Team chairs to speak at August meeting

Four experienced team chairs will present a half-day program at the Accrediting Council's Friday, Aug. 29 meeting in Chicago at the Westin Hotel, 909 N. Michigan Ave. The presentations will be based on the chairs' experiences leading site teams. They will discuss the dynamics of achieving consensus during a site visit as well as the variables that come into play when making an accreditation recommendation.

Participants will be Doug Anderson, former Council member and Committee chair, Pam Luecke, Committee chair, Carla Lloyd, Committee vice chair, and Trevor Brown, Committee member and Susanne Shaw, executive director.

Brown also will discuss the assessment standard at the meeting. President Peter Bhatia asked Brown this spring to prepare a concise one-page statement on assessment for discussion at the fall meeting.

Shaw said that considerable discussion occurred at the spring meeting because three school decisions appeared similar and the accreditation recommendations were different from the visiting teams and the Committee.   She said that everyone sought consistency for site visits and accreditation decisions.   However,   it is important to remember that no two site visits are the same.  

ACEJMC has never said that a school must have one, two or three standards judged out of compliance to receive accreditation,   re-accreditation, provisional accreditation or denial of accreditation.   Shaw also said that ACJEMC was not prescriptive in telling schools what they must do.   She said that when schools were judged out of compliance with a standard, it was up to the school to determine how it could be in compliance.

Council members should come to the meeting with questions are to ask the team chairs.

International Committee appointed

Council President Peter Bhatia recently appointed a committee to study ACEJMC accreditation in other countries.

The Committee will meet during the AEJMC convention at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 6, at the Marriott Hotel in Chicago.

Members are Council member Joe Foote and Accrediting Committee members Carla Lloyd, Judy Turk and Trevor Brown.

Susanne Shaw, executive director, and Bhatia, are ex-officio members.

Shaw said that she had received several inquiries from schools and programs in other countries that seek ACEJMC accreditation.    She said that the committee should review some questions involving eligibility of international programs and prepare a recommendation to the Accrediting Council.

A few schools are actively working toward ACEJMC accreditation.   At present,   Pontificia Universidad Catholica de Chile is the only School of Journalism to have ACEJMC accreditation outside the United States.

Committee officers, members elected

Pam Luecke, Donald W. Reynolds professor of business journalism at Washington and Lee University, was elected chair of the Accrediting Committee at the May 2-3 Council meeting in Arlington, Va.     Luecke was the Committee's vice chair and will serve a two-year term as chair.   Carla Lloyd, associate dean of scholarly and creative activity for the School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, was elected vice chair.

The Council elected three new members, and re-elected one member to three-year terms on its Accrediting Committee.   David Boardman, editor of the The Seattle Times , was re-elected.   Nicholas Lemann, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, John Cochran, senior Washington correspondent for ABC News, and Phil Dixon, chair of the journalism department at Howard University, were elected new Committee members.  

New Council members named

Four new Council members will attend their first meeting in August.   They are Deborah Howell, ombudsman for The Washington Post ,   representing the American Society of Newspaper Editors.   Patricia Rose, executive director of the American Academy of Advertising,   representing that organization.   Ann Brill, dean of the School of Journalism at the University of Kansas, representing the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication.   Gale Workman, professor in the division of journalism at Florida A&M University, representing the Association for Women in Communications.

Tim Gleason, dean of the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon, was re-elected to a second three-year term on the Council by the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication. Kenneth Campbell, associate professor at the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of South Carolina, will serve a second term representing the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

Council accredits two new schools

The Council made accreditation decisions for 21 schools and now accredits 112 in the United States and one outside the country.   The Council conducts voluntary reviews for schools with professional journalism and mass communications programs.

Newly accredited schools were the department of communication and journalism at the University of New Mexico and the department of communication at Jacksonville (Ala.) State University.

The following schools received provisional re-accreditation in 2006 for their undergraduate programs and were granted full re-accreditation:   the department of communication and journalism at Auburn University; the division of journalism at Florida A&M University; the department of journalism at New York University, and the department of mass communications at Southern University.

