I Self-Study Process

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PART I

Report of the Self-Study Process

Appendices for this section include:

• Appendix I-a Journalism Department Mission Statement

• Appendix I-b Survey of Alumni

• Appendix I-c Report from Betty Medsger

The CaliforniaStateUniversity, Chico journalism department has seven full-time faculty members and 264 students as majors. The department has developed a small, focused undergraduate program, designed to offer a mix of practical and theoretical education in journalism for public relations and news-editorial majors. Playing a role in that development, the accreditation process of self-study provided some of the basic guidelines for a program characterized by a hard-working faculty and successful graduates. The self-study process is a story of curriculum renewal, of recognition of new ways of doing business, and of an improvement plan for the journalism department at CSU, Chico.

During the 1980s, journalism and public relations were taught as options of the Department of Information and Communication Studies. This broad degree required 40 units in the major with no liberal arts requirement. Students were even advised to take an additional 18 units of communication courses. There was no requirement for a minor.

Encouraged by a new dean in the School of Communication, the faculty began a process of self-study in the late 1980s. The first goal was to look at how the Chico program measured up to national accreditation standards. On one level, faculty and students accrued benefits from being a part of a program that included speech, organizational and interpersonal communication, but on another level, there was a nagging feeling that the program could be improved. The faculty thought a more traditional program of journalism, built around a basic news model, would better serve students, the university, the department and the industry. A decision was made to create a Department of Journalism that would meet national accrediting standards.

The process was fueled when faculty members attended a session of the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication at the Portland AEJMC meeting in 1988. Further, the California Legislature endorsed the need for university programs to seek accreditation if available to them in their disciplines.

In 1989, Terry Hynes, then chair of the Department of Communications at CaliforniaStateUniversity, Fullerton, was invited to campus to discuss the existing program. She offered valuable advice on what was needed to model the program on accreditation standards. Her visit was a catalyst for the lengthy development and approval process needed to begin a journalism department. The tasks before the faculty included reducing the number of communication courses required for graduation, deciding curriculum requirements, adding new courses and deleting others, moving the options to a new bachelor of arts degree in journalism, and instituting a formal minor requirement.

Months of discussion, debate, negotiation and university paperwork followed. At the same time, administrators attended to the budgetary requirements of establishing a new department and improving teaching laboratories.

By the fall of 1990, both a journalism degree program and the department structure were in place but much remained undone. Requirements for the journalism degree still fit the old model and did not meet accreditation standards of 90 units outside the major. With more than 300 students in the journalism major at that time, the department faced three major issues: student confusion about changes; degree requirements for students already on campus; and faculty training in advising students to meet the new curriculum guidelines.

Along with meeting the curriculum challenge, the department needed to upgrade record-keeping and move to a new building that would bring all of the communication programs under one roof. Meanwhile, the university established an outcomes assessment project that demanded attention. Daily, faculty members continued to learn more about what it takes to develop a program from model guidelines. Daily, students were made more aware of their own responsibilities and the necessary rules required to fulfill those responsibilities.

Yet, the faculty noticed that the journalism program itself continued to improve while the day-to-day commitment to caring for students kept the self-study alive.

One of the final steps came in the fall of 1994 when the current department chair, Katherine Milo, took office. Betty Medsger, formerly of San FranciscoStateUniversity, visited Chico to review the department's progress. Spurred on by Medsger's advice and positive comments (See Appendix I-c), the faculty delayed the accreditation visit until 1997 to undertake new measures of enforcement in curriculum and attention to details not yet addressed.

Compiling the Report

Data collection procedures were initiated by Chair Katherine Milo. Under her leadership the university's Advising and Records Office instituted the campus' first program of mandatory advising -- blocking from telephone registration all journalism majors who had not submitted faculty adviser-signed forms. She also was able to negotiate the Records Office acceptance of the new departmental "Form 90" required for clearance for graduation, a form that made clear student compliance with the 90/65 units rules.

