VCU School of Mass Communications recommended for accreditation

By Tom Gresham

A site visit team representing the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (ACEJMC) today recommended that Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Mass Communications be accredited.

The team’s recommendation will be presented in March 2006 to the council’s Accrediting Committee, which in turn will make a recommendation to the Accrediting Council. The council will meet in May for a vote on the recommendations that will determine the school’s accreditation status.

“We’re elated, and we’re celebrating,” said Judy VanSlyke Turk, Ph.D., the school’s director. “Accreditation has been a top priority goal for the past three years. It is extremely gratifying to have outside evaluators validate that we’re doing what we say we’re doing and that we are delivering on the promise we make to our students and alumni that we will provide them with an education that prepares them for successful careers.”

A five-member team of journalism and mass communications educators and practitioners visited the School of Mass Communications Nov. 13 through Nov. 16 to review the school and to ascertain whether it is in compliance with the accreditation standards of ACEJMC. The team also received, prior to its visit, a self-study from the school that addressed its activities under each of the accreditation standards.

“The self-study was not only a report to the site visit team but an opportunity for us to take a hard, focused look at what we do and how well we do it,” said Turk. “Every faculty member and every member of our staff contributed to the information we presented in the self-study, and it made our case that we meet or exceed the standards of ACEJMC.”

ACEJMC recently revised its accreditation standards, and the 2005-2006 academic year marked the first year the new standards were applied to programs requesting accreditation review. The nine standards against which VCU’s School of Mass Communications was measured were:

• Mission, Governance and Administration
• Curriculum and Instruction
• Diversity and Inclusiveness
• Full-Time and Part-Time Faculty
• Scholarship: Research, Creative and Professional Activity
• Student Services
• Resources, Facilities and Equipment
• Professional and Public Service
• Assessment of Learning Outcomes

The School of Mass Communications was found to be in compliance with all nine standards.

The site visit team noted that the strengths of the VCU mass communications program include:

• A well-qualified, balanced, hard-working and productive faculty that is committed to instruction and students
• High-energy, strong and dedicated leadership
• Solid service to the professions
• Extensive collaborative efforts with other units on campus
• Positive, can-do entrepreneurial, school-wide spirit and approach to teaching, research and service
• Notable student diversity and commendable efforts to further diversify the full and part-time faculty
• Sound and consistently expanding relationships with media outlets and professional constituents in the Richmond metropolitan market

The site visit team was made up of five individuals: Douglas A. Anderson, team chair, dean of the College of Communications, Penn State; Kathleen S. Kelly, chair, Department of Public Relations, College of Journalism and Communications, University of Florida; Nancy Mitchell, associate professor, College of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of Nebraska; Charlie Tuggle, assistant professor, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of North Carolina; Charles Wanninger, publisher, Port Huron Times Herald, Port Huron, Mich.

VCU’s School of Mass Communications was first accredited in 1976. It was continuously reaccredited until 2000, when it chose not to seek reaccreditation.

ACEJMC currently accredits 106 journalism and mass communication academic programs across the country, making accredited programs an elite group among the estimated 500 academic programs in journalism and mass communications in the United States.

The VCU School of Mass Communications has 1,000 undergraduate major and pre-major students. It offers three sequences of study at the undergraduate level: advertising (with both business and creative tracks), journalism (with both broadcast and print tracks) and public relations. The School also offers a Master of Science in Mass Communications degree with concentrations in advertising (the VCU Adcenter), scholastic journalism and strategic public relations.