Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication Strategic Plan
The Grady College has long ranked among the top tier of journalism programs in the nation. While no single, universally accepted ranking of journalism schools exists, on a number of measures the College is highly ranked among its peer institutions. The College was among the first group of programs achieving accreditation in 1947 when that process was initiated. More recently, the Grady College was among only six programs to have all four of its graduate programs ranked among the top 20 by U.S. News & World Report (Public Relations 4th, Advertising 5th, Telecommunications 12th, and Print Journalism 17th). The preliminary reaccreditation report by the site team in October, 1999 cited the research of the College as "signifying national prominence." Recently, the College's research reputation was highlighted in a article in the Journal of Advertising which ranked the advertising department first in research among all similar departments. Finally, the College has become a primary stop on the interview circuit of a number of major communications companies including Knight-Ridder, Gannett, Cox, Coca-Cola, and agencies such as BBDO further attesting to its growing national reputation.
The strategic plan for the College of Journalism and Mass Communication seeks to examine the current strengths of the College in research, instruction, and outreach. More importantly, the plan is a vision for the future which builds on the strong foundation and historical mission of the College=s programs while embracing new opportunities and challenges. A number of areas such as diversity, internationalism, and the need for new technology, facilities, and personnel will be addressed as part of the initiatives of the College and, no doubt, as part of the broader University strategic planning process. However, the College=s plan is a blueprint for the future and addresses specific initiatives that carry out the professional and academic mandates of the College for our students, alumni, and diverse constituencies.
Initiatives
1. Space Needs
2. School of Electronic Media
3. Specialized Communication
4. New Media Institute
5. Diversity and Multiculturalism
Objective:
Occupy and control Journalism Building
Budget:
$10,000,000
Description:
The College of Journalism and Mass Communication is in dire need of additional space to provide for expanded program requirements. When the new learning center opens, we anticipate making a formal request to control the entire Journalism building rather than the 2 2 floors currently occupied. Control of the building by the College would require no displacement of other units. The remaining space is comprised of classrooms.
Reasons:
When the building was first occupied in 1969, there were approximately 35 faculty and staff, a student body of 350 junior, senior and master degree students, and limited need for sophisticated technology. Today, the Journalism program encompasses a faculty and staff of more than 80, 820 undergraduate and graduate students, and numerous laboratories and studios.
Implementation:
* Controlling the entire building would provide a naming opportunity for the College. We anticipate asking for $10 million to provide an $8 million endowment and $2 million for immediate renovation.
* Additional space would provide:
1. Suitable office, administrative, and screening facilities for the Peabody Awards Program.
2. Adequate facilities for the Cox Center for International Training and Research to carry out the global mission of the College and The University.
3. Space for further expansion of digital technology among the three departments of the College.
4. Service and outreach training facilities including distance learning classrooms for high school and mid-career journalists.
Objective:
School of Electronic Media
Budget:
$10,400,000
Description:
The Grady College will replace the current Department of Telecommunications with an endowed and named School of Electronic Media to provide the resources needed to grow the Telecommunications Department to meet student and professional demand. A School of Electronic Media would also implement new programs that will move the Grady College into a leadership position in the electronic media and telecommunications fields to enhance the teaching, research and service missions of our program.
Reasons:
The Grady College=s Telecommunications Department is uniquely positioned to grow into a School of Electronic Media capable of training the next level of professionals. The information age demands new professionals to process the content flowing through an increasing number of broadband pipelines. These new professionals will need to know how to manage all media-- text, data, video, audio, and new media that have yet to be invented. They will require understanding of the history, organization and management of existing media and their potential combinations. And they will have to think globally.
The Telecommunication Department has extensive, daily contacts with such global communications leaders as CNN, Turner, and Cox Communications, keeping it industry focused. It is the home of the Peabody Awards, not only broadcasting=s highest award, but home to a vast repository of media history. It houses innovative, experimental broadcast management and broadcast news programs. And it has an aggressive program in New Media.
The School of Electronic Media will also be the place where the economic, social, and political implications of these new systems are examined. It will be a place where the new media systems are tested, integrated into existing systems, and demonstrated. It will also be a place where faculty and graduate students will explore the uses and impact of these systems for individuals, organizations, and society. These new systems have important legal, ethical, professional, and individual implications, which will be the focus of the research mission of the School. The economic, political, and social implications of these changes will only become more intricate and compelling as media change. These instructional and research missions will provide the framework for our outreach and service programs, as they have in the past.
