Administrators from Small Programs Won Support and a National Role
| Autor: | Guy H. Stewart, Christine M. Martin |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 1995 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Journalism & Mass Communication Educator. 50:67-76 |
| ISSN: | 2161-4326 1077-6958 |
| DOI: | 10.1177/107769589505000408 |
| Popis: | When Perley Isaac Reed became the first director of the West Virginia University School of Journalism, he told his friends he was counting on help from the "big boys." He was depending, he said, on their advice, collegiality, and support. After all, the men he called the "big boys"--the deans, directors and professors of large, prestigious, long-established journalism schools, including Walter Williams of Missouri, Willard Bleyer of Wisconsin and Harry Harrington of Northwestern--were longtime colleagues, mentors and compatriots. They shared his zeal to advance journalism education. Indeed, they helped him launch his one-man, journalism sub-department in 1920, and they encouraged him throughout his 19-year crusade to transform a lone journalism class, tucked inside the English department's course offerings, into an autonomous school of journalism--one of only six in the country in 1939. Reed assumed he could count on the big boys because, over three decades, he worked as hard to develop an academic fellowship as he did to develop a school of journalism. A tireless campaigner, prolific letter writer, and world-class networker, Reed corresponded, conferenced, and kibitzed with the cream of the crop in American journalism education, eventually inviting the majority of the country's most distinguished journalism school administrators to Morgantown to see his "setup for instruction" and witness the vital relationship between the state press and West Virginia's journalism program. Reed was proud of both his school and his efforts to establish national support for it. He believed his hard work had paid off, and with a little help from his influential friends, West Virginia was ready to enter the big leagues of journalism education. "It was a sincere fellowship," Reed later said of his association with his academic peers. "Everybody appeared eager to help everybody else." By 1939, when Reed finally persuaded the West Virginia Board of Governors to declare his department a free-standing journalism school, he believed he had also persuaded the top names in journalism education to invite West Virginia University into the burgeoning ranks of recognized and approved journalism schools and departments. He assumed his long-time colleagues, housed primarily in large, well-heeled Midwestern universities, would welcome him into their "anointed fold"--the approximately 30 schools and departments comprising the decades-old, highly respected American Association of Schools and Departments of Journalism (AASDJ). A self-proclaimed "pragmatist and non-academician," Reed thought American academia of the 1940s, like American democracy of that era, was inclusive, liberal and participatory. He thought a little guy, with a solid medium-sized school, and a lot of grit and gumption, could find a fair hearing. He believed his vision of small classes, one-on-one instruction, and a regional "grassroots" journalism philosophy would find favor among the AASDJ fellowship. He discovered he was wrong. West Virginia rejected In 1941, when Reed applied for admission in AASDJ, the organization, which together with the American Council on Education in Journalism (ACEJ), inspected and ranked journalism schools nationwide, postponed action on his request. World War II, and its restrictions on travel, prevented the on-site visit necessary for AASDJ to consider Reed's application. In 1943, when Reed again, requested AASDJ admission, the organization sent Ralph O. Nafziger of Wisconsin to inspect the Morgantown school. Nafziger's visit resulted in a less than positive critique of West Virginia's fledgling School of Journalism and an AASDJ refusal to act on Reed's application. Reed was stunned and hurt. The "journalism executives," whom he had counted as kindred spirits, now "seemed to feed on different meat." According to Reed, the "post-Walter Williams" AASDJ was obsessed with the notion of "accreditation rooted in exclusivity. … |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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