The overall goal of the School of Journalism is best reflected in the school's mission statement:

• stresses the importance of the First Amendment;
• fosters the highest standards of journalism ethics;
• prepares students to enter the journalism profession;
• provides a liaison between students and professionals;
• involves students and faculty in an extended university;
• values an international presence and perspective;
• attracts, nurtures and retains a diverse group of outstanding students;
• expands scholarly activity to enhance the body of knowledge within journalism;
• supports a diverse faculty offering an array of contributions;
• offers an environment that equips students to live in a diverse world;
• upholds the university mission of commitment to educational excellence through focus on the individual students.

The school also subscribes to the College of Communication Outcome Expectations: (1) skills in speaking, writing and computing; (2) breadth of knowledge; (3) critical thinking, gathering and analysis of information; and (3) completion of an internship or practicum.

In addition to these general expectations of students, each sequence in the school has specific expectations of learning peculiar to that particular branch of journalism. These are referred to below in the sequence-specific assessment descriptions.

Assessment in the School of Journalism begins before students matriculate to Ohio University. From its inception, journalism has been one of the most prominent programs at Ohio University. It grew to more than 1,000 students and enjoyed considerable attention from national press and evaluating associations. Nearly a decade ago, the faculty decided that the School needed more effective control over its enrollment. With the permission of the dean and the provost, a system of selective admissions was instituted in an effort to reduce the school's size and to limit the student group to those most qualified.

Initial admission to the School of Journalism requires that an entering freshman be in the upper 15 percent of his or her high school class and have an ACT score of at least 25 or an SAT score of at least 1140. Applicants who do not make this level as they leave high school may present a professional portfolio to show their interests and abilities, and this portfolio may cause their cases to be reconsidered. Those who enter the university in an undecided or pre-journalism major may apply by the last day of Winter Quarter classes of any year for transfer to the School of Journalism. Such a transfer into the school, either from within or without the university, usually takes a 3.4 or better accumulative average and a showing of professional work. More than 617 applications for the 1998-99 freshman class were evaluated in anticipation of a class of approximately 200. Transfer applications in 1998 numbered 92, from which 40 were chosen for acceptance.

The goal is to seek applicants with the greatest likelihood of success. Annual reports from the university's Office of Institutional Research reflect retention rates, which show an average retention of 91.5 percent over the past six years, a figure that indicates that overall assessment of students is working in a very positive way. The specific yearly breakdown is as follows:

1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997

92% 93% 90% 91% 92% 91%

Another study by the Office of Institutional Research indicates that the School of Journalism has developed an overall plan of assessment that facilitates student success, indicated by a high rate of graduation of 84 percent after six years (as compared to the university rate of 72 percent).

Advising is one of the key tools in the School of Journalism's student assessment program. Every quarter students meet with their academic advisers, all of whom are full-time faculty members in the school. The adviser reviews the student's DARS report and evaluates his or her progress toward meeting degree requirements. In addition, the adviser assesses progress toward professional goals, offering students the opportunity to learn about:

1. internship opportunities;
2. the importance of joining appropriate professional student organizations; and
3. the importance of getting involved in hands-on journalism activities on campus.

Based on various surveys of journalism majors, we know that students consider advising an important and beneficial part of their education. For example, a survey was done at the end of Spring Quarter 1998 specifically for inclusion in this report. Distributed in advanced core and sequence classes, the survey was completed by 86 seniors intending to graduate in June or August, and it revealed the following:

Question: Agree Disagree

My adviser knew the degree requirements. 89% 13%

My adviser was able to give me complete answers to questions I asked,
or helped me to find the information I needed. 81% 19%

When asked, my adviser went over my course selections. 81% 9%

My adviser posted office hours and kept them. 73% 16%

I went to see my adviser at times other than during pre-registration. 72% 15%

My adviser seemed concerned about my academic progress. 77% 15%

An Office of Institutional Research study released in March 1998 ("Change in Student Involvement From the First (Freshman) Year to the Senior Year at Ohio University"), indicated that the longer journalism majors are on campus, the more they take advantage of advising, suggesting that they increasingly value the input of not only their academic advisers, but other advisers as well.