Meeting the 90/65 rule. Various problems needed solving to meet accreditation curriculum standards. The faculty discovered that many of the popular and useful minors chosen by journalism students (business, marketing) contained few courses that could be considered liberal arts. Transfer students who had begun their community college careers held catalog rights to graduate under the old journalism degree program. Likewise, students who should have graduated years ago showed up to complete their degrees but did not meet the accreditation standards.

To help solve the problems, the department converted funding for part-time office assistance to a part-time graduate student assigned to serve as accreditation assistant. This assistant reviews records with incoming transfer students and checks the graduation clearance forms submitted by students after faculty advisers have approved them. Further, this assistant helps the chair in outreach and recruiting efforts.

Surveys. To assess the department's teaching effectiveness, three surveys were developed. Each of the surveys was designed to provide faculty with feedback about courses, teachers, and student careers. Further, the faculty hoped that the surveys of graduates would help establish ties with alumni. One survey was administered to all of the department's alumni since 1990 (See Appendix I-b). It will become a part of the accreditation process and will be mailed two years before reaccreditation to all alumni of the last six years. The first mailing and data entry in 1996 was completed with help from the university's Institutional Research office.

The second survey was designed to become a yearly mailing to graduates of the previous year. The instrument was tested in the spring of 1996 by graduating seniors. It will be mailed to 1997 graduates in the spring of 1998, and each spring afterward to the previous year's graduates. The survey will provide important information about first jobs and help keep the department in touch with its alumni, while supplying feedback about the graduates' educational experiences.

The third survey was completed in the spring of 1997 and mailed to employers who are known to have hired the department's graduates. This survey is one of the major tools for assessing the department's strengths and weaknesses, which seemed to vary by employer and employee. The long-term hope is that this outreach to professionals will become a foundation for an advisory board for the department. A list of nominees has been developed, and the department hopes to have a professional advisory committee in place by the spring of 1998.

In the fall semester of 1996, faculty began writing the Self-Study Report. One faculty member was designated as coordinator for the semester to work with the department chair. Individual faculty members prepared reports for the standards that related primarily to their committee work areas. In the spring semester, another faculty member took on the coordinator role while the initial coordinator was on sabbatical leave.

The Department and Its Role

As the journalism department evolved during the past seven years, self-study was a major influence on the origination and development. By seeking accreditation, the department established a tone and character and a style of teaching, advising, and recruiting. Accreditation standards provided guidelines for such things as the number of students in writing labs, the content of courses, and the establishment of advising week and the Alumni Professional Forum.

At the core of the department is the basic nature of the university and its students. CSU, Chico is one of 22 campuses in the California State University system. In contrast to the University of California system that places a higher emphasis on research, the CSU system places an increased emphasis on teaching and learning. For faculty, this usually translates into a heavy teaching load each semester. In the journalism department that usually means the equivalent of four courses each semester for full-time faculty. Each faculty member also has the responsibility of advising 20 to 60 students.

CSU, Chico also is one of the few schools in the system that is a residential campus. When compared with other CSU campuses, CSU, Chico draws few students who commute. The residential opportunities attract a student body that has often been characterized as one that studies hard and plays hard.

The next element in the mix is the nature of the department: With 264 majors and seven full-time faculty members, the opportunities for student contact, focused teaching, and in-depth advising are maximized. Faculty members have developed a sense of purpose and are oriented to completing tasks on deadline.

In many ways, the success of journalism students drives the department. At the end of every semester, the buzz grows as faculty hear from students who find jobs. During the year, each of the faculty members hears from dozens of former students with news about careers and families. Those students seek advice, change jobs and fill the faculty with a sense of accomplishment. It is the kind of feedback that helps faculty meet the demands of teaching, research and service.

The relationships with students often begin during the department's active recruiting process. Faculty members have visited community colleges and high schools looking for qualified students of all races. Campus open houses in the fall and spring also bring students to Tehama Hall where they are given tours of the journalism department. Faculty members spend their Saturdays during the open houses talking to parents and potential students about media careers.

Further, the journalism department's home page on the University's World Wide Web site has helped recruiting. As part of the department's service to transfer students, journalism department syllabi have been placed on a community college web server that is available to more than 75 California community colleges that have journalism programs.

