About four months after the Boston University journalism department proposed to branch off from the College of Communication into a separate journalism school, journalism faculty say the possible approval process may take more than a year.

Presented to COM interim dean Tobe Berkovitz last December, the proposal seeks to split the journalism department from the two other COM departments — film and television and mass communication, advertising and public relations — to form a separate school that would elevate its national ranking and attract more diverse faculty and students.

One of the themes of the proposal is the need to separate journalism from a college with a large program for public relations, the practices of which are fundamentally opposed to journalism, it states.

Since the proposal was submitted for review, COM alumni and some BU department chairs have offered ideas of how the journalism department can review its proposal, journalism department chairman Lou Ureneck said. A group of COM senior faculty members will reevaluate the proposal.

“The proposal has its own life and its own timetable,” Ureneck said. “It’s a subject of lots of conversation.”

The proposal — unanimously supported by the journalism faculty — calls for graduate specialty programs, more graduate financial aid and increased faculty diversity across race and gender.

The proposal states the split would allow the journalism program to propel itself into one of the top three or four programs in the country, said Ureneck, who replaced former chairman Robert Zelnick in April 2006.

“There is not a serious standalone journalism school in New England,” he said. “It’s time to change that.”

The journalism department — which has 26 full-time staff members — would also like to collaborate more with other departments, such as economics, history, international relations and political science, to foster new fields, the proposal states. However, under the current structure, journalism is placed into the same realm as public relations, Ureneck said.

The issue of possibly separating from the mass communication department is a sensitive subject because there are fundamental differences between the two units, which ultimately affect the ethics of what the field of journalism is supposed to do — get the facts straight and play a watchdog role, said Zelnick, who urged Ureneck to pursue splitting the journalism department into a separate school in a letter to The Daily Free Press in April 2006.

“It’s particularly sensitive here, because unlike many great journalism programs, [those schools] have a small mass comm. component,” he said. “[COM has] a huge mass comm. department with a substantial journalism component, and I think if you look around the country and you see the journalism programs that are regarded as best, they’re either completely independent, or they are dominant in their departments.

“That’s what I think is lacking here,” Zelnick continued. “It’s been lacking for years, and it’s been one of the sources of conflict . . . where journalism sometimes gets a bad rep as a trouble-making department. It’s really a department of journalists who are asserting themselves and asserting their values from time to time. If the university took institutional recognition of that fact, we’d be better off.”

The department also aims to become a top-flight program that deals with civic and economic literacy, which are at the core of journalism’s mission, Ureneck said.

“The concept has now settled into the bones of the faculty,” Ureneck said.

The proposal was part of an internal review report that the three COM department chairmen gave Berkovitz, detailing their respective departments at the end of the fall semester. The reports were put together to create one COM internal review report, which Berkovitz gave to President Robert Brown and Provost David Campbell, who will both make the final decision about the journalism department’s proposal.

Along with reviewing the COM report, Brown and Campbell gave the report to a recently appointed COM external review committee — 12 BU outsiders representing the fields of the three COM departments — who will make recommendations for the college.

The committee will visit the college Thursday and Friday and will meet with faculty, chairmen and staff members, Berkovitz said.

Berkovitz, who received the proposal Dec. 22, 2006, said he will not announce his position about the journalism department’s proposal until after the 12-member external committee meets and assesses what changes are necessary for the college.

“I’m reserving expressing my opinion until the external review is concluded,” Berkovitz said.

Calling the journalism department’s efforts just one of “many curriculum issues” affecting the college, Berkovitz said the quality of a department should not be determined by its surrounding departments, but rather the effort the department itself puts into its own program.

“It’s up to the excellence of the faculty, students, curriculum and alumni that’s going to determine a department’s quality and its stature to the outside,” he said. “This applies to any department.

“To me it’s about, ‘How good is that program?'” Berkovitz continued. “Not, ‘Where is that program located?'”

The technicalities of funding such a proposal is not something Ureneck has discussed with the sources he is receiving feedback from. The proposal is still in its early development stages, he said.

“This is a major undertaking,” he said. “It’s a long and complicated process, but it’s worth it.”

Brown said he is waiting to see the external review committee’s assessment of the college before he can look into the possibility of splitting journalism from COM.

“It’s on the table for the external review committee and is one of the questions we are asking them,” Brown said. “I think the most important thing that I’m looking for in the external review is a view of the whole field of communication.

“How do you align programs and disciplines together that have the most effective, most modern, most compelling set of programs to attract undergraduate and graduate students 10 years from now?” he continued.

Ureneck said he views Brown as a “fair and appropriate” leader who will review the issue carefully before making any decisions.

“Brown laid down a process, and he’s following it,” he said. “I feel good about it.”

It will take about one year for the proposal to be completely reworded and reviewed, Ureneck said. It is still in a stage that began with an idea and has moved into explaining and reshaping the concept of a journalism school.

“It’s a proactive and challenging idea, and now, it’s our job to explain it to others,” he said, “and the opportunity is huge.”