Conversations with: 1st year Senior year % increase

Academic adviser 2.2 5.8 164%

Faculty members 2.4 5.1 113%

Student organization adviser 0.5 1.5 200%

Career adviser (or participating in program concerning career) 1.4 3.2 129%

While only an indirect indicator of student assessment, the views of journalism students about the quality of their program of study at Ohio University suggest that these students increasingly value their academic program of study as they go from freshman to senior years. In its March 1998 report, the Office of Institutional Research found the following about journalism majors:

64% satisfied 90% satisfied 26%

Faculty availability outside class 84% important 92% important 8%

57% satisfied 74% satisfied 17%

Academic advising 90% important 94% important 4%

53% satisfied 74% satisfied 21%

Adequate academic/intellectual atmosphere 94% important 96% important 2%

79% satisfied 85% satisfied 6%

In order to inform itself as to student progress through graduation, the Curriculum Committee undertook a study of the final DARS reports of the graduating class of 1997. A preliminary summary of the data shows that 125 persons graduated with BSJ degrees in 1997. The average number of hours they earned was 204.25. Very few earned exactly the required 192, and one person had 296 hours. Most of those with high numbers of hours had completed another degree, two minors, or a certificate program. Preliminary figures show the following percentage breakdowns:

N for entire table = 125

As is the case in all university programs, student progress is most frequently assessed through Ohio University's standard grading system. Based on course expectations, faculty members establish standards and then provide frequent feedback to students on the degree to which they have met these standards. One constant component of this system in the School of Journalism—based on the college goal of skills in writing, critical thinking, gathering and analysis of information—is that every class is a writing class. As a result, all student work is assessed in part on writing skill and in part on assignment content.

But the school's effort to measure student progress goes well beyond normal grading. The goal is to strengthen faculty understanding of the performance of individual students so that steps may be taken—through class work and through advising—to help students overcome weaknesses and highlight strengths.

Within the curriculum, the most telling examples are found in the requirement that students must earn a C or better in each of the six classes in the curriculum core. The core is made up of individual skills and knowledge, in accord with the college and school goals, that this faculty believes to be essential to all college-educated persons, particularly those in journalism. The courses are designed to help both students and their advisers gain a fundamental grasp of the students' basic abilities to meet these expected outcomes:

Precision Language Freshman Writing

Graphics Sophomore Computing, Design

Information Gathering Sophomore Gathering, Analysis of Information

Communication Law Junior/Senior Breadth of Knowledge

Ethics Junior/Senior Breadth of Knowledge

Advisers carefully monitor student progress through the core and recommend appropriate action when problems are confronted. While most students succeed on the first effort in a given class, it remains a faculty goal that students who have specific types of problems may be counseled at the time that is appropriate to their success in school. This is one of the reasons four of the six classes are taken at the freshman or sophomore level.

Such early core courses as Precision Language and News Writing have daily return of papers so that students are aware of their progress at all times. A final grade of C or better is required in all core courses in order to go on in the program. As a result of carefully monitoring of selectively admitted students, 90 percent are successful at achieving a C or better at the first effort and another 5 percent do so at the second effort.

The School of Journalism has five sequences: Advertising Management, Broadcast News, Magazine, Public Relations, and News Writing and Editing.

Journalism students are accustomed to frequent and demanding assessment in their sequence courses. This assessment often focuses on creative, non-traditional types of assignments aimed at teaching students both the principles and skills required to become journalists. In the core, for example, students take an information gathering course in which they must produce a 50-item annotated bibliography demonstrating advanced research skills. In the ethics course, a core capstone course, students must create portfolios, each of which must include a "Personal Code of Ethics."

The school places particular emphasis on professional assessment in upper-level, sequence-based capstone courses, as well as the professional assessment made of students during their internships. In general, journalism students are assessed by three types of evaluator: the instructor of record, peers, and external reviewers—usually professional journalists. Examples of these assessment processes are outlined below:

Problem-solving skills are critical to the success of advertising professionals. Many assessment activities done in advertising instruction emphasize analyzing situations, identifying problems, and then proposing and defending viable solutions. Advertising projects are assessed according to accepted industry standards and practices. Peer critiques and editing are commonly applied in course work as a means of instruction and assessment. In advanced classes, students help one another improve their skills and understanding. Each course includes at least one presentation made by each student. The professor and classmates assess and offer critiques on form, substance, and presentation. Tools include evaluation forms, one-on-one meetings with instructors, group coaching, professional critiques, and in-class discussion of students' work. Tests and quizzes are a secondary means of assessing student progress.

