Journalism is now a minor at Hillsdale College.
Faculty members officially reached a decision on the matter March 7. John Miller and Maria Servold, director and assistant director of the Dow Journalism Program, announced the change to program members the next day.
Miller said that this will eliminate some confusion about journalism at Hillsdale.
“One of the most common questions I would get from prospective students interested in journalism was ‘Is journalism a minor at Hillsdale?’” Miller said. “And I always had to offer what I felt like was a very bureaucratic, complicated answer.”
Previously, academic credit in journalism was recognized as a specialization. While that option is still available, a minor of 21 credits will now be offered.
Journalism faculty will offer several new courses to supply these credits, including “Editing” and “History of Journalism.”
Work on the Collegian, moreover, will now count as a credit – and be graded.
“Program members have done a great job with the paper even without its being graded,” Miller said. “But we think that counting it as a credit will encourage students to make it even better, and recognize the huge amount of work that goes into it each week.”
But this change didn’t come out of nowhere last Friday, said Provost David Whalen.
“In recognition of the structural inefficiencies and confusing features of the Dow Journalism Program, Maria Servold and John Miller began to work on a proposed revision,” Whalen said.
After months of revision, they proposed it to the Educational Policy Committee, which approved the recommendation. The addition of credit for work on the Collegian had been in the pipeline for four to five years, since a review of the program around that time, said Whalen.
Dean of Faculty Mark Nussbaum, chair of the Educational Policy Committee, which preliminarily approves such changes before general faculty meetings have the final say, said that virtually all faculty thought it was a good idea.
“The only suggestion we had for changes along the way was for the numbering of journalism courses to make sense,” said Nussbaum. “Otherwise, most faculty saw that it was a legitimate improvement.”
While current seniors are not able to attain the minor, it is available for subsequent classes.
“If you keep doing what you were supposed to do, then you’ll be on track for a minor,” Servold said.
