SoJ Web Report | May 20, 2010
(Ed. Note: The Spring 2010 issue of Newswire took a look at Indianapolis and the IUPUI journalism program. Here’s the lead article by Andy Gammill, BAJ’01, who covers education for The Indianapolis Star.)
A growing program |
A city on the move |
Sports journalism |
More specialities |
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| IUPUI student Rose Soliven considers the future of journalism at IUPUI, with the urban setting as a backdrop. |
The School of Journalism sees those specialties as an opportunity to come into its own, too, by creating in Indianapolis a model of journalism education in which students are trained specifically to communicate in those fields. But the model isn’t limited to teaching students how to work in special subject areas. In a broader sense, it will draw on the school’s status as a two-campus entity, offering students from both Bloomington and IUPUI the opportunity to immerse themselves in the workings of a major city.
Such a dual-campus combination is unusual among journalism schools. While some programs, such as those at Arizona State University in Phoenix and the University of Washington in Seattle, are located in major cities, and others are based in typical college communities like Bloomington, few have the advantages of both a traditional small-town campus with a rich research base and a modern urban campus.
Brad Hamm, dean of the School of Journalism, points to the University of Oregon as an example of a school that has both kinds of programs. Four years ago, the School of Journalism and Communication in Eugene reached out to Portland, the state’s media core, and established the Turnbull Center, a home base for students pursuing internships as well as a career development magnet for established professionals. While not classified as a branch campus, the center serves University of Oregon students and employs Eugene-based faculty to teach some of its classes.
Hamm envisions the IU School of Journalism taking some of the same cues, benefitting from the businesses that have come to define Indianapolis and from the city’s leadership role as the state capital. One goal is to ensure students on the two campuses will be better prepared to enter the world of new media and to function in a multicultural, fast-paced environment; another is to draw students from around the nation who already know they want to develop skills in a particular area.
Roy W. Howard Professor David Weaver, who teaches and conducts research in political communication and who for more than 25 years has studied the lives of American journalists, said today’s students likely will have to work for a number of different organizations during their careers, and training in a special field might make their professional paths easier to navigate.
“I think it’s important to have a specialty, whether it’s economics, politics, sport, or health and medicine,” Weaver said. “And Indianapolis offers a lot of opportunities in all those areas.”
Some of those areas have the potential for significant growth, he says. As more government programs shift from federal to state control, state politics have become a focal point for political scientists and should be included in graduate and undergraduate journalism curricula. And medical and science journalism are ripe for expansion.
Enabling students on both campuses to benefit from opportunities in Indianapolis is much easier now than in the past, thanks to reliable and widely available videoconferencing technology, Weaver says. Journalism faculty already use the technology to teach sports journalism classes in Bloomington and Indianapolis, allowing Bloomington students to take advantage of Indianapolis resources without having to travel on a regular basis to the capital.
A growing Indianapolis program
Journalism students in Bloomington and Indianapolis already are getting the chance to delve more deeply into sports reporting and soon may see similar tracks in the school for political communications and medical writing.
For 20 years, Indianapolis and central Indiana have courted businesses in a few key sectors, especially the life sciences and transportation logistics; others have grown up organically, including amateur sports and philanthropy. Brad Hamm, dean of the journalism school, sees those groupings of expertise in the city as opportunity.
“Sports, obviously, is the first one that comes to mind,” he says. “Indianapolis, of course, bills itself as the amateur sports capital of the world, and we’re so close, within walking distance, of the NCAA. You can teach sports reporting in Bloomington, but you can’t walk to the NCAA.”
The journalism school’s program at IUPUI was founded in 1982 and it has remained small since then, with about six faculty members currently. Until last year, it didn’t have a graduate program, and the students enrolled have over the years mirrored those at IUPUI itself: a mix of professionals trying to keep up-to-date on their skills, students coming back to college after time in the work force, students straight out of high school who chose IUPUI on its own merits, and others who migrated from other colleges.
IUPUI doesn’t look like that today, and neither does the journalism program.
“There have been dramatic changes in the last five years,” said Robert Sandy, the university’s assistant executive vice president and a professor of economics. “All of a sudden, the campus went very heavily to full-time and traditional-age students right out of high school. It’s not simply that the physical campus is vastly different in terms of new buildings; it’s the nature of the student body and the mix of degrees and the basic conception of what IUPUI should be.”