Implementation:
* Create a plan to interest potential donors to endow the school at the level of between 8 and 10 million dollars.
* Create a funding proposal that would enhance our existing instructional activities, including:
1. Seek Regents and Legislative support for a Broadcast News Leadership Initiative including infrastructure, personnel, and operations. ($300,000)
2. Create a strong international program, with extensive study abroad.
3. Enhancing our program in new technology, in cooperation with the New Media Institute.
4. Creating named Lecture series and visiting professor and professional positions. ($100,000)
5. Growing the graduate program, with particular attention to targeted education
for the mid-career professionals in the Master of Mass Communication.
6. Creating a telecommunications management focus.
7. Continue efforts to increase Peabody endowment.
* Expanding resources for research enhancement: grant support, travel, research assistance.
* Augmenting existing outreach programs including professional workshops, research support and productivity, certificates for mid-career programs, and minority outreach and training.
* Expand the outreach activities of the Peabody Awards, with a goal of linking the instructional and research activities with the resources of Peabody.
Objective:
Specialized Communication Initiatives
Description:
The strength of the Grady faculty and recent initiatives by major media companies have created opportunities for the College to pursue separate areas in communications management, strategic communications, and health and scientific communications. These specialized areas allow opportunities for private funding and research grants that will support these efforts.
I. Strategic Communication and Integrated Communication (To be housed in the AD/PR Department)
Budget:
Chair in Strategic Communication and Integrated Communication - $1,000,000
Graduate Assistant and staff support - $50,000
Anticipated start-up costs - $50,000
Reasons:
The role of the corporate communications professional has grown with business expansion, consumer diversity, new media outlets and the exponential growth of messages competing for consumers= attention. Corporate communications professionals must think strategically and integrate the disciplines of persuasive communication. The Grady College has the opportunity to develop a Strategic Communication Center to teach and produce scholarship in the area of corporate strategic communication.
The fields of advertising, public relations and other forms of promotion are merging. The Grady College has the opportunity to develop a specific graduate program that merges the teaching of advertising management, public relations/corporate promotion and data-based communications.
Business, economic and financial news has become central to specialized news markets and to the average media consumer. There is great demand in all media for journalists capable of explaining economic trends, reporting corporate takeovers and demystifying modern banking practices. We anticipate that business related reporting will be expanded and supported under the existing James M. Cox, Jr. Institute for Newspaper Management Studies.
Implementation:
* Develop a Center for the Study of Strategic Communication.
* Establish a chair in strategic communications.
* Seek research support enabling the study and dissemination of knowledge concerning
integrated communication.
* Create a graduate program in integrated communications or integrated marketing communications in cooperation with the College of Business.
* Train students to manage multiple persuasive communication functions.
II. Health and Science Communication and Research (To be housed in AD/PR Department)
Budget:
$500,000
Reasons:
The University has a lengthy history of teaching, research and outreach in the sciences and science policy. The University is the home of, and supports a strong program in, ecology. The University plans a collaborative, interdisciplinary Biomedical Science and Health Initiative to research diseases and health policy. Several members of the advertising and public relations department are working on major grants, research projects and interventions in health communications. The journalism department teaches and conducts work shops and research in science and environmental journalism. The Grady College has an opportunity to expand and strengthen its teaching, research and outreach in health, science and environmental communication.
Implementation:
* Participate in University Biomedical Science and Health initiatives. Continue and expand research funding efforts in health communication.
* Expand teaching, research and training in science, health and environmental journalism.
* Start-up resources needed for FY 2001 include (1) a Center Manager position (approximately $30,000/year), (2) an operating budget ($15,000/year), (3) physical plant (a 3-office suite of about 1200 square feet), (4) furnishings ($16,000 plus surplus furnishings), (5) at least one-course teaching reduction for Center Director
* Long-term resources include the above plus (1) endowment for named professorship for Center Director ($250,000), (2) physical plant including interaction laboratory, mini-auditorium for message testing, and conference room-a total of 7,000 square feet. It is anticipated that the Center would have a net positive cash flow within 5 years (sooner if granted NCI ACenter of Excellence@).
