The Boston University journalism department is proposing to split off from the College of Communication and form its own school, according to COM faculty, although department heads are not in agreement on the split.
Journalism department chairman Lou Ureneck submitted the proposal, which he said has the journalism faculty’s unanimous support, to COM interim dean Tobe Berkovitz on Dec. 22, 2006.
Although the logistics of the proposal are still being debated, journalism professors have been assessing a possible split since late October 2006, when Ureneck began to compile an internal review, along with the film and television department and mass communication, advertising and public relations department.
Berkovitz, a mass communication professor, used the three separate internal reports to create one central COM review. He will present the information to Provost David Campbell and President Robert Brown, who requested assessments of all colleges.
A stand-alone journalism school will bring revenue for several endeavors, journalism professor Nick Mills said, including a journalism endowment chair, more visiting faculty and an expansion of current faculty, courses and technology.
“President Brown did not say, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Look into it,'” Mills said. “He didn’t shoot it down.”
The new school status will also make it easier for journalism faculty to recruit top students and increase its reputation locally and nationally, Mills said.
“We have top faculty,” he said. “We don’t have the structure to show that faculty.”
Mass communication department chairman T. Barton Carter said the proposal is unnecessary and nonsensical because COM departments work separately from each other once undergraduates declare their major during their sophomore year.
“It’s not as if the students are taking classes together,” he said. “I don’t think it’s the best course of action. It splits resources.”
Berkovitz, who said he will “withhold judgment” at this point, said the decision to separate the journalism department is in the hands of Brown and Campbell.
“It’s the start of a process, and right now, it’s very early in the process,” Berkovitz said.
Former journalism chairman Robert Zelnick urged his successor in an April 2006 letter to The Daily Free Press to “divorce” the journalism department from the mass communication department, which he called too ideologically different to be taught with journalism in the same school.
At a COM faculty meeting in late January, one faculty member questioned Ureneck’s internal report and his proposal, Mills said. Berkovitz would not comment on how faculty members from other COM departments reacted to the journalism department’s report.
“Discussion was really quite limited,” Berkovitz said.
There are many logistics to the journalism faculty members’ proposal, including finances, space and development.
“This is a very complex process,” Berkovitz said.
Alumni, curricula, faculty and students determine the quality of a program, not whether a program is a separate department or school, Berkovitz said.
The move would also diminish the number of potential donors, Carter said.
“It is unclear on how that would work,” he said. “That will be the key case on how we will be perceived.”
Film and television department chairman Charles Merzbacher said if a department’s faculty propose a split from a college, it unveils potential weakness if the proposal lacks an established program. Merzbacher said he does not have an opinion on the journalism department’s proposal.
“When you have chaos and inertia, you cannot raise money,” he said. “On the flipside, our priority is seeing the college get on a ground footing [so] we can move forward on a number of important initiatives.
“This is not my fight,” he continued, “but we have the vest interest in the health of COM, and that is our concern.”