JMC department prepares for 'School'

After a year of transition, the journalism and mass communication department is prepared to officially become the School of Communication next fall. Two key elements to this change are a departmental move to a central site and the addition of a dean.

"It's an evolutionary process," Helen Fallon, acting dean of the School of Communication, said. "First, the university is going to have to give us resources. That means faculty, that means facilities, that means equipment."

The new school aims to keep its hands-on learning experience and knowledgeable faculty.

"The development of the new School of Communication is a significant component of the university's strategic plan and its commitment to academic excellence," Charles Perkins, university provost, said in a press release.

In 2008, Point Park University's journalism and mass communication program "had the third largest enrollment among all journalism programs in Pennsylvania as of fall semester 2007," according to a survey in the fall 2008 issue of "Journalism & Mass Communication Educator."

Point Park ranked third behind Pennsylvania State University and Temple University. The master's program ranked number two behind LaSalle University.

"There are currently around 600 students in the department, which is average for the size of the university," Bob O'Gara, acting chair of the journalism and mass communication department, said.

He said the department is comfortable with the size and they expect enrollment to become slightly more competitive year-by-year. He said most of the students have a clear career focus, which eliminates some competiveness.

"We are going to move temporarily, for about three to four years, to offices in Thayer Hall, occupied by the School of Business," O'Gara said.

The School of Business currently occupies the ninth and 10th floors of Thayer Hall and will be relocating to an area of the West Penn building that is currently under construction. Over the summer, all journalism and mass communication faculty and staff will be moving from their current offices, spread across campus, to the new location. Some professors will keep their offices by the television studio in the University Center and near the photography labs.

"We always have a chance to put our two cents in," O'Gara said about the move. "It will be nice to start the fall with a new school, new furniture, new offices and a new conference area."

The journalism program officially began under the guidance of Dr. Benjamin Fine, a Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times education writer.

Major accomplishments of the department thus far include the Innocence Institute, pioneered by Bill Moushey, a program that seeks to train students investigative reporting techniques and research wrongful convictions in the Pittsburgh area and beyond; Point Park News Service, which was created to give students a chance to have their work published by local or national media; and U-View, the student-run television network, as well as the first journalism and mass communication graduate program in the region.

"We know our curriculum is sound, we look at it every two years no matter what," Fallon said. "We will continue to do that."

As a former journalism and mass communication graduate of Point Park, Fallon has an interesting outlook on how the program has evolved and where it is heading.

"I was here in the '70s, and there were tons of kids," Fallon said. "Everyone wanted to be a journalist-we were thrilled about Nixon and Watergate. Students used the Downtown location as our campus, so we ran all over the place, we covered trials, we covered council meetings.

"In a way it's the same as what we do now, but the equipment has changed. We used typewriters-electric typewriters were a new invention. There were no computers, TV equipment was pretty primitive, but it was what was there at the time."

Fallon has been cited as one of the key parts of this transition, and her leadership and position as chair of the department since 1999 aided in her aspiration to transition the department into a school.

"What's changed is we have more equipment, we have more facilities-we're still not where we should be-but we have more faculty. We have more endeavors to do more things, we make trips, we try to do everything that we can. We wish more students would become more involved, we're still fighting that same battle from when I was here to begin with."

Fallon credits some of the lack of student participation to when Dr. Katherine Henderson took on the role of university president and changed classes from a Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule to a Monday/Wednesday schedule. After this, students were not around as much on Fridays and it hurt everything.

Every year, the department takes a long weekend trip to Washington, D.C., during the spring semester, and recently has begun taking international trips to London, Toronto, and next year-Ireland.

"In the fall we expect to have a dean, and we are very excited over the expertise and cultural fit he brings," O'Gara said. "He is student-friendly, oriented toward the department's evolution, has close ties to professions and will help us move forward with technology."

Out of 11 faculty members in the 2008-2009 school year, five of them hold doctorates in journalism or related fields. Each faculty member has a particular area of concentration where they have vast experience and knowledge.

Dr. Dane Claussen has spent many years of his life editing and publishing various newspapers, books and other publications. He is currently the editor of Journalism & Mass Communication Educator.

David Fabilli, adviser of WPPJ and broadcasting professor, continues to host a two-hour weekly jazz magazine show on WNRJ.

Fallon continues to work as a part-time copy editor for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.