J-School seeks reaccreditation

By Hannah Heimbuch
J-School Web Reporter

For two days in February, four journalism educators and professionals took over the J-School library to evaluate the University of Montana’s School of Journalism for reaccreditation. The visit was the apex of an evaluation that started in February 2005 and will end in May – a process that the J-School must undergo every six years to remain a nationally accredited school through the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.

photo by Garret W. Smith

Barbara Serrano, assistant online editor for entertainment for the Los Angeles Times, listens as Katrin Madayag speaks on an upcoming Web posting during the J-School's online journalism class.

“I think it went very well,” Dean Jerry Brown said of the visit. He said he fully expects the visiting group to recommend the J-School for reaccreditation when members of the Accreditation Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications convene this month. The UM School of Journalism has been accredited since 1948.

The four-person team, sent to UM by the ACEJMC, tackled the immense job of producing a comprehensive evaluation of the entire school in less time than it takes most people to complete a term paper. However, they did arrive armed with the J-School faculty’s exhaustive self-evaluation, which took nine months to complete.

“It’s a challenging task - to visit a school for a day and a half and then sit down and write a complete report on-site,” said Trevor Brown, chair of the site visit team. Brown has served on numerous site visit teams, and recently retired after spending 33 years at the Indiana University School of Journalism, 20 of which he was the dean. 

What the accrediting team finds is based largely on what the faculty finds and reports in the several-hundred pages of its self-study. Professor Carol Van Valkenburg, chair of the print department, found that the J-School maintains its strength through its faculty and educational focus.

“We are good teachers, strong professionals, we have an unmatched record of service and our students perform very well in the kinds of things we teach them to do,” Van Valkenburg said.

Several professors noted that the school is fairly unique compared with most schools across the country – in more ways than one. The UM J-School requires 10 years of professional experience from its faculty, rather than the Ph.D. in journalism that many other schools demand.

“This school prides itself on its professional orientation,” said Dennis Swibold, a professor in the print department who spent his nine months of self-study evaluating the J-School faculty.

A second attribute that sets the school apart is its focus on professional journalism, and not public relations or advertising.

“We are nearly unique in that we are not a communications program,” said Van Valkenburg. “We focus on those things that we think we do best…training people for jobs in the news media.”

One weakness that the site visit team pointed out involved the school’s methods of assessment, a standard of evaluation added by the ACEJMC this year. The site visit team recommended in its report that faculty focus more on analyzing student progress, and use it to adjust curriculum.

Many faculty members are open to the idea of improvement, and welcome the chance for a fair and accurate evaluation from a reliable source.

“It’s a great process,” said Keith Graham, professor of photography and design. “It lets you see your strengths and forces you to look at your weaknesses.”

photo by Louis Montclair

Professor Keith Graham wipes down the shelves in the Journalism School to prepare for the accreditation site visit team last month.

Some professors took the preparation to a more basic level. Knowing that the site-team members would be practically living in J-School spaces for a few days, professor Sheri Venema reactivated the faculty “Spiff Committee,” bent on dust-free computers and a tidy library.

“Sheri Venema is the spiff queen,” Swibold said. “She is an obsessive picture-straightener and picker-upper.” But Swibold didn’t hesitate to highlight his contributions. “I am personally responsible for the cleanest computer in the lab,” he said.

So, the visiting journalists had a workspace, and the School of Journalism received its evaluation (for which the School pays all expenses).

Professors expressed a general faith in the process and the importance of accreditation, despite the time it consumes. Graham and Van Valkenburg have both spent time as members of site teams for the ACEJMC. Graham has worked with Trevor Brown twice on-site at other schools and said that gives him even more confidence in the accuracy and value of the analysis.

“He’s smart, he’s sound, he probes, he’s fair; he analyzes the needs of the school based on the school’s mission,” Graham said.

The site-visit team also included Tim Janicke, editor for the Kansas City Star Magazine; Barbara A. Serrano, online editor and assistant entertainment editor for the Los Angeles Times; and Joe Foote, interim dean and a professor at the University of Oklahoma’s Gaylord College of Journalism.

The ACEJMC was established in 1945 and serves as the national body for the accreditation of schools of journalism. Its council, committee and site visit teams are made up of educators and professionals who are nationally recognized as experts in their field.

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