The campus has worked to improve its image, and the characteristics of its incoming class of freshmen do show the improvement. Nine years ago, 56 percent of students were in the top half of their high school graduating classes. Today, around 85 percent of freshmen are in the top half of their high school classes, and more than 80 percent of journalism students are in the top third of their classes.
The journalism program is striving to heighten its profile, sending representatives to college fairs, journalism conventions and high schools to make sure students in Indiana know they have an option in Indianapolis.
In the last year alone, the number of journalism majors has jumped, and the school’s enrollment measured by credit hours shot up nearly 20 percent — from 1,376 enrolled hours in 2008 to 1,618 in 2009.
The journalism school hopes new specialties, starting with an already-launched sports journalism center, can boost enrollment to another level and draw top students to premier programs on health care, sports and philanthropy in Bloomington and Indianapolis.
A city on the move
In the late 1990s, central Indiana’s business community took a close look at itself and decided to focus on its strengths. A report from consultants identified key areas as transportation logistics, advanced manufacturing, information technology and life sciences. Although not a focus in that report, the business of amateur sports has clustered in Indianapolis as well, with the NCAA headquarters relocating to the city in 2000 and the national governing bodies of track and field, gymnastics and diving also calling Indianapolis home.
The focus on the sectors identified in that report a decade ago has paid off for Indianapolis: Today, the Indy Partnership regional economic development clearinghouse has added the business of sports to its original list. The official slogan of the Indianapolis Convention and Visitors Association changed last spring from “So easy to do so much” to “Raising the game,” a direct reference to the city’s rising status as a sports hub and to its can-do attitude.
Most of the city’s key areas have longstanding anchors in the community: Drug manufacturer Eli Lilly and Co. in the life sciences sector; the nation’s second largest FedEx hub in the transportation logistics area; and the NCAA headquarters in sports.
The Chamber of Commerce has touted those sectors, and private groups were created to coordinate their development. State and local government, along with the state’s universities, have focused on working to develop those specialties in clusters of entrepreneurship and business development. Business leaders say that strategy has put everyone on the same page.
“Not only does it build on the natural strengths we have, it allows us to be very focused,” says Roland Dorson, BA’79, president of the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce.
The clusters in Indianapolis are good examples of areas of business that would benefit from journalists trained to understand them, Dorson says. The medical industry, for example, is becoming more complex each year. Those companies will need to employ people who can communicate to the public about their work, and journalists who report on them will need deeper understanding of what they do, Dorson says. The journalism school can contribute to that with specialty reporting tracks, he said.
“This notion of trying to capitalize on the clusters makes you focused,” he says. “A lot of them are getting more and more technical, and it’s getting harder and harder for a layperson to understand.”
John Ketzenberger, president of the Indiana Fiscal Policy Institute and former business columnist at The Indianapolis Star, says it makes sense for the journalism program to take advantage of the opportunities in the city.
“Clearly, journalism is moving into a more specialized mode instead of a more general approach,” says Ketzenberger, who also formerly was managing editor of the Indianapolis Business Journal. “There are these clusters of strength in Indiana: logistics, biosciences, sports. It just makes sense to emulate that to the extent that you can. From a broad perspective, I think that if you can develop expertise while in college studying journalism in an area, that makes you more valuable.”
Another area the journalism school should explore, Ketzenberger suggests, is philanthropy and the world of nonprofit organizations. Indianapolis is home to several major foundations, including the broad-based Lilly Endowment, the education-centered Friedman Foundation and the healthcare-focused Regenstrief Institute, not to mention a few large not-for-profits, like the NCAA itself.
“Philanthropy is an area that’s often overlooked,” Ketzenberger says. “The Center on Philanthropy at IUPUI has tremendous resources to study and advise not-for-profits. That’s a tremendous area of growth in the business world. … If they’re not doing it now they should be.”
This spring, the School of Journalism, the School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the Center on Philanthropy already are offering a new graduate course on philanthrophy and the media on the Bloomington campus. The course is part of an initiative by the journalism school, the philanthropy center and The McCormick Foundation to increase and improve the quality of reporting on nonprofits and philanthropy.
National Sports Journalism Center
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| Courtesy photo |
| NSJC director Tim Franklin said the city offers more access to amateur sports than journalism students would find in any other area. |
Franklin argues that the sports journalism students will have access to amateur sports they wouldn’t have anywhere else — not just the NCAA headquarters, but a slew of other organizations, including the National Institute for Fitness and Sport, the National Federation of State High School Associations and the Black Coaches and Administrators. Professional teams like the Indiana Pacers and the Indianapolis Colts aren’t far away, either, nor is the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, home to the Indianapolis 500. And the city will host the 2012 Super Bowl, providing students with the opportunity to cover major sports events in their own backyard.
