Training for team chairs: required
The Council will conduct a training session for team chairs in conjunction with the fall Council meeting. Attendance will be required for those who will be team chairs next year.
The session will be Thursday, Sept. 1, the day before the Council’s fall meeting, at the Westin Michigan Ave., Chicago. Team chairs should be approved by early July.
The main topic will be interpretation and implementation of the new standards. In addition, the session will introduce the new site team report form, which is considerably more structured than the previous open-ended template. It also will cover assignment of duties to team members for the new standards and the weight of non-compliance with fewer standards.
At the Council meeting May 6-7, numerous members who had served as team chairs discussed preparation for visits using the new standards. Council members recommended that ACEJMC conduct training.
Council to offer two sessions at AEJMC convention
ACEJMC will offer two informational sessions Wednesday, Aug. 10, at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication convention in San Antonio. Executive Director Susanne Shaw will moderate both sessions.
A general-information session will be from 10 10 11:30 a.m. Aug. 10. This session, intended for all interested parties, will be devoted to questions about the new standards, their implementation, new policies, etc. Trevor Brown, Accrediting Committee member, and Will Norton, ACEJMC vice president, will assist Shaw in this session.
A second session will be from 1:30 to 3 p.m. Aug 10. It will be intended primarily for administrators and will focus on the self-study process and preparation for the site visit. Brown, Shaw and Doug Anderson, Accrediting Committee chair, will conduct this session.
Ethics committee will collect information
|
A newly appointed committee will gather information about current practices in teaching ethics.
The Committee on Ethics in Education will distribute a questionnaire this summer to administrators of accredited schools. The purpose is to learn what ethics education means on the various campuses and to inventory current methods and practices. The committee will present information for discussion at the Council’s fall meeting.
Committee member Judy Nadler said the questionnaire’s emphasis would be best practices, not problems.
The 13-member committee met for the first time before the May meeting to discuss what ACEJMC could — or should — do regarding the teaching of ethics. Council President Saundra Keyes appointed the committee this spring in response to recurring incidents of plagiarism, fabrication and other ethical lapses by professional journalists.
Committee member Steve Geimann said, “Anybody who leads in journalism or education has been troubled over the past 10 years by increases in ethical lapses. It has always troubled me as a working professional to see people crossing the line.”
Members of the committee are: Jerry Ceppos, chair; Caesar Andrews, Hub Brown, Barbara Cochran, Jannette Dates, Robert Dodge, Steve Geimann, Terry Hynes, Judy Nadler, John Paluszek, Paul Parsons, Dot Ridings and Linda Shipley.
Three new schools accredited
|
The Council accredited three new schools at its May 6 - 7 meeting in Portland, Ore. The Council made accreditation decisions for 25 schools and now accredits 107 schools in the United States and one outside the country.
Newly accredited schools were: the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, North Carolina A&T State University; the Mass Communications Department, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville; and the Department of Communication, Southeast Missouri State University.
The Department of Communication, University of Utah, received provisional accreditation. All four schools that received provisional re-accreditation last year were granted full re-accreditation.
Click here to see a list of those four schools and the 17 other schools re-accredited by the Council.
Click here to see a press release summarizing the meeting.
Council elects Accrediting Committee members
The Council elected two new members and re-elected three current members to the Accrediting Committee.
New members are John Frazee, senior vice president of CBS News Services, and Dulcie Straughan, associate professor, School of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of North Carolina. Frazee was elected to a three-year term; Straughan was elected for the year remaining in the term of Kathleen Kelly, who will replace Dan Lattimore as a representative of PRSA on the Accrediting Council.
Re-elected to three-year terms were: Peter Bhatia, executive editor, The Oregonian; Patricia Dean, associate director, Annenberg School of Journalism, University of Southern California; and Pam Luecke, professor, Department of Journalism and Mass Communications, Washington and Lee University.
Karla Harshaw had served two terms and was not eligible for re-election. ACEJMC bylaws require that a majority of the Committee's 15 members be educators. This election results in eight educator members and seven industry members.
Council moves to limit individual influence
|
No one is currently serving on both the Accrediting Committee and the Accrediting Council, and the Council at its May meeting ensured that no one will.
The Council adopted an amendment to the ACEJMC bylaws that prohibits simultaneous service on both bodies. Previously, bylaws had allowed up to two individuals to hold double membership.