The progress of advertising students frequently is assessed by using professional projects and activities as a means of demonstrating knowledge gained and demonstrated to solve real-life problems. Toward this end, nearly 100 Ad Club members each year spend seven months solving a problem for a national advertiser by preparing a complete advertising plan (including fully executed newspaper, magazine, radio and TV advertisements). The students compete against students from more than ten other universities from Ohio, West Virginia, and Kentucky. The five judges are professionals from across the industry. Assessments are made of the plan itself, and the presentation of the plan. OU won 2^nd place in this year's competition.

ACTV-7 News, a nightly half-hour news program, is a senior-level journalism course required of all broadcast journalism majors. It includes nightly assessment in the form of a half-hour meeting following each newscast. During the meeting, the instructor and teaching assistant give each student feedback on his or her work for that particular program. This assessment is different from traditional grading in that it is immediate, and is done in a group setting, which means that everyone present potentially benefits from the assessment that an individual student receives. In addition, the student producer, who is responsible for the content of the newscast, assesses the work of other students in the class. This is the only class at Ohio University that can be seen by the entire community on a nightly basis, as it is televised live on the local cable system. Members of the community can offer their own assessment of the student journalists they see on the program, either through informal conversations on the street or through e-mail or phone calls to the newsroom.

This capstone course in the broadcast journalism sequence offers a significant assessment process that requires students to be active learners through participation/discussion (which is a significant part of the final grade), and presentations that must be 30 minutes, followed by 20 minutes of questions and answers with classmates. Here, students are assessed on the basis of their taking responsibility for learning. In effect, this is viewed as the course in which students learn to take on this responsibility, so that they can continue learning about the field of broadcast journalism beyond their time at Ohio University.

Through the student chapter of the Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA), and particularly the organization's annual Spring conference, students' work is assessed by professional broadcast journalists who critique resume tapes and writing samples in small-group and one-on-one settings.

All exercises in the Magazine Editing and Production course are assessed as to whether they are appropriate for audience, or rather, whether the student has successfully argued for appropriateness, since the only real measure of this would be in the marketplace—an assessment technique beyond the budget of any student. Design and research skills also are assessed, using checksheets, lengthy written comments, face-to-face coaching sessions, and in-class discussion. Tests and quizzes rarely are used for assessment.

A peer review system is utilized whereby each student presents details about audience and editorial qualities of a target magazine to the entire class. Students must then read one another's work to evaluate whether the writer has followed the rules he or she presented in the earlier report. The goal is to force writers and editors to avoid the limitations of personal tastes, using an audience's preferences instead as a standard. In addition, students are assessed on their abilities in the areas of focusing, form, structure, voice, and research skills.

The capstone course in the magazine journalism sequence is Magazine Editing Practice. Students in this laboratory course conceive, write, edit, design, and distribute Southeast Ohio magazine. The purpose of the course is to teach students in a realistic environment how to produce an award-winning magazine (2nd place in SPJ competition this year) and work with a team in a professional manner before they graduate and face similar experiences in the workplace. Thus far, this course has served this purpose well. Publishers who hire our students for paid internships and for entry-level positions comment on how prepared our students are and how impressive their work with Southeast Ohio magazine is.

Specialized Business Magazines is another senior-level course that prepares magazine students for entry-level positions with trade, business, and professional magazines and with subscription newsletters. This class prepares students for paid internships sponsored by the Business Press Educational Foundation. For the past four years, Ohio University has led the nation in the number of students accepted into this prestigious program that usually leads to immediate employment after graduation and the paid internship. Last year Ohio students held eight of the 50 internships offered; and this year another eight Ohio students received such internships.

Other magazine courses also employ peer evaluations; each student edits everyone else's stories, and the authors assign the workshop grade based on how helpful this was. In some cases (Journalism 441/541 and 442/542) this counts for half of a 25% final grade component.

The News Writing and Editing sequence has no "capstone" course, but Reporting of Public Affairs, which is required of everyone in this sequence, is the highest course in which these students will meet. Even though students from other sequences can also be in the class, this is a natural setting in which to discuss quality of work of the most advanced news-oriented students in the school. Peer evaluations as well as criticism by the professor are used. In addition, students usually cover real stories (City Council, county commissioner meetings, school board controversies, etc.) also covered by professionals. The students themselves have unique opportunities to compare their resulting stories with those published in newspapers and broadcast in the community. Any student who wishes to assess his or her own work has that opportunity during this course.

The school encourages news writing and editing students to work on The Post as early as possible in their academic careers and to continue this professional experience for as long as possible, achieving an editorial rank for those who are most capable. The advantage of working for such a newspaper is that the work done by the students is assessed not only by their instructors, but by the community. This experience gives students a real taste of what being a journalist is about. More formally, faculty from the school usually make up part of the Post Publishing Board, and through the board participate in assessment of the work that appears in the student newspaper. In addition, one faculty member or graduate assistant systematically criticizes The Post, and the staff often contacts other faculty members for special seminars or question-and-answer periods. Another benefit Post members receive is peer evaluation. Students learn a great deal from the assessment of their peers.

Students in the Reporting Practice or Editing Practice courses at the Athens Messenger are required to submit a portfolio of published clips produced throughout the quarter. The clips are used to assess the performance. Other students in this sequence may have one or more internships, for which they are encouraged to keep clip files for later assessment. Many of these students do both the practice courses at the Messenger and an internship, while others do more than one internship. These vary in methods of assessment, but all students in any sort of practicum are evaluated, usually through personal interviews or written comments, or both.

Through the student chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), faculty advisers are able to assess the progress of "News-Ed" students as they work toward their goal of becoming professional journalists. SPJ has frequently won outstanding chapter and adviser awards, both regionally and nationally.

The Public Relations sequence includes traditional instruction in and assessment of writing, research, speechmaking, newsletter production, etc. In addition, PR students learn how to moderate a panel discussion, organize press conferences, make formal presentations in an executive setting, and plan events. Immediately following each event, students are required to write a one-page report evaluating the presentation. The purpose of this assignment is to get students who were not directly involved in the project to pay attention to it as a learning experience, to learn how to write about it concisely, and provide feedback to the direct participants—including the speakers—following an in-class discussion session. This puts pressure on students in a way that simulates the real-world environment facing graduates in the PR sequence.

Participation in two student PR organizations also is assessed. The Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) and ImPRessions—the student PR company that takes on public relations accounts in the Athens community—offer students the opportunity to go beyond the course work in the PR sequence, and the work done by the students is assessed by the PRSSA's adviser as well as the clients of the PR firm.

The graduate curriculum in journalism focuses on theory and research methods, and thus assesses students on their progress in these areas. Students in most journalism school seminars are assessed on the basis of their research and writing abilities, demonstrated in seminar-length research papers. Students are required to present their research to their classmates and instructor in a conference-like setting. The professor then assesses the shortcomings of the research and writing, and offers suggestions as to how the paper can be improved. Professors in several graduate seminars require students to submit their revised papers to national professional research conferences, exposing students to external assessment standards that are common to this field of academic research. For the last few years, Ohio University has been one of the top schools in the nation in the number of presentations at such conferences, and graduate students make up a significant portion of the presentations by OU representatives. In some cases, these papers are then submitted to refereed journals, which subject them to another phase of external assessment. The result, in some cases, is the actual publication of student research in prestigious journals in the field of journalism and mass communication.

The School of Journalism enjoys loyal alumni, many of whom remain in contact with the school, seek our graduates when they achieve levels at which they have hiring responsibilities, and tend to speak very highly of the quality of their educations.

The Office of Institutional Research's report of March 1998 reported the views of recent journalism alumni, who reflected positively on the quality of the education they had received while at Ohio University. The percentages below show the reactions of journalism alumni were more positive than those of either the rest of the College of Communication or of Ohio University overall.

