Two years ago, School of Communications faculty members felt the time was appropriate to examine the curriculum that had been in place for 10 years and create a new, more relevant course of study for communications students of all focuses.

Beginning in the fall of 2001, faculty, students, the student and professional advisory boards and Elon administrators collaborated for 18 months to create the new curriculum, recently adopted for implementation at the start of the 2003 – 2004 school year.

Tom Nelson, professor of communications, regards the change in curriculum as an important step for the school.

"It’s more than a name change; it’s a change in content. In some cases, redundancy has been eliminated and in some cases, new and more pertinent material is being added. The business of communication changes and the curriculum should reflect this," Nelson said.

When Dean Parsons arrived at Elon, the communications faculty identified the curriculum as one of the most pressing issues for review, as the curriculum had not been revised since Elon switched from a three to a four - credit - hour system.

As courses were assigned larger credit values in this curriculum change, faculty molded various classes together to condense the number of courses required, while retaining the same material covered through the program.

For example, whereas Media Law and Media Ethics were two separate courses in the three- credit - hour curriculum, the two became one class, Media Law and Ethics, under the four- credit -hour curriculum, according to Parsons.

These changes were not adequate in meeting the needs of modern graduates of the school of communications, Parsons said.

The newest changes in the curriculum initiated in a curriculum committee, which was led by Ray Johnson, professor of communications.

"The committee met and discussed what was right and wrong with the existing curriculum. We mainly took a lot of feedback from faculty and students and alumni … the job of the committee was to filter through this feedback and make a proposal to the faculty," Johnson said.

According to Parsons, the faculty’s first instinct was to move toward a narrower and deeper curriculum with more distinctions in each of the four focus areas of the school of communications, broadcast, journalism, corporate communications and film studies.

However, as the committee and the entire communications faculty met this past fall, there was a movement toward convergence of the focus areas as a reflection of the convergence of media in the professional world.

"Much of this will help the students have more depth … a better understanding of their specific areas and how that impacts other mediums," professor Jessica Gisclair said, regarding the focus on media convergence in the new curriculum.

In addition to appealing to the faculty for input regarding the curriculum committee’s proposals for a new curriculum, the school of communications brought the proposed curriculum before the advisory board, a group of 20 professionals in the field of communications.

Don Bolden, chair of the advisory board and editor emeritus of the Burlington Times-News, said the board gave students suggestions regarding their proposals for certain additions to the curriculum.

"The advisory board is out there working in the field and they know the things that are necessary when [the students] come out of school," Bolden said. The advisory board can give insight into the skills and concepts that need more emphasis in a communications curriculum, according to Bolden.

‘The beautiful thing is that the administration listens," he said.

Ultimately, the administration and faculty adopted a curriculum with a focus on five major themes, including global emphasis, intensive writing, digital convergence, highest ideals and student portfolio, which are reflected in the five new core classes in the school of communications.

Communicating in a Global Society, Media Writing, Digital Media Convergence, Media Law and Ethics and Great Ideas: Capstone in Communications are the core classes which all new communications majors will take as prerequisites for entering their area of specialty.

These courses are equivalents to or improvements upon the existing courses, Introduction to Communications, Writing and Information Gathering, Television Production, Media Law and Ethics and Senior Seminar.

While some of these courses appear to be the same as existing courses, there will be a shift in the way professors teach these courses.

"The professors are getting together to put together a self-led workshop this summer to learn how to teach the class," professor Vic Costello said of the new media convergence class.

Other changes in the new curriculum include a required internship, more freedom for students double majoring outside of the school of communications and an elevated requirement for credit hour accumulation outside of communications.

The four main concentrations were also renamed, journalism, broadcast and new media, corporate communications and cinema.

"We toyed with the idea of dramatic changes. That didn’t seem logical because most people were happy with the existing curriculum," Johnson said. "The biggest change is that students will be required to take 80 hours outside of the school of communications."

The administration implemented this requirement as a step toward accreditation of the School of Communications.

"We want to be known on this campus as a top-flight academic school," Parsons said.