Preliminary plan for the second floor of the new Journalism Building. Green indicates Kaimin spaces, yellow is classroom space and blue is the library. The Dean’s suite and administrative offices are orange.

J-School raises $7.25 million for new building

By Adam Weinacker
J-School Web Reporter

For a program birthed in Army surplus tents on the University’s Oval, the School of Journalism is certainly moving up in the world.

The J-School has raised $7.25 million in private commitments for its new building, which will be a far cry from the tents and bicycle shed that first housed the program founded by Dean Arthur L. Stone in 1914.

“I believe we can build a building that everyone will be completely satisfied with and will serve the needs of the school in the future for, say, $10 million,” Dean Jerry Brown said.

Brown estimated that the project will break ground within two years, provided that donor commitments continue at a steady pace. He expects the commitments to reach $8 million by the end of the year.

The original projected cost of the building was $12 million, but Brown said a lower price tag is possible if some parts of the building are left unfinished and some space is trimmed from the planned 75,000 square feet.

Higher enrollments and the need for a unified location for journalism students galvanized the move toward a larger building, Brown said. According to the Registrar’s figures, the total credit hours taken by journalism students rose 52 percent from the fall of 1999 to the fall of 2002. Higher enrollments have forced the journalism program to expand into four buildings.

“As it is now, broadcast and print students live in different worlds,” Brown said. “We need to be under one roof again. That was the ideal of Dean Stone.”

Print and photo students primarily use the current journalism building, which was built in 1936, while broadcast students use the PARTV building, McGill Hall and a house converted into faculty offices.

Bill Knowles, chairman of the R-TV Department, said it is difficult for the broadcast program to be divided among three buildings. The broadcast department is at the mercy of other schools and buildings to find space to teach, he said.

“We have no building. We have no place to work here,” said Knowles, who teaches Introduction to Mass Media, a class of more than 200 students for which space must be made in the Gallagher Business Building.

“We want a building where we’ll have dibs and control over our own space,” Brown said.

The new Journalism Building site, selected by UM President George Dennison, is behind Jeannette Rankin Hall and is surrounded by the Natural Sciences, Social Sciences and Liberal Arts buildings.

“I like the location because it puts journalism squarely between the sciences and the liberal arts, which is where we should be, realistically and symbolically,” Brown said.

The concept design calls for three levels above ground with a basement dedicated to radio production. KBGA, UM’s student radio station, and the Montana Kaimin, the school newspaper, would both be housed in the building along with a television production studio and an auditorium seating up to 300.

Brown said the concept design is strictly preliminary. For example, the original design envisioned a stadium-sized exterior television screen that would air student documentaries and Grizzly football games on the building’s west side. That idea has been scratched, Brown said.

“I can imagine the practical jokes that would come from that,” he said, foreseeing the screen hijacked by pranksters armed with pornographic films.

Brown and the faculty will soon meet with architects to discuss how the building should evolve so that it will best meet the needs of the school and its students. “We are going to talk about such things as whether we believe we’ve got enough space for the Kaimin, enough space for radio and television,” Brown said.

The design now incorporates a Native American Center on the second floor, but the room would be in a remote location, Brown said. The J-School is renowned for its Native American journalism education, and the new building should feature the center more prominently, he said.

“Attracting and retaining talented Native Americans who want to be journalists will be enhanced by them having a space that is their own with their own cultural signature,” he said.

The fate of the current Journalism Building will be decided at the central administrative level. Expanding the current building was deemed too expensive, Brown said, even though the structure has “great karma” and a “genie spirit.” Some of that karma may travel to the new building when historical elements of the current building – windows, plaques and parts of the dean’s office – are brought over.

Of the $7.25 million raised so far for the building, all but $1 million is from private individuals. Lee Enterprises, the company that owns the Missoulian, has pledged $1 million, Brown said. The current economic climate has set fundraising back a little, and the state has been unable to contribute what was originally expected, he said.

The fundraising will go public after more architectural drawings are made, said Curtis Cox, the school’s development officer. The public phase of the fundraising is different from the private donations already garnered. The current “silent phase” is a way to amass substantial funding – typically 50 percent of the total – so that other donors will be attracted by a financially supported building when the fundraising goes public, Cox said.

Fundraising in New York is planned for October, and Cox has already made a trip to Seattle.

Brown said donations are always welcome, and he hopes the total will be ratcheted up by gifts of $100,000 to $250,000. Even students now attending UM can donate, he said.

“You want to get out of Media Law?” he joked. “$2 million.”

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