Last September, the Council adopted a change in policy that prevents members of the Committee and Council who have served on a school's site visit team from voting on that school. They may take part in discussions but may not introduce material not already in the written record.
Both changes were intended to limit the potential for undue individual influence on decisions. In theory, one person could have “voted” on a school as a site team member and then voted on the school as both a Committee and Council member.
Keyes appoints finance and membership committees
ACEJMC President Saundra Keyes has appointed members to the Council’s committees on finance and membership.
Finance Committee members are: Will Norton (chair), dean, College of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of Nebraska; Jerry Ceppos, vice president for news, Knight Ridder; Peggy Dotson, public member; and Terry Hynes, dean, College of Journalism and Communications, University of Florida.
Membership Committee members are: Jannette Dates (chair), dean, School of Communications, Howard University; Shirley Carter, director, School of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of South Carolina; and Steve Geimann, leader, U.S. transportation team, Bloomberg News.
ASJMC honors two Committee members
The Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication has elected Tom Kunkel as president. Kunkel, the vice chair of the Accrediting Committee, is dean, Philip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland.
ASJMC has awarded the 2005 Gerald Sass Award for Distinguished Service to Journalism and Mass Communication to Committee member Karen Brown Dunlap, president, Poynter Institute. The award will be presented Aug. 11 during the AEJMC convention in San Antonio.
Organizations appoint new representatives
Several of ACEJMC’s member organizations have appointed new representatives, or re-elected current representatives, to the Council.
Associated Press Managing Editors Association
Bill Felber, executive editor, Manhattan (Kansas) Mercury; replacing Caesar Andrews
Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication
Terry Hynes was re-elected, and Beth Barnes was elected to replace Will Norton. Both will serve three-year terms. Norton’s term as Council vice president will continue until spring of 2007.
Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
Kenneth Campbell, associate professor, School of Journalism, University of South Carolina; replacing Lana Rakow
Newspaper Association of America
James Crutchfield, publisher, Akron Beacon Journal; replacing Don Flores
Public Relations Society of America
Kathleen Kelly, professor and chair, Department of Public Relations, College of Journalism and Communications, University of Florida; replacing Dan Lattimore
Southern Newspaper Publishers Association
Chris Peck, editor, The Commercial Appeal, Memphis; replacing Tom Rawlins
Update your Council e-mail addresses
Check the e-mail addresses in your address book for Susanne Shaw, Charles Higginson and Cheryl Klug. The University of Kansas, our host institution, has ceased support for our original domain name, and e-mail sent to it will not be delivered. We have not publicized the defunct domain for several years, but old address books may still contain it.
All Council e-mail addresses should end in “ku.edu”; addresses ending in “ukans.edu” are no longer functional.
Correct addresses are:
Susanne Shaw, sshaw@ku.edu
Charles Higginson, crah@ku.edu
Cheryl Klug, cklug@ku.edu
Meetings calendar
Accrediting Council
Sept. 2, 2005 (note: one day only)
Westin Michigan Avenue
Chicago
Accrediting Committee
March 11 - 12, 2006
Westin River North Hotel
Chicago
Accrediting Council
May 5 - 6, 2006
Hampton Inn
St. Petersburg, Fla.
Poynter Institute, host
ACEJMC Ascent
Newsletter of the Accrediting
Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications
Vol. 12, No. 2, May 2005
President, Accrediting Council
Saundra Keyes
Editor
The Honolulu Advertiser
605 Kapiolani Blvd.
Honolulu, HI 96813
(808) 525-8080
Vice President, Accrediting Council
Will Norton
Dean, College of Journalism and
Mass Communications
University of Nebraska
Lincoln, NE 68588-0443
(402) 472-3041
Chair, Accrediting Committee
Doug Anderson
Dean, College of Communications
201 Carnegie Building
Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA 16802
(814) 863-1484
Vice Chair, Accrediting Committee
Tom Kunkel
Dean
Philip Merrill College of Journalism
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
(301) 405-2383
Executive Director
Susanne Shaw
Stauffer-Flint Hall
1435 Jayhawk Blvd.
University of Kansas
Lawrence, KS 66045 - 7575
(785) 864-3986
e-mail: sshaw@ku.edu
Publications Editor
Charles Higginson
Stauffer-Flint Hall
1435 Jayhawk Blvd.
University of Kansas
Lawrence, KS 66045 - 7575
(785) 864-7640
e-mail: crah@ku.edu
Council Website:
http://www.ku.edu/~acejmc