As the journalism school administration realized the potential for a sports concentration, it was surprised to find that few journalism schools treated sports reporting as a serious specialty, Franklin says, and that none had a comprehensive program that would tie together undergraduate courses, graduate studies, research, internships and lectures.
Pamela Laucella, an assistant journalism professor and a coauthor of the book Strategic Sport Communication, says the undergraduate and graduate sports journalism degrees will focus on media convergence, public relations, advertising, and documentary and emerging technologies as they relate to sports. The master’s program, awaiting approval from the Indiana Commission for Higher Education this spring for implementation in the fall, also will include a sports law course.
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| Courtesy photo |
| Journalism assistant professor Pamela Laucella said programs will offer sport-specific courses and emphasize emerging technologies. |
Franklin says perhaps the biggest benefit to students will be the internships the journalism school has lined up with athletic teams, sports networks and newspapers. That kind of experience, he says, will stand out and put IU students ahead of the pack when it comes to hiring. Franklin says students have internships this year at ESPN, The Associated Press in New York, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, MLB.com, ESPN Radio in Indianapolis, the Indianapolis Indians and others. He’s in advanced talks with the Big Ten Network in Chicago, the Indiana Pacers, the Indy Racing League and the NCAA about internships there as well.
The Associated Press Sports Editors has linked itself to the program at IUPUI and established its headquarters there. In the past year, the NSJC has sponsored lectures, including one in November by Joe Buck, the lead pro baseball and football play-by-play announcer for Fox Sports; a symposium on diversity in sports media; and panels featuring the country’s top sports journalists.
And the center’s Web site, www.sportsjournalism.org, aims to be the daily leading source of news in sports journalism, along the lines of Jim Romenesko’s popular daily news summary for journalists at the Poynter Institute’s Web site.
The marketing push has already started to pay off. Franklin has fielded inquiries from students around the country looking specifically for sports journalism programs.
Emily Diekelmann, who graduated from IUPUI in December, says having the sports journalism program would have been a huge draw had it been in place when she was looking at colleges. This semester she took two courses through the center — one on sports media and society and one on sports-writing skills — both of which she says better prepared her for a career in sports communications.
“Seeing what it’s done so far it’s phenomenal,” she says. “For students to be able to have that specific training is a great thing.”
The sports and society class, she says, caused her to look at media coverage of sports in a different way, especially when it comes to how athletes of different races are portrayed. And the sports writing class helped her hone her style so stories appeal both to die-hard fans and to casual readers who might not be familiar with a sport.
“This has definitely propelled me into the spot where I can advance a lot,” she says. “Being able to come out of college with not just a journalism degree but to come out with a sports journalism degree will help.”
More specialties
Additional centers may emerge in Bloomington and Indianapolis in the next few years, Hamm says. The new sports journalism program is the first, and politics and medical journalism might also play off the natural advantages available in the city.
A political journalism program with such easy access to state leaders seems to have the greatest potential as a next specialty, says Karen Braeckel, MA’92, an IUPUI alumna and director of the Hoosier State Press Association Foundation.
Students could intern with the state Legislature when it’s in session, she says — an opportunity not easily accessible at other campuses. The success of the sports journalism program will be telling, she says, and should pave the way for other concentrations.
“All of that makes a lot of great sense. We have all of the facilities here, we have national sports groups here, we have professional teams,” Braeckel says.
Indianapolis is a natural spot in the state for students looking for communications careers, says Bob Dittmer, an instructor and coordinator of the public relations program, which he says has seen an increase in its enrollment.
With the Statehouse, the Indianapolis Star and several TV stations within several blocks of campus, “We have an enormous capacity here to provide a great education for both journalists and public relations professionals,” Dittmer says.
James Brown, executive associate dean of the journalism school at IUPUI, expects the IUPUI program will see significant growth. Brown will retire this semester after 26 years leading the program.
The sports journalism center will likely draw out-of-state students, who will bring more money into the program, allowing it to expand further and hire more faculty, Brown says. And he predicts that a medical reporting concentration has the same potential.
“The campus has tremendous resources, and Indianapolis has tremendous resources,” Brown says.
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