III. Digital Journalism (To be housed in Journalism Department)
Budget:
See attached budget.
Reasons:
Journalism is being transformed by technology. Digital technology alters how news is gathered, written, edited, and disseminated. While the basics of writing and editing remain the same, technology alters the process and content of journalism, as well as the management, regulation and ethics of the journalistic enterprise essential to democratic society.
The Aprint@ industry in Georgia - Cox, Morris, Intertec and others - are leaders in digital journalism, from electronic news libraries and computer-assisted reporting, to interactive, multi-media web pages and new methods of telling stories. Many of the best jobs in journalism require digital skills.
The Department of Journalism has integrated digital technologies into its writing, editing and production classes. The Cox Institute for Newspaper Management Studies has conducted several research projects on newspaper management and strategy, often including digital dimensions. The department has conducted several training programs for students and mid-career professionals in digital reporting and editing. The convergence of digital media is an opportunity for the journalism department to extend its teaching, research and service in substantial journalism.
Implementation:
* Transform an aging computer laboratory into a Digital Journalism Laboratory and office suite for teachers and researchers focusing on digital journalism.
* Establish a chair in Digital Journalism.
* Train students and visiting professionals in computer-assisted reporting, analysis of data, geographic information systems, presentation of graphic and tabular data, and new forms of writing and merging media in the online environment.
* Contribute classes, outreach and research initiatives to the New Media Institute.
* Help guide the upgrading of the Drewry Resource Center and personnel to contemporary standards of digital research, storage, analysis and dissemination of news and information.
* Work closely with the Cox Institute for Newspaper Management Studies on issues of management and regulation.
Objective:
New Media Institute
Budget:
At this point, the budget contributions of interdisciplinary partners in the Institute have not been determined by that unit.
Description:
The University of Georgia will create a New Media Institute dedicated to making UGA a leader in new media education and the state of Georgia a regional center for new media industry.
Reasons:
Digital communication is changing the ways text, sound and images are produced, transmitted, stored and displayed. The convergence of media blurs boundaries among the media, among academic disciplines and between creators and users of information. Efficient use of digital information will be crucial to the success of communications industries in the 21st Century.
The University System of Georgia is committed to using technology to Acreate, promote, and maintain unfettered access to both information and learning@ in the emerging Age of Learning.
A New Media Institute will allow the University of Georgia and the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication to maintain their international leadership in researching and disseminating information about the content, effects, management and structure of mass communications media. The College would hope to form a partnership with the Institute to train students and practitioners in the effective use of new media.
A New Media Institute will function as an interdisciplinary program creating synergy by coordinating the efforts of faculty from journalism, business, drama, art, computer science and related programs. In addition, it will provide mid-career training and development opportunities by partnering with off campus constituencies on the use of technology to acquire, analyze, store, manage and disseminate digital information.
Implementation:
* Create a New Media Institute Fellows program involving both faculty and staff in the reaching and researching new media. Institute will continue to New Media Institute programs, but will still retain their home department appointments and responsibilities.
* Create a New Media Consortium that will involve industry as funding partners in the programs of the New Media Institute. Consortium partners will make a one-time contribution toward the Institutes goal of a million dollar endowment and they will pay an annual fee for Institute programs and workshops.
* Create an Interdisciplinary New Media Certificate program which will enhance student=s degrees across the University.
* Upgrade the facilities and staff of the Drewry Learning Resources Center for researching, evaluating, acquiring, storing, managing and disseminating digital information.
* Establish a New Media Masters program which will offer a professionally oriented graduate degree.
* Establish an incubator program that will provide students with the resources and expertise to develop the ideas that may become businesses.
* Establish a New Media Service Bureau that will allow Institute Fellows and Students to collaborate to build new media systems and applications for the University.
* Create a Maymester Industry/Student Boot Camp for Institute Students and Consortium partners. During this Boot Camp, Institute Fellows offer workshops and classes on topics selected by Consortium partners.
* In order to fulfill its potential, the New Media Institute will need additional space, perhaps a designated building, and privately supported chairs and professorships as well as staff support personnel.
