Dean: Charles C. Edwards,
Jr.
Director and Associate Dean: Patricia Prijatel
Assistant
Dean: David Wright
Admistrative Assistant: Shari Tenney
Assistant
to the Dean: Carla McCrea (records)
The School of Journalism and Mass Communication combines
professional education and liberal arts
studies to award
a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism and mass communication.
Enrollment
460 undergraduate majors in
fall 2007
41 Open journalism in 2007
103 entering freshmen fall 2006
Faculty
12
full-time faculty/10 part-time faculty
Accreditation
Accrediting Council on Education
in Journalism and Mass Communication. Drake is among 109
accredited programs nationwide. To win accreditation, schools
meet 12 standards, which address such issues as class size
to diversity within the faculty and curriculum. Accreditation
reviews occur every six years. Drake's program has been continuously
accredited, most recently in 2004.
Placement
Approximately 90% of recent SJMC
graduates are working in jobs within their fields, other
jobs of their choice or graduate school.
Requirements
Entering freshmen must
meet Drake University's admission requirements.
Transfer
students must have a cumulative GPA of at least a 2.25 on
a 4.0 scale. For a list of courses required to complete the
degree, please see the check sheets on the individual majors
pages.
Programs
The School of Journalism and Mass
Communication houses six undergraduate sequences. The school's
undergraduate “three legged stool” includes academics, extracurricular
activities and at least one internship.
Sequences And
Approximate Enrollments
First-year students need not declare their sequence right
away. During that transition they are listed as Open majors.
Double Majors
Two degrees for the price of one is very attractive
to many students and parents, and it is certainly possible
to double-major in journalism and some other field. Roughly
7-10% of Journalism students double major. The SJMC demands
much of its students. The workload is heavy, and many courses
include several hours a week of production time. These time
demands make it challenging to schedule courses in the second
major; therefore, a student seeking a double major must plan
very carefully in order to graduate within four years.
3+3 Program
The School of Journalism and Mass Communication,
in conjunction with the Drake University Law School , offers
students the option of completing the B.A. in Journalism
and Mass Communication and the J.D. in six academic years
rather than seven years. This is possible because the SJMC
will accept 21 to 24 hours of Law School credit as counting
toward the Area of Concentration requirements of the B.A.
and because the Law School will review the student for admission
before all the B.A. requirements have been met. Consequently,
the student's fourth year at Drake does double duty, serving
as both the student's senior year and first law school year.
The program requires very careful planning and tight scheduling.
Consequently, students should be admitted to the 3+3 program
no later than during the first semester of the first year
at Drake. Students participating in the 3+3 Program must
declare a major within the School of Journalism and Mass
Communication. NOTE: Participation in
the 3+3 Program does not guarantee admission
to Drake's Law School or to any other law school .
Area of Concentration
To
assure depth and focus, the JMC student must complete a 21
credit-hour block of non-JMC courses approved by the advisor
and dean. At least 12 credit hours in the concentration must
be in courses numbered 100 and above. The concentration may
be taken in a single department or as a unified area of concentration
crossing departmental lines. Recognized minors may also serve
as an area of concentration, depending upon structure and
credit hours required. Some that have proven beneficial include
political science, management, theater, and the social sciences.
For students majoring in advertising or public relations,
the minor in marketing in the College of Business and Public
Administration is an attractive option.
Distinctions of
SJMC
Involvement from the first
semester in major courses and in campus media are unique
aspects of Drake's SJMC. Most competitive journalism programs
at state universities require students to take a general education
core during the first two years of study. Students in these
other programs may not encounter courses in the major until
the junior year.
Advisors encourage first-year students to participate in
campus media activities, such as the Times-Delphic student
newspaper, Drake Magazine and the Drake
Broadcasting System.
All sequences include senior capstone courses that pull
together the student's coursework and experience into a comprehensive
project that showcases professional, creative and critical
thinking skills.
The SJMC's magazine program has achieved national prominence.
The Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass
Communication (ACEJMC) team that visited in 1999 called the
SJMC a “real standout” and termed Drake's Magazines program
the strongest undergraduate sequence in the country.
Magazines published by students either as laboratory projects
or as independent publications routinely win national honors
from the Scholastic Press Association, the Associated Collegiate
Press, The Society for Professional Journalists, and the
Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
Drake students have been selected for nationally competitive
internships offered by the American Society of Magazine Editors,
the American Magazine Publishers Association and the Business
Press Educational Foundation.
JMC's broadcast facilities include a fully equipped television
and radio studios, a remote production truck, and digital
audio and video editing systems. Campus Radio KDCS streams
its signal to the web and the station will be on the air
by summer 2006. Students can take advantage of unique and
extensive opportunities to gain training and experience in
live remote sports productions, highlighted by 18 hours of
live broadcasting during the Drake Relays.
