Dear CoJMC Alums and Friends,
Andersen Hall is decked out with colorful nods to the season as we wrap up Dead Week, a busy time of project completion and presentations for our students in advertising, broadcasting, journalism, public relations and sports media & communication. We are racing toward undergraduate commencement the morning of Saturday December 21; our graduate students will cross the stage the day before, during the afternoon of Friday, Dec. 20.
Our student population grew again this fall, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, reflecting a national growth trend in journalism programs but bucking a campus trend. The newest of our majors, sports media & communication, entered its third year with about 200 majors.
This fall semester we launched our new core curriculum, common classes that all of our majors take at the beginning of their degree program and at the end. These include skills classes in writing, reporting and editing as well as in digital photography and videography, design and typography, and more, as well as ethics and law.
We also added two more faculty to our ranks, Monique Farmer (public relations) and Patti Harney (advertising), and we are just finishing a search for two more faculty members in journalism. To support our faculty and fulfill our promise of a great education for our students, we instituted new activities and resources to ensure excellence in teaching.
Pop-up classes continued to provide exciting instruction for students from across campus, a way to show all students just how amazing CoJMC is. We had pop-ups in media sales, digital animation, podcasting and more.
So as you reflect on your own 2019, know that your alma mater continues to work hard to educate the next generation and to be a program in which you can take great pride. On February 14, 2020, the 151st anniversary of the signing of the charter of our institution, our second annual Glow Big Red 24 Hours of Giving will make it easy for you to be a part of this forward momentum. You’ll be able to easily contribute to whatever part of CoJMC is the most meaningful to you, knowing that every gift directly impacts our students.
But for now, we here in Andersen Hall wish you warm and wonderful holidays spent with those you love.
