J-school credential matters
Central Michigan University is one of two accredited journalism schools in Michigan.
After May, Michigan State University will be the only one.
As much as the department feels their decision to drop accreditation is in the best interest of students, CMU's journalism program is likely to hurt after this decision.
Recruiting top journalism students will be a challenge, no matter what type of journalists CMU ends up graduating. When I applied to several schools, I considered only schools that had recognized journalism schools in Michigan - CMU and MSU.
I threw out any other schools - including the prestigious University of Michigan - because there was no accredited journalism program. Students looking for journalism in Michigan use accreditation as a guide help them decide where they're going. Ask people in the program, and nine times out of ten, the reason they came here is that they were told it's an accredited school.
Without the accreditation, CMU will have a harder time attracting the top-notch young journalists, regardless of how much the accreditation stamp affects the quality of journalists graduating from CMU. It will definitely affect the quality of new journalists coming in.
While I applaud the department's push toward new media, there is still a place for certification by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
Students can still take certain courses in multimedia, even with the limits of accreditation. Students cannot take more than 44 credits in JRN courses with accreditation.
If the department realizes their students need more new media experience, then shouldn't the courses currently in the curriculum reflect that push? Couldn't classes such as JRN 312: Reporting and JRN 202: Writing for the Mass Media require students to report a story using multimedia?
I hope the department would reconsider at least taking the provisional accreditation being offered by the ACEJMC. This would allow the department to still recruit under the accreditation issued to them, and would allow the department some more time to evaluate the changing industry that journalism department chairwoman Maria Marron spoke of Friday in CM Life.
Since the industry is always changing, the department should consider seeing what the effect of having accreditation means. Take the time and ask around to see what the effects of it are, see how it affects the graduates of CMU, etc. From what we've been told, the department hasn't done any of that.
No input from anyone outside the department was used when this was decided.
The department forgot to ask the people to whom accreditation means the most - the students.
