Director's Note
From the Director
New
director, building plans on the way
 |
|
Venise
Berry
|
Many of you may have already heard by now that the School of Journalism and Mass Communication has a new director. Pam Creedon, currently the director at Kent State, will join us in August. We are very excited and blessed that Pam has agreed to lead the School through this next phase of development. Be sure to read more about Pam in the Faculty Section.
The new building project has been approved by The University of Iowa’s Board of Regents and is now in the hands of the state legislature. It is a top priority for the University, so we are confident that it will be funded. As a matter of fact, the ground-breaking ceremony has been set for Thursday, Sept. 19 at 4:30 p.m. We hope that as many of our alumni as possible will plan to join us on this wonderful occasion.
The Capital Campaign Committee will meet on Sept. 20 to begin the major fundraising drive with a goal of six to ten million dollars. The money will be used to outfit our new facility and strengthen our endowment.We have received several grants this year. First, a $200,000 gift from the William Randolph Hearst Foundation of New York City to help sponsor our distinguished visiting professionals program. This endowment will enable us to broaden our current visiting professional program beyond newspapers to include areas like public relations, broadcasting and magazine. We have also received a FISPE grant for more than $188,000 for thirteen students to participate in the North American Mobility Project over the next three years. This is an excellent journalism exchange program between Mount Royal College in Calgary, Canada, Humber College in Toronto, Canada, La Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara in Guadalajara, Mexico, La Universidad de Colima in Colima, Mexico, The University of Georgia and the University of Iowa. Finally, we were awarded a $200,000 Writing Initiative Grant from the UI Provost’s office to incorporate an effective writing component into our Media and Consumers course. This is one of our most popular courses teaching media literacy to more than 160 students.
In other words, despite the many difficulties we have dealt with this year, we also had a number of very good things going on. As you will see in this edition of the Iowa Journalist, the School of Journalism and Mass Communication just keeps on getting better.