Curriculum — AEJMC Hot Topics

On the Chronicle of Higher Education website Michael J. Bugeja, director of the journalism school at Iowa State University, posted ten ways that he is cutting his school’s budget. The goal is to balance the budget over the next year without increasing workloads for faculty.

He says,

My school is the largest academic program in the largest college at ISU, and our budget has been slashed by more than 20 percent in the past four years. Nevertheless, in the next academic year, we’ll balance our budget without increasing workload for most professors, while graduating students sooner—thanks to streamlined curricula, enhanced by advising.

His list of changes includes cutting curricular expansion, honing degree requirements, raising money for the school and cutting administration. You can read the full list of changes in the article here.

Has your school made budget changes? If so, what has changed and has it worked?

Curriculum Fatigue

By Bill Cassidy, Northern Illinois University | Newspaper

How to best offer our students the skills and knowledge needed for success in their careers is undoubtedly important to all the divisions and interest groups of AEJMC. Given the tumultuous nature of the industry, not to mention the media landscape, most—if not all—journalism schools, departments, and programs have made changes in their curriculums.

I think the issue of curriculum change and development is particularly important to the Newspaper Division in large part because traditional newspaper writing and editing courses have been the backbone of journalism curriculums. But, in today’s environment, that simply won’t do. [Read more...]

Balancing the School Budget

Curriculum Fatigue