Good News: Journalism Department Ready to Stand on Its Own

Journalism was recently approved as an independent department within the McMicken College of Arts & Sciences, and the way Elissa Yancey sees it, it’s been a long time coming.

“The University of Cincinnati has a long tradition of journalism excellence,” says Yancey, educator associate professor in journalism. “We’ve had The News Record as an independent student newspaper for more than 100 years. We’ve had the certificate program and journalism classes offered since the ’70s. This is a natural part of our evolution to go from what has been a certificate and then a major to our own department.”

Last month the university approved the creation of the Department of Journalism to replace the existing program starting Aug. 1. The switch from being part of the Department of English and Comparative Literature coincides with the beginning of the 2012-13 academic year and transition from quarters to semesters.

“This is a time when it was very easy to show how enthusiastic our students and alumni base are,” Yancey says. “People want to support journalism, and it helps us to be viewed more legitimately to be our own department. The future of media is so exciting right now. To be at the start of our department as the field itself continues to evolve, I feel like we have so many opportunities.”

The program will continue to give students the skills needed to take advantage of those opportunities in all forms of journalism – including print, online and mobile – and prepare them for the future of the industry. Students regularly have their multimedia work published online through the

New Media Bureau

and

Verge Magazine

, and in student media.

The curriculum will be updated and expanded, and much of the new department has already been designed, including the creation of the major's four tracks: general journalism, photo journalism, news editorial journalism and magazine journalism. The next steps involve conducting a national search for a department head and working toward accreditation from the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications.

So far the birth of the new department has gone smoothly. Yancey credits the leadership of Professor and Director of Journalism Jon Hughes and the support of the English department for expediting the process. She says journalism is a naturally interdisciplinary field and that her colleagues in journalism will continue to work closely with those in the English and communication departments.

“Arts & Sciences plays a huge role in the future of the university in looking at how to take things from inquiry to innovation,” Yancey says. “As a department, journalism is well suited to be a bridge in that way. Because we’re used to creating projects, we’re used to putting things out there – it’s what we do. We’re a very professionally based department. It’s not about sitting around talking about journalism; it’s about doing journalism.”

And not only doing journalism, but doing it at a consistently high level. For decades, UC journalism graduates have gone on to professional success at high profile media outlets across the nation such as Newsday, Wired.com, the San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Magazine and many others.

“As we raise our profile locally, regionally, nationally and beyond, we better serve all of our students,” Yancey says. “Having the extra heft of the department is only going to bolster that reputation for graduating successful journalists.”