^[1]Kyu Ho Youm
2012-13 AEJMC President
University of Oregon
youm@uoregon.edu ^[2]

AEJMC Working with World Journalism Education Council

The global twenty-first century is making itself palpable in journalism and mass communication. Both in teaching and in research, we in AEJMC must engage in how to more globalize what we are doing in and outside the classroom. Otherwise, we’ll end up being less relevant to those who expect us to showcase what journalism and mass communication can or will do in a new century.

The world’s oldest organization of journalism and mass communication educators (Nov. 30 was its 100th birthday) and the world’s largest JMC organization (3,600+ members), AEJMC is more eager than ever to participate in global conversations about journalism and mass communication education. In this connection, I was delighted that Joe Foote, dean of the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Oklahoma, delivered an informative presentation on the World Journalism Education Council (WJEC) to the AEJMC Board of Directors during the AEJMC midwinter meeting in Dallas, Texas, on Nov. 30.

WJEC, an outgrowth of the World Journalism Education Congress, @http://wjec.ou.edu/index.php, comprises 32 academic organizations worldwide in journalism and mass communication at the university level. By bringing organizations from around the world together, the Council aims to offer a common space for journalism educators globally and to highlight shared issues for journalism education.

Dean Foote, a founding leader of WJEC, reminded the AEJMC board members of the crucial role that their organization played in creating WJEC in the early 2000s. “Emerging from a joint meeting [of AEJMC] in London with the Association for Journalism Education (AJE) representing journalism educators in the United Kingdom came a proposal for a World Journalism Education Congress to be held in 2007,” he stated in his “WJEC Timeline.” “The purpose was to bring together all of the existing professional organizations that represented journalism education.”

Dean Foote also noted why AEJMC should more directly and visibly participate in various WJEC activities. His cogent plea for AEJMC’s closer relationship with WJEC couldn’t have been more timely. This is because AEJMC’s “Task Force on AEJMC in the Global Century” since September has been examining how to transform AEJMC as a global organization in its structure, operation, programming, and membership. It will make recommendations to AEJMC next summer.

I am extremely gratified that AEJMC will be present at the third World Journalism Education Congress scheduled for July 3-5, 2013, in Mechelen, Belgium. The AEJMC Board of Directors has decided to send President-Elect Paula Poindexter (Texas-Austin) and Vice President Elizabeth Toth (Maryland), along with me, to WJEC-3 on behalf of AEJMC. This is particularly the case with me, as I still fondly remember attending WJEC-1 in Singapore in 2007.

During the Singapore conference, members from nearly 30 journalism education associations from six continents endorsed 11 principles that will guide them to “work together to strengthen journalism education and increase its value to students, employers and the public.” The “WJEC’s Principles of Journalism Education,” @http://wjec.ou.edu/principles.php, are worth careful consideration for any educators interested in journalism and also in mass communication with a global outlook. One of the principles states: “Journalism educators have an obligation to collaborate with colleagues worldwide to provide assistance and support so that journalism education can gain strength as an academic discipline and play a more effective role in helping journalism to reach its full potential.”

In addition to sending its delegation to the WJEC conference in Belgium, AEJMC will fund three top paper prizes competitively selected for presentation at the WJEC conference. This does showcase a tangible commitment of AEJMC to contribute to WJEC in a direct way.

The dialogue between AEJMC and WJEC is increasingly important; indeed, it is compelling these days. As Dean Foote observed five years ago, citing a preliminary global census of journalism education, “Journalism education programs in the United States are a minority of programs worldwide and rapidly becoming an even smaller proportion of those programs.” (“World Journalism Education Congress: Its Importance to ASJMC Administrators,” ASJMC Insights, fall 2007, p. 4)

To situate our journalism education in a global context requires an exposure of us to what others are doing in teaching and research. This will help us train our students better in a global era and in a globalized society. WJEC is uniquely qualified to facilitate AEJMC and other similar organizations in pursuing their global agenda. No one would dare to quibble about the need of AEJMC to be an important part of WJEC as a “global infrastructure” in which the pursuit of excellence is a universal value for journalism and mass communication. The vision that kept AEJMC working together with WJEC in its initial phase is being reaffirmed by AEJMC and its officers as WJEC is preparing for its third conference in Brussels.

I look forward to participating in the World Journalism Education Congress next year along with my AEJMC colleagues President-Elect Poindexter and Vice President Toth. I am becoming more excited, for Prof. Poindexter’s and Prof. Toth’s efforts to further globalize AEJMC are better thought out and more concrete than mine. The WJEC member organizations and the World Journalism Education Congress attendees of 2013 most likely will be heartened to learn that these two AEJMC leaders are genuinely committed to ensuring our organization’s cooperation with WJEC.

“AEJMC Working with World Journalism Education Council” appears in the January 2013 issue of AEJMC News.