This fall, Elon University’s School of Communications is taking one of its most-important final steps toward accreditation; a team from the Accrediting Council for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications will be on campus to assess Elon’s program Oct. 23-26.
The team chair will be Terry Hynes, dean of the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida and former president of AEJMC. She could be considered an expert at this, as she has chaired 17 site visits and her own university is undergoing a reaccredition bid this fall.
Team members will include Hubert Brown, an associate professor (broadcast) in the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse; Jan Quarles, assistant dean of the College of Mass Communication at Middle Tennessee State and a veteran in public relations and international communications; and Rich Archbold, executive editor of the Long Beach (Calif.) Press-Telegram and a former president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
School of Communications administrators, support staff and faculty members have assembled a thorough self-study over the past year, and it will be an important introduction to the program for the ACEJMC assessment team. Dean Paul Parsons and former Associate Dean Brad Hamm did the bulk of the work, with vital input from department chairs Don Grady and Connie Book and administrative staff members Phyllis Phillips, Pam Baker and Brittain Cheek.
The final self-study document will be submitted to members of the site-visit team in early September.