CONNECT . MOTIVATE . INSPIRE .
MORGAN STATE UNIVERSITY:
BY KEITH HARRISTON JOURNALISM POWER HOUSE
students both to classroom learning and hands-on, real-world experience. Each of three majors--multimedia journalism, multiplatform production and strategic communication—offer students centers where they can put what they learn in the classroom to use in the Digital Newsroom, BEAR-TV (MPPD) and The Strategy Shop. “We put a lot of emphasis on internships, boot camps, workshops, training programs and partnerships with other schools and professional media organizations,” Jones said. In 2020, the school was awarded accreditation from the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication—the second program in the state of Maryland to receive that status and the seventh among HBCUs nationally. That distinction “assures students, parents and the public that SGJC’s programs are of very high caliber and provide students with the skills and experiences they need to succeed in a highly
W hen DeWayne Wickham, the founding dean of the School of Global Journalism and Communication (SGJC), arrived at Morgan State University in Baltimore in 2012, the SGJC wasjust an idea. Its predecessor, the Department of Communication Studies, was housed in the College of Liberal Arts. Now, the SGJC is on the verge of looking back at its first decade of existence—and ahead to its next 10 years. “We needed to distinguish ourselves,” said SGJC Dean Jackie Jones, who succeeded Wickham in 2021. “At the time Dean Wickham arrived, the University of Maryland College Park had a big [journalism] program, Towson University had a program. You start thinking what could we offer that other folks aren’t offering, and how can we do it in a way that’s distinctive from what everybody else is doing?"
“So the global piece was sort of a natural because we wanted that to be the focus of the program, we wanted students to have that broader perspective. It was an instant way to stand out and also expand the idea of putting a variety of perspectives on the news, domestically as well as internationally.” That focus led the school to establish a partnership with a university in Havana, