Journalism schools getting more hours with students

Jut got word that accrediting council for journalism schools just approves reducing requirements for outside hours for j-majors from 80 to 72, giving j-schools the opportunity they need to require two or more new courses for the major.

This is very important. At USC we've been redoing the curriculum, for instance, and to give students enough electives plus needed core courses, we've had to drop editing as required and create some funky other combos. Colleagues around the country are saying we simply can't cover the professional aspect of journalism education without more real or virtual seat time with these folks (who then, of course, we demand get out of their seats and into the real world to report and write).

This would give us (and maybe other schools) to put in a second writing course and some other skills or research options (I firmly believe all journalism students should be required to take at least one applied research course, and probably two).

Calls to ease up on the hours outside j-schools (and 72 hours is still a fine liberal arts education) have been growing along with the general kerfuffle over journalism education, and one study suggested no real differences between the outcomes from accredited and unaccredited schools.

Nothing is up yet on the accrediting agency site.

This is only a first step, but a good one.