Objective:
Diversity and Multiculturalism
Budget:
$1,115,000
Description:
To promote diversity and multiculturalism within the Grady College.
Reasons:
The Grady College is committed to developing the resources to expand programs intended to increase the enrollment of minority students at both the graduate and undergraduate level. It is our belief that the educational environment of the College will be enhanced by a diverse student body that more closely mirrors the demographics of the state and region. Like the United States, the State of Georgia is growing more culturally diverse. The Grady College is dedicated to teaching, research, and service that reflects and explores the cultures of the societies the University serves. Our students must be prepared to work in multicultural contexts. Since mass communication professionals help their audiences form perspectives of the world around them, it is imperative that these communicators deal with an increasingly diverse environment.
The Grady College has several existing multicultural and international initiatives - the Cox Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research, the Parma-London program, graduate and undergraduate international communication courses. These programs involve our faculty and students in exploration of multicultural issues.
Implementation:
* The College proposes a minority mentoring program to be coordinated through the Office of Student Services. The program would identify students as young as middle school through current programs of the Grady Office of Service and Outreach as well as the University Admissions Office. Once identified, students would be assigned to a faculty member who would follow their academic progress, invite them to campus, and upon entering the University provide a support mechanism throughout their University experience. An individual faculty member would have no more than two or three students at any one time.
* The Grady College will identify funds to hire a minority recruiter with specific responsibility to increase the number of minority students entering the Grady College. The minority recruiter would be assigned to the Grady College Office of Student Services and would work closely with that office's mentoring program to create a coordinated plan for identification, recruitment, and support of interested minority students. This effort has already begun with a subcommittee of the Journalism Alumni Association formed to study issues of diversity. ($40,000)
* The College will seek to work with the communication organizations of the state to enhance its already extensive program of high school and middle school outreach. The Georgia Scholastic Press Association, a unit of the College's outreach program, will coordinate an expansion of its secondary school media literacy initiative and seek additional private funding to expand its spring convention, summer media academy, and add to the number of weekend workshops. We also would anticipate inviting communication students from high schools with high percentages of African-American enrollments to campus to make them more knowledgeable about the Grady College program and facilities. ($50,000)
* Establish and enhance joint degree and study abroad programs for students using existing university centers and institutes. The College's goal is to double the number of students participating in such programs in the next three years. ($25,000)
* The College will devote additional resources to increase the diversity of classroom experiences by hiring diverse faculty and attracting visiting professors. (As openings become available.)
* The College, using the considerable visibility and prestige of the Cox Center, will seek funds for an endowed chair in international communication. ($1,000,000)
Budget Summary
1. Control of Journalism Building $10,000,000
Funding anticipated from a major media corporation in return for a naming opportunity.
2. Specialized Communication Initiatives
1. Strategic Communication and Integrated Communication $1,100,000
Funding for Chair from a single corporation or consortium of agencies and businesses. Initial support for graduate assistant, staff, and start up costs to be provided by the College until grants and outside support can make the unit self-sustaining.
II. Health and Science Communication and Research $500,000
Physical Plant and Operating Expenses will require the following facilities (total 5,500 sq ft):
* Reception and Center Manager office (625 square ft)
* Center Director Office (400 square ft)
* 2 graduate/post-doc offices (400 square ft each)
* 2 project director/visiting scholar offices (250 square ft each)
* Conference room (700 square ft)
* Interaction laboratory with wall-mounted cameras (400 square ft)
* Mini-auditorium equipped with response devices for message testing (2000 square ft)
Start-up need is for approximately 1200 square ft physical plant.
An endowment for a named professorship would be raised for the Center Director.
Initial operating costs would be provided by the Grady College, but with the expectation of extramural funding to make the unit self-sustaining within 3-5 years.
III. Digital Journalism $1,400,000
Support for Chair will be requested from Knight, Cox, and similar foundations.
College would provide operating expenses through a combination of state dollars and The William I. Ray Trust Fund.
3. School of Electronic Media $10,400,000
The major funding for the School will come from a corporate gift of $10,000,000 with a naming opportunity. Preliminary development strategy for this gift is being planned.
4. Diversity and Multiculturalism $1,115,000
The majority of the funding for this initiative will come from an endowed chair in international communication, perhaps to fund the director of the Cox Center for International Communication Research and Training.
