Journalism Department Annual Assessment Report to the College 2016-2017

Abstract

The Journalism department (B.A./M.A.) 2016-17 annual assessment report to the Mike Curb College of Arts, Media, and Communication for the Office of Academic Assessment and Program Review. Closing the loop on prior years' assessments, the department made "major changes to its core gateway lower division JOUR 110 and JOUR 210 classes (Writing, Reporting, Ethics I and II) in Fall 2016," dividing each course into lecture and lab sections, increasing the classroom contact time from a single two and three quarters of an hour session per week to two sessions totaling three hours and twenty minutes. This also increased more supervised in-class writing time. Direct assessment of the course changes found "moderate improvement" in all categories of assessed journalistic writing. Indirect assessment of graduating seniors in JOUR 498 was also conducted to gauge student involvement in internships, since journalism internships are significant aids to finding professional work in the field. Findings included 67% of students doing at least one internship during their college years, with further breakdowns showing 35% doing one internship, 12% doing two, 12% doing three, 5% doing 4, 2% doing five, and one student doing seven internships. Further details of internship category and means by which internships were attained are included in the report, with searching company websites proving to be the leading avenue to an internship, followed by information from friends. A majority (73%) of internships were unpaid. Students also expressed an interest in having more workshops on preparing cover letters for internship employment. Plans for 2017-18 include a Fall 2017 survey of JOUR 498 students to increase the internship data pool, repeat writing assessments of JOUR 110 and 210, and an engagement of outside journalism professionals in the evaluation of student portfolios containing their work in such student media as The Sundial, El Nuevo Sol, Agency 398, KCSN News and Valley View/Matador News.