Dean reflects on College’s progress

This is my last column as dean of the College of Journalism and Communications. I will join UF’s Office of University Relations as assistant vice president July 1. I will work with Vice President for University Relations Jane Adams and her staff to develop and implement strategies for telling UF’s story in major national markets. This is a wonderful opportunity to help UF earn recognition for its excellent academic programs and research, and I’m looking forward to this challenge.

It’s been an honor and a joy to serve as dean. I joined the College in 1994 at
an opportune moment. Under President John Lombardi, UF was growing its reputation as a national leader in higher education. Under each new administration, UF has continued to grow in stature – as has the College. In particular, the College has broadened and deepened its scholarship. We’ve done that without losing sight of our primary mission: to prepare future professionals for the journalism and communications fields.

Only four deans have led this College since it was established in 1967. It’s been a privilege to know my predecessors. I knew Ralph Lowenstein before joining UF: I succeeded him as president of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (AEJMC). Meeting Rae Weimer and John Paul Jones was a special benefit of arriving when I did.

From them I learned about the College’s culture: our passion for the journalistic values of fairness, accuracy and balance; the importance of integrating theoretical and conceptual instruction with practical application; our commitment to implement new technologies that impact our fields; and, most of all, the centrality of providing the best learning experience for students.

These values made possible our accomplishments of the past 12 years. They enabled us to create continuity when we hired successors for retiring veteran faculty. We’ve grown and stretched since 1994, sometimes smoothly, sometimes
awkwardly, as happens in periods of major transition, but we’ve always sought the balance between professional practice and scholarship that provides the best possible preparation of future leaders in our fields.

I’m delighted to be leaving the College in good shape and good hands. We have 70 full-time faculty, 10 more than in 1994. We had almost 1,600 juniors and seniors in fall 2005, many fewer than five years ago when we had grown beyond our ability to maintain quality; but we have about 200 more undergraduates today than in fall 1994, evidence of our continuing popularity. We had 215 graduate students in fall 2005, compared with 189 in fall 1994. Growing graduate enrollments is consistent with UF and College priorities and goals.

We’ve graduated about 8,700 students since December 1994. That’s 37 percent of the total (about 23,300) graduates from the College. Ninety-two (81 percent) of the College’s 114 Ph.D. recipients earned their degrees in that time.

Strong support from alumni and friends, especially during the 1995-2000 It’s Performance That Counts Capital Campaign and savvy investing by the UF Foundation have provided us with significant resources to build programmatic strength. We’ve attracted almost $70 million in private funds, contracts and grants since 1994. In fall 1994, the market value of the College’s endowments was just under $12 million. At year-end 2005, the market value of our endowments was more than $45 million (the investment value, on which income is based, was more than $36 million).

Private funds provide the margin of excellence that no state can afford. Some new funds added to scholarships, fellowships and assistantships for graduate and undergraduate students. Other new funds help us attract and retain quality faculty, including seven named professorships/chairs and professional development funds that bear the names of leading alums.

We’ve added programs such as the Documentary Institute; the Marion Brechner Citizen Access Project; the Florida Fly-Ins and other international programs; specialties in science/health communication, political communication, and international communication; a new master’s degree in advertising, and more.
We are fortunate to have the Jerry Davis Endowment for Computers and Computer-Related Technology, which makes it possible for us to meet growing needs in this area.

When faculty retired, we received support from UF presidents and provosts to hire anew – enabling us, for example, to rebuild the Department of Public Relations, which had five and a half positions in 1994 and now has an all-time high of 11.

We’ve done all this because of supportive university administrators; dedicated faculty and staff; high-achieving, extraordinary students, and committed alumni and friends like you. The College is ready for the next stage of leadership and development. Thank you for making the past 12 years so rewarding for us all.