The following schools received provisional re-accreditation for the undergraduate programs:   the School of Journalism at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale; the department of journalism at San Francisco State University, and the department of journalism at Temple University.   The Council grants provisional status when it identifies weaknesses that can be corrected within two years.  

The undergraduate communication department at Buffalo State University received provisional accreditation.

The department of mass communication at Winston-Salem State University was denied accreditation. In 2006, the department received provisional initial accreditation, but was denied at the revisit this year.

The Council also re-accredited the following undergraduate programs at ten schools: the department of journalism and public communications at the University of Alaska Anchorage; the department of journalism, media studies an public relations at Hofstra University; the Donald W. Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno; School of Journalism and Broadcasting at Oklahoma State University; the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at San Jose State University; the department of communication at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga; the department of communications at the University of Tennessee at Martin; the School of Journalism at Indiana University; the A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Kansas State University; and the School of Journalism at Michigan State University.

The graduate program in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at San Jose State University also received re-accreditation.

ACEJMC to have program for schools

ACEJMC will have a program for schools who have site visits this year on Wednesday, Aug. 6, during the AEJMC convention at Marriott Hotel in Chicago.   The program will be from 8:15 to 9:45 a.m.

Susanne Shaw, executive director, said that Trevor Brown, Committee member also would respond to questions about the assessment standard.

Training program scheduled for November

The Accrediting Council will have its training program for site team visitors Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 8-9, in Portland at the Westin Hotel, 750 SW Alder St.

This two-day training program will be for participants who live in the western part of the country.   Training for those in the eastern United States was in October in Arlington, Va.

Participating in the Portland program will be President Peter Bhatia, Doug Anderson, former Council member and Committee chair, Pam Luecke, Committee chair, Trevor Brown, Committee member, and Susanne Shaw,   executive director.

If Council or Committee members would like to recommend someone, please send your suggestions no later than June 23 to Shaw at sshaw@ku.edu .

Committee, Council meetings scheduled

The Accrediting Committee will meet Saturday, March 14, and until noon on Sunday, March 15, in Chicago at the Westin Hotel, 909 N. Michigan Ave.

Reservation information will be sent to Committee members and schools in early January.

Meetings calendar

Accrediting Council
August 29
Westin Hotel on Michigan Avenue
Chicago

Accrediting Committee
March 14-15
Westin Hotel on Michigan Avenue
Chicago

Accrediting Council
May 1-2
Westin Hotel
Portland

President, Accrediting Council
Peter Bhatia
Executive Editor, The Oregonian
1320 S.W. Broadway
Portland, OR 97201
(503) 221-8393; Fax (503) 294-5012
E-mail: pbhatia@news.oregonian.com

Vice President, Accrediting Council
Jannette Dates
Dean, John H. Johnson School of Communications
525 Bryant St. NW
Howard University
Washington, D.C. 20059
(202) 806-7694; Fax (202) 232-8040
e-mail: jdates@howard.edu

Chair, Accrediting Committee
Pam Luecke
Donald W. Reynolds Professor of Business Journalism
Department of Journalism and Mass Communications
Washington and Lee University
Lexington, VA 24450
(540) 458-8435; Fax (540)458-8845
e-mail: lueckep@wlu.edu

Vice Chair, Accrediting Committee
Carla Lloyd
Associate Dean of Scholarly and Creative Activity
School of Public Communications
Syracuse University
Syracuse, NY 13244

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

Assistant to the Executive Director
Kasey Cory
Stauffer-Flint Hall
1435 Jayhawk Blvd.
University of Kansas
Lawrence, KS 66045 - 7575
(785) 864-7640
e-mail: kaseyc@ku.edu

Office Staff
Cheryl Klug
Stauffer-Flint Hall
1435 Jayhawk Blvd.
University of Kansas
Lawrence, KS 66045 - 7575
(785) 864-3973
e-mail: cklug@ku.edu

Council Web site:
http://www.ku.edu/~acejmc