emphasis on theory, claiming educators are "out of touch with reality"--while other research cited in the same JMC report criticized educators for spending too much time trying to teach practical skills "[which are] better learned on the job" (JMC Education. . ., 1995, pp. 3-4).
At the same time, other surveys showed journalists working in smaller newspapers "want entry-level graduates with good practical skills, while larger newspapers want graduates with a broad education" (Dickson & Sellmeyer, 1992, p. 35). A great many media professionals reported wanting more collegiate emphasis on writing skills--along with a more broad-based college education (Auman & Cook, 1995). Others asked for programs to "internationalize" their curricula to reflect a greater world view (Bautista, 1994).
In summary, journalism schools are being pulled in four directions by "editors who don't like the quality of graduates, colleagues in other fields who consider journalism schools as trade schools, journalists who state that journalism education is not relevant to the practice of journalism, and from other journalism faculty" who quibble over issues related to academics and administration (Dickson & Sellmeyer, 1992, p. 11). The authors write that probably the most ironic note to all of this is that the industry professionals who are so dissatisfied with journalism education still eagerly line up to hire graduates of all the journalism schools they're so displeased with.
Technological change is another variable to be taken into account when considering 'best fit' between an institution and a journalism program. Journalism programs must recognize and adapt their curricula to a world in which electronic reception, processing, storage and delivery of information is the routine--not the exception (Jeffrey, 1994). Journalism programs which, regardless of their vocational or academic orientation, cannot keep up with technology change will not be able to recruit and retain students for their host institutions.
Opinions and actions of university alumni and the community at large are also powerful, when considering how a journalism program could be established and made functional within the institution. In today's economic climate, higher education institutions must go outside themselves to raise financial support to build buildings, purchase expensive equipment, endow scholarships, hire special faculty and engage in service endeavors. Ongoing support is also needed, both among private and public institutions. Higher education institutions with student publications as part of a journalism program have an additional burden in that, in most cases, they must recruit advertising support for those publications in order for them to survive. An institution must consider the attitudes and opinions of its community and former students when attempting to 'fit' a journalism program--as it would any program which cannot survive without outside support.
The four areas just reviewed offer only a glimpse of the many complexities higher education institutions must address when considering whether to start, continue, or abandon a journalism program, or merge a journalism program with another discipline. Any such decision must be made with the consideration of the academic programs and goals, academic culture, organizational structure, bureaucracy, and external environmental variables which affect both the institution itself and the journalism program as a separate entity.
Moreover, it should be noted that each individual institution makes decisions of this type in light of a
decision-making framework which is unique to that institution--whether it be rational, bureaucratic, political, or some
other form or combination of forms. The framework under which the decisions are made will influence the selection,
consideration, and weighting of variables.
Academic institutions and their choices
There is indeed a mixed bag of options for students who wish to pursue a journalism education at the college level. Even in a relatively small state such as Oklahoma, a quick perusal of just a few of the dozens of programs shows journalism to be aligned with broadcasting and mass communication at the University of Oklahoma School of Journalism and at Oklahoma State University; journalism as part of a division of languages and literature at Oklahoma Baptist University; journalism as part of the Department of Communication and Theater at Southeastern Oklahoma State University; journalism as part of the Division of Arts and Humanities at Oklahoma City Community College; journalism as part of a program of arts and letters at Cameron University; and journalism as part of communication studies--with a student newspaper published through the office of student publications--at Rose State College.
In most cases nationwide, journalism education seems to be fitted into one of two academic/professional
orientations. These are as follows:
Literature orientation
Journalism programs which are organized and administered within a literature orientation are generally found in liberal arts-oriented institutions, often in private colleges or small public universities. The journalism program which is attached to literature tends to be one which has an emphasis on writing skills as part of a sharing of the story of human history. It is a program in which students learn to write by being witness to events, studying their elements, questioning the truth of a situation--and then reporting upon what is known in accurate, articulate text. "Journalism, with its immediate practical relationship to the world of action, provides an excellent source for students of literary and critical theory to explore the theoretical implications of meaning-making through language," Shilton writes (1996, p. 88). "Rather than focusing on language as an end in itself, journalism relates to language as information at the service of the public" (p. 89).
While the literature/ liberal arts orientation often makes language the cornerstone of a journalism program, it does not do so to the extent of all else. In a great many journalism programs of this type, "three-quarters of the journalism student's time is spent studying economics, science, and other subjects outside the journalism school" to give the student "some in-depth knowledge of one or two other fields about which they might write with some perception" (Cowdin, 1985, p. 19).
It is a common belief among scholars who support the literature/ liberal arts format for journalism education that, as
Cowdin writes, "Journalism education exists primarily for the good of the students, not primarily for the good of the
media industry" (1985, p. 16). Therefore, students who pursue a journalism degree within a higher education
framework of this type are not as much seeking career preparation skills as they are a hearty liberal arts education
which will provide them with a variety of important skills and knowledge regardless of the student's destination after
graduation.
