cornerstone
Rae O. Weimer, the College's founding dean, understood "bigger is better" sooner than almost any other journalism education leader in the country. His foresight put the College on the fast track to success in journalism's technological age.
American journalism education is only about 100 years old. Most schools, even 60 years ago – when Weimer arrived at UF – were “journalism” only. There was a prejudice against public relations as antipathetic to the ideals of journalism. Advertising was as likely to be taught in business schools as in journalism programs, and television news was in its infancy. Broadcast production, if taught at all, could be found in theater departments.
Weimer had to build a school from virtually nothing. UF has had a journalism department since 1925, but by the time Weimer arrived on campus in 1949 it still had only three faculty members and a handful of students.
Weimer had a distinguished background in professional journalism. His job prior to coming to UF was managing editor of PM newspaper in New York City. He knew nothing about journalism education, but proceeded to fill in the hand that was dealt him. He added public relations and advertising to the curriculum. He eagerly agreed to supervise WUFT-TV, the new educational television station that no one else on campus wanted, and he not only began teaching radio and television news, but also broadcast production.
Students streamed in for the new curricula and almost overnight the School of Journalism – later renamed the College of Journalism and Communications, with Weimer as its first dean – became one of the largest in the country.
The wide variety of courses and our impressive number of students impact the College positively every day in ways that that are not apparent to our students and even many of our faculty. For example:
Public relations and advertising students preparing for national case study competitions regularly get help from telecommunication students and the impressive equipment of the College’s television stations in preparing highly professional audio/visual presentations.
Because of the large number of students who would use the same pieces of equipment, the College was one of the first on campus to build a network and equip its labs with computers – at a time when most schools of journalism did not know what computers were.
With almost two-dozen full-time radio and television engineers on staff at the College, we were able to utilize these technological skills in creating some of the first electronic newspapers in the nation. The College was a light year ahead of other journalism schools in this field, and even created and ran Sun One, an electronic newspaper for The Gainesville Sun. This was the first Internet newspaper produced by any of The New York Times’ Regional Newspapers, and the first Internet newspaper created by any journalism school in the nation.
The College’s lead in electronic journalism, with its ability to combine journalism, advertising, radio and television into one media stream, was directly responsible for the College receiving a $1.5 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, with a 100 percent match from the state, to establish an endowed chair in “Journalism Technologies and the Democratic Process.”
Because we have nearly 3,000 students, we can teach a wide variety of courses, a benefit not only to the students, but to the citizens of Florida.
Numbers are meaningless unless they are accompanied by quality. The bulging national awards cabinets on Weimer Hall’s third floor show that our students are not only competitive, but winners in every area of communication education. The rows of photos of Alumni of Distinction on the second floor prove that our students go into the professions and successfully practice what they have learned.
Rae Weimer had a dream of teaching every student on the UF campus who could possibly fit under a very large “communications” umbrella. His dream prepared his school to take a leadership position in a media revolution that even now is just beginning to run its course.