In short, the following are the key ideas that faculty members think are important to the goal of educating students:

1) A curriculum that focuses on the skills of written communication: thinking, research, synthesis, creating the message, and message preparation for a mass audience. Faculty members embrace the words of James Carey who noted that journalism "does not depend on technology or bureaucracy. It depends on the practitioner mastering a body of skill and exercising it to some worthwhile purpose."

2) A curriculum that challenges students while preparing them for communication careers.

3) An atmosphere that shows students that the faculty is interested and cares for the students. Mandatory advising is but one facet of this complex process of student-faculty interaction that includes small classes, two professional clubs, extended office hours, and telephone calls at home from students.

4) Excellence that is accomplished through the professional achievements of students and their internships, free-lance work, and hands-on experiences at the student newspaper and student-run public relations agency.

5) A faculty that grows in its knowledge of mass communication and journalism and contributes to the creation of knowledge and development of practices in those fields.

Support for the Department

The journalism department is part of the School of Communication in the College of Communication and Education. Within the School of Communication, there are also the Departments of Communication Design and Communication Arts and Sciences. Since its inception, the journalism department has enjoyed consistently strong support from Dean Stephen King. He has encouraged the department to seek accreditation, while providing the finances that make a department work. His appreciation of the journalism department, its discipline, and its mission to foster professional performance has led to a level of support many other campus departments do not enjoy.

During the past six years, the University, along with the journalism department, has suffered declining enrollment of almost 17 percent. While budget cuts forced the university into a siege mentality, the journalism department benefited from being part of one of the stronger colleges on campus, which allowed Dean King to protect the department from draconian cuts even as it failed to meet its targeted enrollments.

The value of this consistent financial support is an important part of the department. The dean has helped the department fund equipment for its lab and for the student newspaper and the student-run public relations agency. Faculty members, too, have received funding for travel with the dean's support.

The Results of the Department's Efforts

What was accomplished:

• A Department of Journalism, offering a degree in journalism with options in public relations and news editorial, was formed. It has successfully graduated students who are employed in communications at dozens of different media outlets. According to the survey of graduates (28 percent response rate), about 55 percent of the department's alumni were employed in a communication-related filed. Their average gross salary was almost $31,000 (average beginning salary compared well with national averages for journalism graduates at $19,100).

• After overcoming numerous hurdles, the department has effectively assured that all its graduates meet the 90/65 rule (with the exception of a few students with "catalog rights" who may someday finish the requirements that were in place when they began their college careers).

• The department's student-run newspaper has won national, regional and state awards for excellence in five of the last six years. It has been recognized as the best student newspaper in California and one of the Top Ten college newspapers in the nation. It was one of the first college newspapers to have an on-line edition (Spring 1994) and has been recognized as the best on-line college newspaper in California. In 1997, it won for the third year in a row the first place prize in general excellence from the California Newspaper Publishers Association. To win the award, it beat out newspapers from such schools as Stanford University. It was the first time since the early 1980s that one university newspaper has dominated the award for three straight years.

• The percentage of minority students in the department has increased from9 percent (15.2 percent for the University) in the fall of 1992 to 15.4 percent(18.7 percent for the University) in the spring of 1997.

• The department has remained well-focused on undergraduate education.

• A minor in journalism has been established to expand the opportunities for non-majors to understand modern media and to aid the department in meeting enrollment goals.

• In the beginning of the self-study process, there was no computerized writing lab for students. Today, the department has a lab that gives students access to pagination and word processing software, e-mail and the World Wide Web. The department was one of the first on campus to have a home page.

• The student-run public relations agency, Tehama Group Communications, has expanded its office space and equipment, while offering professional public relations services to clients throughout the greater North Valley.

• A model ethics course was built upon current research in the field and is established as one of the department's core courses.

• A well-established internship program places dozens of students each year in quality organizations where they perform actual media work.

• According to surveys and informal feedback from professionals, the department's reputation for producing skilled students has grown. Major media outlets have begun to visit campus to recruit the department's students.

• Through the work of faculty members and support of the dean, the department has established an international link with Eastern Europe and its efforts to develop a free press and a public relations industry. Both through education and professional practice, the department has contributed to this important change in the world.