Communication studies orientation
Whereas a journalism program with a literature or liberal arts orientation is tied to the written traditions, the journalism program within a communication studies sequence is one which is "inextricably bound to the oral tradition" (Jeffrey, 1994, p. 8) of speech and rhetoric. In such a program, journalism education will be offered alongside education in speech, debate and argumentation, and radio, television and film studies.
Although it is difficult to ascertain the percentage of journalism education programs which have aligned themselves with communication studies, it would appear that programs of this type are in the majority--regardless of whether they organizationally are described as communication, communication studies, mass communication, communication and broadcasting, or some other derivative. Even the academic, professional and scholarly groups which once identified themselves purely as journalism organizations now identify with both journalism and mass communication--e.g. the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, and its publication Journalism & Mass Communication Educator.
It has been argued that a program of different disciplines held together under the banner of communication studies is politically the best option for a higher education institution, since it allows the often smaller sub-disciplines such as journalism, rhetoric, and speech a way of "defining their centrality in the academy" to benefit from "strength in numbers" and be less vulnerable to administrative cuts (McCall, 1994, p. 8).
Scholars who support the communication studies arrangement do so often because they perceive journalism to be a discipline of communication rather than a specific literary form. And for that reason, they believe journalism study needs to be undertaken in context with the study of communication and media as a general discipline--with the primary objective being "educating students to be able to understand and perform in the future communication world" (McCall, 1994, p. 9).
Some have argued that journalism's failure to promote itself as a communication study along these lines results from a journalism "inferiority complex" (DeMott, 1984, p. 31).
While still supporting education in the traditional craft and techniques of journalism, proponents of this
administrative and curricular arrangement cite the commonalities involved between journalism and communication
study. "The obvious aspects are those that involve messages: message design, message construction, message
transaction, message reception, and the evaluation of message effectiveness" (Medoff, 1994, p. 12). So, despite their
arguments that an increasingly complicated world offers "greater need to train [journalism] specialists" to write of the
relationships between facts and figures, it is recognized by scholars that "journalism schools have begun to jettison
the practice of having students specialize in a particular medium or mode of delivery"--emphasizing instead "a
multimedia approach right from the beginning" (Yovovich, 1996, p. 221).
Future trends
Journalism education--regardless of how it's structured--is still important as an academic field, and as a means of professional preparation. Although in past years as many as four out of five students who took journalism courses at the higher education level never went on to work as journalists (Cowdin, 1985), most did go to work in fields where their journalism skills served them well--in advertising, banking, business administration, or public relations.
Among individuals who became journalists between 1984 and 1994, and who were still employed as journalists in 1995, 71 percent had studied journalism within higher education at some level. Of these journalists, 47 percent majored in journalism at the undergraduate level and 9 percent earned a master's degree in journalism (Medsger, 1995).
There is great disagreement among administrators and educators about where journalism as a profession is headed, and how journalism education should be structured at the college level, 66 percent of journalism educators surveyed in 1995 agreed that curriculum reform is the most important change needed in journalism education (Medsger, 1995). Academic and professional literature on the subject reflects a wide variety of opinions on how to go about such a change.
The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication task force, critical of AEJMC's professional accreditation standard which "holds back experimentation and change" among higher education programs, has called for replacing current standards with "a system that allows for creativity and experimentation" (JMC Education. . ., 1995, p. 34). Though significant for some programs, changes in accreditation would have little or no impact on the two-thirds of journalism programs which do not elect to seek AEJMC accreditation.
For these programs, and for journalism education in general, it's likely that more significant growth will come to the extent that journalism programs can keep the field "protected and respected as a distinct area of study and not submerged into general communications courses" (Medsger, 1996, p. 66). At the same time, programs will need to recognize that most journalism students do not go on to work as journalists--and for that reason, programs will need to "consider more options for students rather than fewer" (Dickson & Sellmeyer, 1992, p. 35) and "better equip students to enter the job market with flexibility and a broader understanding of the new communication industries created by virtue of communication technology convergence (Jeffrey, 1994, p. 18).
A daunting task, indeed: Protecting and preserving journalism education as a respected and distinct academic area, while supporting and building links to numerous other fields within the general sphere of communication--broadcasting, computer-mediated communication, communication dispute resolution, electronic publishing, interpersonal communication, political communication and social issues studies, just to name a few.
Perhaps the challenges so many people see with journalism education are not as much related to this one field as
they are related to all fields--is it not an ongoing struggle to keep any subject area new, fresh, intellectually and
practically challenging to the people who study within it? More than 20 years ago, Richard Giardina wrote about
what were then serious questions raised by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education about the quality of
American higher education in general. Giardina came to a number of conclusions about what an effective Bachelor
of Arts degree program should do. He said it should be achievement based, build off competencies gained in high
school, relate to social needs, encourage specialization while recognizing a need for continual professional re-tooling,
and allow for a continual re-examination of the traditional distinctions between general and specialized learning
(Giardina, 1974). Perhaps these suggestions are equally well taken today, as each higher education institution
considers whether journalism education belongs in its curriculum--and in what form.
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