The Temple University Board of Trustees recently approved the reorganization of the School of Communications and Theater. After nearly two years of planning, the school is now ready to reconstruct its Journalism, Public Relations and Advertising curricula.
“We really have the depth and breadth of resources to separate ourselves from the competition,” Dean of SCAT Concetta M. Stewart said. “We have the ingredients to have the best communications programs.”
JPRA will be divided into three different divisions: Journalism, Advertising and Strategic and Organizational Communication (SOC). SOC will include three various tracks: Public Relations, Organizational Leadership and Public Communication.
“Each group has a distinct personality. Each department has its own focus, so it only makes sense to let each go its own way,” said JPRA Chair Patricia Bradley. “There also are enough students to make three departments.”
There are currently 1250 students in the entire JPRA department. Broken down, between 600 and 700 are in journalism, 400 to 500 are in public relations while 200 to 300 are in advertising.
“Each department will grow and expand now that it is able to focus on its own specific interests,” Bradley said.
The current journalism curriculum will undergo no major changes. There will, however, be a few new classes, including technology and design classes, slated to open in fall 2004. All current sequences under the JPRA department will remain under the new Journalism track.
The Multi-Media Urban News Room Lab (MURL) is the Journalism department’s newest tool in focusing on urban journalism. MURL is a service learning organization that will open next spring at Temple University Center City. It will connect all journalism sequences with city experience. Its new director will be Thomas Petner.
“Students will report ‘street-by-street’ journalism in Philadelphia neighborhoods not represented well in the press. They’ll be collecting and gathering information on those neighborhoods to better serve those communities,” Bradley said.
Students will then create a Web site to publish their findings. They may also be able to publish their articles through a print medium as well.
“The aim of MURL is to teach students to serve the community. It will also teach them about convergence. All journalists now need to know how to write for the Web, newspapers, and other kinds of media,” Bradley said.
Next spring a combined class for broadcast journalists and investigative reporters will test-run the new MURL program. The class will be taught by Linn Washington and Karen Turner.
Michael Maynard is currently planning the new Advertising department.
Advertising will expand to include more design intensive classes to encourage student portfolio and project development. Writing and theory specific courses will also be added. Advertising will be broken down into management, creative and research foci.
In an Oct. 30 Temple Times article, Maynard said, “To be competent in advertising these days, you have to have a lot of knowledge across a lot of disciplines. On its own, advertising is much stronger…because it’s able to focus on its mission.”
The SOC department is divided into specific concentrations focusing on various aspects of communication and rhetoric. Public relations will continue to deal with external speaking engagements and communication
.
Organizational leadership deals with communication within any kind of organization and leadership as a communication process. Public Communication draws heavily on the school of rhetoric, speech and civic communication, and public engagements.
“What ties them all together is the art of persuasion,” Stewart said.
“Communication here goes both ways. The speaker acknowledges the audience and engages them in this kind of interaction.”
Also being implemented is a new master’s of science in SOC that emphasizes “strategic thinking of leadership. The MS is an attempt to provide mid-level mastery of communication as an organizational tool,” said Jeff Rush, Senior Associate Dean of SCAT.
These changes will be implemented July 1, 2004. Current students have five years (until 2009) to finish their current program. Current students can, however, transfer into any one of these new divisions.
Before Thanksgiving, all current JPRA students will receive a letter via their classes about these changes. Students must self-identify which department they would like to enter. Students will then be contacted by the relevant department and initiated into the new program.
Barbara J. Isenberg can be reached at isenberg@temple.edu.
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