Exit interviewing of 19 graduating seniors was conducted according to instructions received from Douglas Eden, director of the Undergraduate Assessment program at the University of Southern Illinois at Edwardsville. He recommended such interviews when he spoke at our assessment day this year. While the entire instrument he sent was not appropriate to our use, we chose some similar questions to assess graduating students' views of assessment here. This exit survey had just five questions—all geared at student views of assessment.

1 Student judgment of assessment of their work in journalism courses alone:

• Most respondents said that journalism professors were more eloquent than their other OU professors in explaining the rationale for grades received.
• Many noted that journalism classes could not be taken until their junior or senior year, leaving the assessment from actual journalism professors for too late in their academic careers. They would have liked to have gotten into journalism classes earlier.
• Respondents thought that journalism professors went out of their ways to know their students and the work being done by those students.

• Graduating seniors indicated they wish they had received more encouragement to get involved in such activities, and wished they had received it earlier in their scholastic careers. Those who joined an organization said the experience was invaluable, but they usually said it was too late in their stay at OU before they found out about them. Some had not realized how to get into some of the professional slots. One student commented, for instance, that she had had no idea as a freshman that a person could just walk into The Post and ask to be put on the staff.

• The students were most likely to comment on how the journalism professors went out of their way to find out who they were and what they did. Once a student had gotten an internship or written an article in The Post, he or she was sure to be recognized by the faculty. Most had something positive to say about the feedback they got from the teachers and advisers regarding their work, both inside and outside class.
• Here are some of the positive ways in which these students felt assessed by other means than grades.

The School of Journalism is fortunate to have had many visiting professionals who have been in residence for various lengths of time over the past nine years to teach classes and interact with students. From the perspective of their successful journalistic careers, they are especially keen evaluators of student progress. They also have been generous in advising the faculty on ways in which students could be better served to meeting professional expectations upon graduation. The visitors have included:

• Ten different reporters and editors from Scripps Howard News Service—funded by a Putnam Professor grant, Spring Quarter 1990 to teach Reporting of Public Affairs and Reporting the Washington Scene.
• Walter Friedenberg, former State Department and White House reporter for Scripps Howard, former editor of the Cincinnati Post, former foreign correspondent for Scripps Howard—funded by Scripps Howard Foundation, 1993-1996, teaching writing, ethics, magazine, foreign correspondence courses.
• Helen Thomas, UPI White House reporter and dean of the White House press corps—funded by Scripps Howard Foundation, Winter and Spring quarters 1994—traveling to Athens two weeks each quarter to augment Walter Friedenberg's courses.
• Four different Associated Press reporters and editors—funded by the School of Journalism, Winter and Spring quarters 1995, teaching one-week segments of writing and public affairs reporting courses.
• Lori Demo, former managing editor of Today in Cocoa Beach, Florida—funded by the Freedom Forum, 1995-96 plus Fall Quarter 1996, to teach and evaluate the Editing courses, to interact with students, and to draw up a guide for the rest of the faculty on guiding students through editing the work of others.
• Ronald Ostrow, Los Angeles Times Supreme Court and Justice Department reporter—funded by Scripps Howard Foundation, 1996-97, teaching reporting, writing, and ethics courses.
• Joni Brander, professional broadcast talent coach—funded by the Scripps Howard Foundation, 1997-98, working one-on-one with broadcast students, ACTV-7 News, and WOUB News.
• Frank Fee, former editor of the Jamestown, New York Post-Journal and one of four Ph.D. recipients in the first University of North Carolina Freedom Forum Fellow program—funded by the Knight Foundation, to further evaluate the editing program here and institute a "Total Editor" concept.
• Terry Anderson, former AP reporter in Japan and the Middle East, who already is on hand and will be Scripps Howard Visiting Professional for 1998-99.

In addition to these professionals, we are visited each year by interviewers for various newspapers, news services, magazines, and so on. Each of these interviewers assesses the portfolios of all students they interview. The number of these interviews increases each year. Many more journalism students received such assessment in off-campus interviews, as well.

