A national accrediting team once again recommended full accreditation for the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication, giving it high marks in 11 of 12 standards used to measure the quality of the program.

The Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications followed the accrediting team’s recommendation this May and approved full accreditation for the SOJC. The ACEJMC has bestowed accreditation on only 109 of some 500 journalism programs in the nation’s colleges and universities.

During its visit, the ACEJMC team also videotaped the process to create a training film to help other accreditation teams better see how the accreditation process works.

The team’s visit was preceded by an indepth self-study prepared by the faculty, which took the opportunity to examine how well the School’s program matches its goals and where it might be strengthened.

SOJC Dean Tim Gleason noted, “Having a knowledgeable outside group examine your work, pronounce it satisfactory or even laudatory is very gratifying. We have a strong and committed faculty whose excellence and hard work deserve to be acknowledged and outstanding and ambitious students who need to know that their program meets the highest standards in the nation.”

Members of the School were also gratified that the ACEJMC chose their visit to the School as the site for its training video. “It speaks volumes about the reputation and stature of the UO program,” Gleason said.

The team made note of the quality of the faculty, the caring and supportive atmosphere for students, the academically rigorous program and the School’s effective leadership.

Noting the financial challenges the School faced in the past decade after passage of Ballot Measure 5, the team observed that the “state budget has stopped hemorrhaging and record endowment payouts are ushering in much brighter days.” Four faculty recruitment searches under way this past year, the team’s report acknowledged, should help meet the demands of a 31 percent enrollment increase in the past decade.

While acknowledging the UO journalism school’s recent success in recruiting and retaining minority students—an increase from 8.8 to 11.6 percent since the last accrediting visit four years earlier—the team noted that the school had yet to reach its goal of recruiting a better balance of women faculty and faculty of color. The ACEJMC team found the School’s commitment to diversity strong and recommended continued and increased efforts.

In its final report, the accrediting team praised the School’s strengths as follows:

• An academically and professionally well-balanced faculty whom students praise for their accessibility and their demanding, yet caring, style.
• A very active faculty that is widely involved in professional organizations and in the dissemination of research findings and creative endeavors.
• Respected leadership that effectively balances internal and external responsibilities.
• Exceptionally strong private financial support, generated largely through model capital campaign strategies.
• A generous undergraduate scholarship program made possible through a large endowment.
• An overall supportive and informal atmosphere that students appreciate and praise.
• A demanding, logical set of lower-division core courses (Mass Media and Society, Information Gathering, Writing for Mass Media and Visual Communication) that students generally view as a challenging prelude to major offerings and that, upon completion, they wear as a badge of honor. Students universally speak, in particular, of the rigors of Information Gathering.
• Positive campus-wide recognition and respect for its instructional excellence and quality of students.

Recommendations for strengthening the program included avoiding adding courses or programs before resources are available, improving opportunities for students to receive software training in or outside the School, and improving coordination of multiple-section courses.