Changes in the curriculum at the Walter Cronkite School will allow students to take more journalism classes starting next semester by expanding the number of major requirements and cutting some of the general education requirements.
The changes will be effective this fall and apply to all incoming freshmen and transfer students. However, the changes will not impact current students. In order for new students to receive a Bachelor of Arts from the Cronkite School, they will now have the flexibility of taking 46-48 credit hours in the major and 72-74 outside.
The revision in credit requirements will give students more options because they will be less restricted with the general education courses they have to take, said Marianne Barrett, associate dean of the Cronkite school.
“We really like being able to give students more flexibility,” Barrett said. “As we continue to expand our program and as we add more and more journalism classes, we want students to be able to take advantage of that.”
As one of nearly 100 accredited schools of journalism in the U.S., Cronkite has to follow the standards made by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications.
Being accredited is a measure of quality that premiere journalism schools pay a fee to be a part of, Barrett said. The council revisits the criteria and requirements for accredited journalism schools every 10 years in order to decide what needs to be changed.
“One of the big issues this time around was part of the curriculum: the 80/65 rule,” Barrett said. “There are 120 credits in the degree program at Cronkite, 80 of which had to be taken outside the major and 65 of the 80 had to be in liberal arts.”
Journalism senior Carly Price said the amount of general education requirements always struck her as unnecessary. Although she didn’t have to take any literature or history courses at ASU because she was able to transfer credits from high school courses, Price said she probably would have felt like they weren’t helping her earn her degree in journalism.
“I think it definitely opens the door for students to take a wider variety of classes at Cronkite, which should be every student’s desire in this industry that has become so focused on multimedia,” Price said. “Students should be allowed to take every journalism class they can fit in their schedules since they are all unique and different.”
The faculty and administration at accredited schools consistently brought up the rule because of the advancement of technology in journalism education, Barrett said. There was a general consensus that it was becoming more important to train journalism students in using digital media tools, so they argued that it was time to revisit the old rule.
The proposal to make two changes to the rule was put forth during the accrediting council’s decision meeting in spring 2012.
“One of the changes was that the requirement that 80 credits be taken outside the major of journalism be reduced to 72 credits, and the other change was that the 65 liberal arts requirement be eliminated,” Barrett said. “Both changes were voted on and passed.”
It was then up to each school to decide whether they wanted to enforce the new minimum of 72 credit hours to be taken outside the major, stick to the original 80, or go with something in between. The Cronkite School faculty looked at the new standards, under the direction of the administration and the school’s curriculum committee, earlier this school year.
“The faculty voted unanimously to support the change and decided to make it a minimum of 72-76 credit hours to be taken outside the major,” Barrett said. “We also went with the elimination of the 65 rule because the university has enough liberal arts requirements already in place so we aren’t completely taking away those credits from our students.”
This change will now allow incoming journalism students to explore more aspects of journalism through an increased number of Cronkite classes.
“More journalism courses increase the skill set in editing, reporting and writing,” Cronkite faculty associate Larry Edsall said. “Journalism education is comprised of a practical side and a theoretical side. I think you need to have both, and if adding a few more courses improves that, it’s definitely going to benefit students.”
Cronkite School academic adviser Deborah Smith often met with students who wanted to take less general education classes but were limited to only 40 credits of journalism classes.
With the implementation of the new rule, a few of those general education courses will now be eliminated from the curriculum. Students will no longer have to take an English Literature class, they will only be required to take one history course instead of two, and they will have the option to choose between psychology and sociology. All five classes were previously required.
“The committee looked at all of the courses and figured that’s what we could do away with,” Smith said. “I understand why the changes were made and I think it makes a lot of sense to let students take more journalism classes.”
Journalism senior Matt Bertram transferred to the Cronkite School two years ago and had to take all of the general education courses to be able to graduate this year. He doesn’t feel the changes make a big difference because of all the other opportunities he took advantage of during his time here.
“While future Cronkite students will have the luxury of taking more journalism classes than I did, they will still have to do all of the same extracurricular work as the students that came before them in order to be successful in landing a job after graduation,” Bertram said. “You have to aggressively pursue internships and career experiences outside of the class in order to really get the most out of your education.”
At the end of the day, college is about developing into a well-rounded and educated adult, and it takes more than just journalism classes to achieve that, Bertram said.
Contact the reporter at beatrice.ilioi@asu.edu
