The path to an undergraduate degree in journalism and electronic media could change, beginning with fall 2010’s incoming batch of freshmen, if the proposed makeover of the major’s curriculum goes into effect.
The College of Communication and Information faculty voted on Friday morning to pass the proposed changes with “a healthy majority,” said Jim Stovall, adjunct professor in journalism and electronic media. He said there was at least one dissenting vote and several abstentions.
Now the changes will go before the Undergraduate Council and then the Faculty Senate. Sam Swan, professor in journalism and electronic media, said he anticipated the changes to pass before those bodies as well.
“I don’t think there’s anything particularly controversial, and normally they just look to see if there are any conflicts between other departments, schools or colleges, and there shouldn’t be,” Swan said.
The proposed changes would eliminate the tracks in the major, where students can choose to specialize in one specific field. The 2009-2010 undergraduate catalogue lists news, magazine, visual communication, media management, sports journalism and science communication as track options for students.
The new curriculum would include courses already required in the major but with slight tweaks and more specific course names. Classes on journalism law and ethics, media and society and the history of journalism also appear on the new plan. So does the practicum requirement.
The proposed curriculum’s two main writing courses — Media Writing and Media Reporting — would have a greater emphasis on reporting for all different types of media, not just print, Swan said.
The Media Reporting class would serve the function of essentially combining courses, as the current slate of journalism courses offers one class in writing and reporting for electronic media and another for writing and reporting for print and the Web.
“That will prepare students to report for all media,” Swan said.
Combined courses allow for an easier workload for the school’s faculty, as well as more sections of the required courses available.
Stovall said it is currently difficult for journalism students to graduate on time.
“If you’re going to graduate in four years now, either you go to summer school once or twice, or you just get very lucky basically,” Stovall said. “So we think this new curriculum will alleviate that.”
It will reduce notorious bottlenecks in the major as well, Swan said.
“We had some bottlenecks in (JEM) 311, 315, 333, the copy-editing course,” Swan said. “Students were not able to get those, and that was backing things up.”
This new education in all facets of the journalism world would get students ready for an evolving workplace in the career field, he said.
“Reporters are being asked to write or report or package stories for other media, not only the principal media for which they work but for all media, so that’s what we’re moving toward,” Swan said.
Stovall agreed with the changes and said a narrow education in just one aspect of journalism leads to an unfinished education.
“All of the professionals and everything you read in here right now would say that if a journalism student trains just to be a broadcaster or a magazine writer, their training is really incomplete,” Stovall said. “And what the media outlets now are seeking are journalists who have a full range of skills.”
Under the proposed curriculum, all journalism majors would have to take a visual communications class, which currently is only required for students in the visual communication track. The class would feature a “hands-on project with new media” in the new Scripps Convergence Lab, currently being built on the fourth floor of the Communications Building, Swan said.
The Scripps Howard Foundation is funding the new lab.
Students would also need to complete a class called The Media Business and Future of Journalism.
Swan stressed that the requirement changes would only pertain to incoming freshmen in fall 2010. However, the class-offerings transition would affect current students in the school, especially current freshmen who have not taken many of the major requirements.
Under the changes, classes currently required for graduation would no longer be offered. An equivalency table would show which new courses count for which old credit requirements.
Swan said he did not anticipate much difficulty in the transition, since the merger of journalism and electronic media in 2003 consisted of a new curriculum and did not undergo many problems.
“Current students need not be alarmed,” Swan said. “This is not going to delay anyone from graduating.”
The upper-division electives in the major would remain the same, Swan said, and despite the lack of tracks, the proposed changes would offer more flexibility for students with their four to six journalism electives.
“It will allow students more choices than the current curriculum, and we think it will really meet their needs better, allowing them to concentrate or specialize if they choose to or if they want to take courses from several different areas, they can also do that as well,” Swan said.
Swan estimated that the next phase in the approval process would take place in January.