Through a series of changes up for approval Tuesday by members of MSU’s Academic Council, the School of Journalism is slated to overhaul its curriculum to better align with the changing nature of the journalism industry.
The changes, which would go into effect in the fall, will be presented by University Committee on Curriculum Chairwoman Linda Good during Tuesday’s Academic Council meeting.
The intent of the overhaul is to put the university’s journalism graduates at the forefront of the industry, said Lucinda Davenport, director of MSU’s School of Journalism.
“The industry is continuously evolving and there are a lot of exciting things happening out there — many new ideas … things we can’t even imagine at the moment,” Davenport said. “Right now, news organizations are exploring in every direction, so our graduates will be able to find positions in any of those directions that a news organization takes.”
Current journalism students would have the option of continuing under the current curriculum or following the proposed curriculum, Davenport said. Under the proposed curriculum, 14 courses would be deleted and five courses would be added.
Among the changes are an increased number of elective offerings, increased presence of online reporting in classes and the creation of concentrations — four related courses in topics ranging from sports reporting to international reporting, Davenport said.
Students will be able to take journalism courses earlier in their college careers and will face a slimmer number of core credits, she said.
“Basically, we are going to make sure that our students become experts in gathering information in the written and the visual formats,” Davenport said. “They will be able — when they graduate — to use writing and visual skills across all platforms.”
Journalism professor Nancy Hanus said MSU’s curriculum changes will better prepare students for the new and changing world of journalism. News organizations now expect recent graduates to know how to report across platforms, from writing to using Twitter to understanding multimedia, she said.
“They need to have more than one tool in their backpack,” Hanus said.
Annie Terry, a journalism freshman, said changing the curriculum is necessary to prepare students for journalism careers. If the current program was not changed, graduates likely would be underprepared, she said.
“I think teaching us different ways to tell stories is really important,” Terry said. “That’s the way that journalism is going right now. … That’s the future in journalism — not everyone is going to be able to get out of school and get a job at a daily, because there aren’t that many of them left.”
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