Class projects in all majors offer students a chance to
interact with Des Moines community members while providing
service to a host of non-profit or charitable organizations.
Such projects also enable students to work closely with faculty
as colleagues outside of the traditional classroom setting.
Many excellent internships are available to students locally,
regionally and nationally during the summer and throughout
the school year. The SJMC fills more than 200 internships
every year. The accrediting team noted that “virtually any
student who wants an internship is virtually guaranteed to
receive one,” and about three of every four internships are
paid. The team found students to be enthusiastic about their
internship experiences and that employers were equally enthusiastic
in their satisfaction with Drake students and their preparation
for internship work. The School requires all students to
take JMC 40, a one-credit workshop that focuses on job search
strategies and resume preparation. Iowa 's presidential caucuses
offer students special opportunities to work with national
and international media intensively every four years.
Assessment
Employer evaluations of SJMC
student interns show a high level of satisfaction with student
preparation, attitude, initiative and skill. As the 2005
ACEJMC accrediting team noted in its report, “Drake prides
itself on having a hands-on, practical, skills-based curriculum
that prepares students for careers in journalism and mass
communication. Media professionals are full of praise for
Drake journalism school graduates. Students are involved
in student media and obtain multiple internships by the time
they graduate.”
Drake students who intern with local media outlets or corporations
often parlay those internships into full-time employment
after graduation. Meredith Corporation, for example, rarely
hires students right out of college, but has hired a number
of Drake SJMC students who have interned there or done free-lance
work for Meredith publications.
Recent public relations graduates took state civil service
examinations for public information officer positions that
also established grade/rank. The students scored well enough
to earn the grade/rank usually appropriate to people with
at least two years of professional experience instead of
the more typical entry-level grade.
Surveys continue to show between 87 and 93 percent of SJMC
graduates are working in jobs that are satisfactory to them
or are attending the graduate or law school of their choice.
A 1995 study done by Terrence Brejla and Associates showed
that 90 percent of SJMC graduates rated their career preparation
at Drake as good, very good or excellent. The same study
found three-quarters of graduates found first jobs in their
fields and that 78 percent were still working in their field
of study five years after graduation.
Alumni who chose not to pursue a journalism career offer
positive testimonials in support of their JMC degree. Lawyers,
health care professionals, retailers, entrepreneurs, coaches,
corporate executives, even a romance novelist say they owe
much of their various kinds of success to the writing, reporting,
problem-solving and presentation skills that came with their
majors. This also includes the depth and breadth of the “liberal
education” that went along with their professional education.
Capstone experiences involving outside clients provide students
and faculty with an excellent mechanism for professional
review of student skills and curricular effectiveness. Recent
clients for campaign capstones in the advertising and public
relations programs include Pioneer Hi-bred, the Iowa Association
of Independent Colleges and Universities, The Iowa Cubs baseball
organization and Citgo.
History of the Drake University School of
Journalism
and Mass Communication
Journalism education at Drake has a long and distinguished
history, beginning in 1919 when the College of Commerce,
Finance and Journalism was established. From that day to
this, studies in journalism have retained a place of pride
in Drake's array of professional curricula. A separate School
of Journalism was created at Drake in 1962.
Early leaders in journalism education at Drake included
Gardner “Mike” Cowles, who served as department head from
1928-29, while he was also managing editor of The Des Moines
Register and Tribune. A year later, Cowles hired Dr. George
Gallup to head the department. Gallup had served on the faculty
at the University of Iowa and went on later to begin his
national polling organization. These early leaders set journalism
education at Drake on a course that emphasized a strong relationship
with practicing professionals, hands-on learning and applied
research. Course offerings included newspaper management,
advanced reporting, specialized writing and “newspaper trends.”
By the early 1930s, there were 24 journalism courses, including
four advertising courses, high school journalism for teachers,
dramatic criticism, play reviews and “camera reporting,” the
journalism department's first venture into photojournalism.
In a parallel development, a Radio Department began in the
College of Fine Arts and moved into the College of Commerce
and Finance the following year. Radio courses could be taken
as part of the news-editorial sequence in journalism.
The decade of the 1960s was a time of major development
for the newly established School of Journalism . The first
television courses were offered in 1960. By mid-decade, Meredith
Hall – designed by “less-is-more” architect Ludwig Mies van
der Rohe – was built to house the school, and a radio-television
department was established. Hugh Curtis, former editor of The
Ladies' Home Journal , was named the first dean of the
school. The news-editorial and advertising sequences of the
school won accreditation from the American Council on Education
for Journalism (ACEJ) in 1972. In 1980, advertising and news-editorial
were accredited again, and the public relations sequence
was accredited for the first time. In 1981, the name of the
school was changed to the School of Journalism and Mass Communication
to reflect its diversity of offerings. It was reaccredited
in 1987, 1992, 1998 and 2005. |
Prospective Students 
