The COMM Department's Sumner Redstone Television Production Center is now almost nine years old. The equipment necessarily runs on a 24/7 basis, and is beginning to age and breakdown.

           

            In addition, as of AY 2016-2017, we now have a 20-workstation subscription for Adobe's Creative Cloud Software, and must renew this subscription on an annual basis. (We already pay an annual subscription and technical support for Avid Video Editing software.)

           

            We are doing the best we can, for the sake of our students - and in anticipation of our application to the Accrediting Council for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (ACEJMC) - to remain as close to state-of-the-art as a higher education department can possibly be. However, we must also take into account the need to avoid breakdown in the middle of the semester, when as many as nine classes are simultaneously using and reliant on these facilities.

 

We have drafted a letter, to be sent by President O'Donnell, to begin the process of applying for accreditation with the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (ACEJMC). As soon as this letter is sent, we will begin, in earnest, to ready our program to attain accreditation.

           

            The ACEJMC has nine standards: 1) mission, governance, and administration; 2) curriculum and instruction; 3) diversity and inclusiveness; 4) full-time and part-time faculty; 5) scholarship: research, creative and professional activity; 6) student services; 7) resources, facilities and equipment; 8) professional and public service; and 9) assessment of learning outcomes.

           

            During AY 2014-2015, we wrote the self-study for our first periodic review in accordance with these nine standards. Our external reviewer, who came from two ACEJMC accredited programs, told us the Council might flag us on two standards: diversity and assessment. We hope to meet, if not exceed all nine standards.

 

During our first periodic review in AY 2014-2015, our external reviewer - who we chose because of his experience with two programs accredited by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (ACEJMC) - did us the favor of writing his review with a mind toward our plan to pursue accreditation with ACEJMC. He suggested ACEJMC might flag us on the standards of diversity and assessment.

           

            Doing a better job of enhancing student outcomes is a constant for us, and our reviewer made recommendations to help us with this. Diversity is another matter.

           

            For AY 2017-2018, we will work to hire a journalism faculty member who add to the diversity of our department's full-time faculty. And while we have little control over the diversity of our student body, we will work to develop a program of initiatives, curricular and extracurricular, to strengthen the ways in which our program recognizes and reflects our place, and our work, in a diverse industry and a diverse world.