National accreditation team reviews
school of communications
Brittany Smith / News Editor
Four members from the Accrediting Council on Education in
Journalism and Mass Communications visited Elon Monday and
Tuesday to review the university's communication's
program.
Terry Hynes, dean of the college of Journalism and
Communications at University of Florida; Hubert Brown,
associate professor in the New House School of Public
Communications at Syracuse; Jan Quarles, assistant dean of
the College of Mass Communications at Middle Tennessee State;
and Rich Archbold, executive editor of the Long Beach, Calif.
Press-Telegram make up the team visiting Elon this week.
The team visit is part of a four step process to
accreditation. In the first step, communications
administrators, staff and faculty members assembled a
self-study over the past year for the team to look at during
their visit.
The second step is a visit from a team from the ACEJMC.
While at Elon, the members talk to students and faculty in
break-out sessions and open discussions to see if what the
communication's program has submitted is actually put
into practice.
After talking to everyone involved in the program, the team
writes a report of assessment and recommendation to the
commission of the accrediting organization.
The commission then reviews the evidence and recommendation
and makes a judgement about the university's program and
then let's the university know.
In the fourth step, the university responds to the decision
and based on the recommendation, adjusts the program for the
better of the students involved.
The ACEJMC does not rank accredited schools, but measures
the program according to its compliance with the basic
standards in the school's mission statement, according to
the ACEJMC web site at www.ku.edu/~acejmc/index.html.
More than 100 schools nationwide have been accredited by the
ACEJMC.
One school in Chile was accredited as well.
Two schools in North Carolina are already accredited. The
department of journalism and mass communications at the North
Carolina A&T and the school of journalism and Mass
Communications at the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill are also accredited.
After leaving Elon, the accrediting team will visit Auburn
University Oct. 30 to Nov. 2.
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Krista Naposki / Photographer