Three new schools have joined the Carnegie-Knight Initiative, a program seeking to transform and redefine journalism education in U.S. colleges. Arizona State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, will join UT and other private and public universities in the initiative.
UT proposed a grant to the initiative in 2005 and was awarded funding for three years. Lorraine Branham, former director of the journalism school, brainstormed with faculty to write the proposal to Carnegie. Since then, the College of Communication has developed three new journalism classes: Journalism, Society and the Citizen Journalist; Covering the Latino Community; and Covering Science, Technology and Innovation.
The initiative focuses on new journalism, increasing expert knowledge in various subjects and the use of multimedia in news. According to the grant proposal, UT's courses will specifically emphasize "literacy in the information age, changing demographics and technological advancement."
Enrollment numbers in the new courses were initially lower than expected.
"One of the things is that we didn't do as good a job as we could have in marketing those courses to our students," Branham said. "We probably could've used some help in figuring out how to really market and publicize these courses."
Since the first semester of the integrated courses, higher enrollment has led to waiting lists for some of the courses. The upcoming school year will be the program's final year of funding at UT.
"I think those courses are still valid and relevant," Branham said. "It would be great if we could continue to teach these courses even after there's no grant money left, but that really depends on the new director and how the people who are currently teaching those classes feel."
Funding from Carnegie goes toward curriculum development, salaries for the professors and funding for speakers and their travel expenses.
Paula Poindexter, an associate professor in the College of Communication, teaches Journalism, Society and the Citizen Journalist. She said she would like to continue the class after funding ends.
"One of the real benefits about the class is having liberal arts students come to class and enroll," Poindexter said. "So now you have the interaction between journalism students and liberal arts students, which is interesting to have."
The liberal arts students provide journalism students with an objective view of how audiences view media, she said. Her class often has other experts on and off campus teach her students about different areas of news. A government professor and a global warming expert have spoken to the class.
Tracy Dahlby, who replaced Branham as director of the School of Journalism, attended a conference sponsored by Carnegie earlier this year.
"[The initiative] is designed to increase media literacy, not just among journalism students but all students," Dahlby said. "The conference really raised a lot of interesting questions about...the need to think about what our purpose is, what our franchise is, what role we play in society and what our social responsibilities are."
Be the first to comment on this article!