The School of Journalism's Advisory Board is made up of professionals representing the school's various constituencies. This group meets twice a year to learn about the school, assess programs and results, and make suggestions. Both faculty members and students may discuss school issues with the board during its meetings. The board's function is to advise the school in all realms of its operation, with particular emphasis on curriculum, professional needs and industry trends. Members are:

• Andrew Alexander, bureau chief, Cox Newspapers, Washington, D.C.
• Judith G. Clabes, president and CEO, Scripps Howard Foundation
• Marla Drutz, WXYZ-TV, Detroit
• Jane Edelstein, former president/CEO, Plain Dealer New Media
• Laura Gongos, senior vice president, Burston-Marsteller, Pittsburgh
• James Hill, vice president, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan
• Sue Porter, editor, Scripps Howard News
• J. Robert Routt, vice president, E.W. Scripps Company
• Dan Thomasson, vice president/news, Scripps Howard

The School of Journalism has made the following improvements based on past assessment activities and feedback from the university's Assessment Committee:

• A mission statement was worked out by a committee and approved by the entire faculty this year.
• A committee especially charged with studying assessment and readying the next report was formed.
• "Assessment" as a subject for discussion has gained a place on the agenda of the school's Bush Seminar.
• A trial senior exit interview was implemented on an initial group of 19 graduating seniors. Findings from this experiment will be studied by the faculty at its annual Bush Seminar, and the faculty will decide whether to interview a larger such group next year.
• A survey of seniors was conducted to find how they have used advising during their years at Ohio University and in what ways their advisers had encouraged and supported them.
• The last two curricular revisions included the additions of Inco 103 (Public Speaking) and CS 120 (Introduction to Computer Literacy), mainly because of assessment, especially that by the Board of Visitors.
• The faculty's awareness of methods of assessment other than grades was aroused by a request that went out from the director for people to contribute ideas of how they do it. These will be shared.
• The Curriculum Committee undertook a thorough study of the final DARS reports of the Class of '97; findings are being keyed into SPSS as this report is being written, and changes may come from results.
• An internship/employment coordinator has been added on the college level to serve journalism students, as well as others in the College of Communication.
• A program to assist teaching associates to accommodate to the type of journalism students they will encounter here has been scheduled for the beginning of Fall Quarter 1998.
• Some progress has been made in working more closely with the Telecommunications Center (but see below for the necessity of this to continue).
• The Knight Total Editor program mentioned in last year's report as a recommended change has been implemented, and we are concluding the first of three funded years for this program, which will provide opportunities for students to integrate their learning in a professional context. This program will develop a new capstone course for the news writing and editing sequence.

Consistent assessment of program quality as it relates to individual students and of student performance provides a dynamic that separates good from mediocre and excellent from good. Such assessment of student performance must be accomplished throughout the student's career and must be defined as guidance to attaining academic and professional success.

The School of Journalism embraces all opportunities to utilize both forms. And its students, faculty, and alumni are proud of the result of that continuing effort. However, even an excellent program can improve, and some of the ways the School of Journalism could do it are:

• Continue to assess whether the newly added College of Communication staff person overseeing internships and placement can do an adequate job for a group as large as journalism's while serving students of other schools within the college.
• Continue to explore ways in which cooperative education might be worked into the journalism program; this would go far beyond the usual internship or practicum presently required.
• Continue to work with the Telecommunications Center to find ways to increase opportunities for more journalism students to gain additional benefits through participation with WOUB.
• Re-evaluate the school's total curriculum to ascertain that it is meeting needs of journalism students.
• Evaluate the suggestions of our current visiting professional, funded by the Knight Foundation. He has now finished the first of a three-year appointment and has made these suggestions for considerations of the faculty: (a) expand the Editing course into two courses and include more new media and multimedia work (a suggestion also made by the Advisory Board), (b) work to imbue students with a sense of context and continuity among their courses; (c) foster communication and cooperation among teachers of Newswriting and Graphics of Communication so that students arrive in advanced courses with approximately the same backgrounds; (d) consider placing the Editing course after both Law and Ethics so that students will make editing and management decisions with a better background; (e) put more emphasis on courses on students' checking and double-checking facts, spelling, grammar, etc.