With Boston University President emeritus John Silber no longer in office, the journalism department is seeking accreditation from the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications.
According to the ACEJMC website, accrediting does not indicate that some schools are better than others, but instead compares the accredited programs to a national standard.
Journalism department Chairman Robert Zelnick said the BU program is not accredited due to a dispute between Silber and the national accrediting committee.
“Silber believed that we didn’t need accreditation to develop a strong program, and as long as he was in charge no one challenged his wisdom,” Zelnick said. “Once I was appointed [chairman], I thought it would be in our best interest to apply.”
Journalism professor Mike Berlin said he blames the lack of accreditation on Silber’s disdain for journalism and the overly theoretical focus of the ACEJMC.
“Silber was a horse’s ass who resisted the accreditation process and who really hated the journalism department,” Berlin said. “If we weren’t producing so much money for the university, he would have closed us down. Also, the accreditation committee was staffed by stuffed shirts who required accredited programs to focus on media theory rather than the ‘how-to’ of journalism. Our program is staffed almost entirely with professionals or former professionals, and very few of us have PhD’s.
“Once you walk out of BU or any university and apply for a job, they don’t give a damn about the accreditation of your school,” he continued.
Currently 107 journalism programs are accredited, including Northwestern University, Syracuse University, the University of Connecticut and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the ACEJMC website states.
Journalism professor Lou Ureneck said the department’s lack of accreditation does not affect current students or faculty.
“It is just a reassurance for future students and their parents about the quality of the program,” he said. “Going into the application process, we are quite confident that we have a strong program and a strong department.”
Zelnick said accredited institutions, including Syracuse, have played up BU’s lack of accreditation when competing for graduate students.
“We have become a better and more competitive program even without accreditation,” he said. “But I’d rather not have to confront the question of why our competition is accredited and we are not when talking to prospective students.”
COM senior Emily Beaver said she thinks BU’s program is respectable enough without accreditation.
“I am surprised that we are not accredited because the College of Communication has such a strong reputation,” she said. “It would be good to get accredited, if only for the prestige factor, but I think the program is operating fine.”
Zelnick said most students are unaware of the department’s status because it does not affect them professionally.
“I never heard a student say they didn’t get a job because we aren’t accredited,” he said.
COM junior Caitlin Durkin said “the quality of the school, not its status is what is important to me.”
Although the program’s status may have little impact on students, the journalism department is restricted from applying for several grants open only to accredited programs. The program is certified by the Department of Education, which makes it eligible for all federal grants, Zelnick said.
The ACEJMC accredits schools based on nine criteria including administration, faculty, curriculum, diversity and student services.
Of the nine criteria, Zelnick said he believes the diversity issue may be a stumbling block for the program.
“Right now, by accidental circumstance, our permanent faculty is mostly white males,” Zelnick said. “But if you look at our adjunct professors we have a lot of women and minorities.”
Zelnick said he attributes the lack of diversity among faculty to the high proportion of white male journalists in the 1960’s and ’70’s who became professors upon retirement.
“We need to make sure our department is an open door and not an old boys’ club,” he said. “I wouldn’t call it a problem, but it is a matter that we are addressing.”
Zelnick, Ureneck and fellow journalism professor Christopher Daly are currently completing the department’s self-evaluation, and expect an accreditation evaluation from the ACEJMC representatives during the fall 2006, Zelnick said.
The ACEJMC could not be reached for comment.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
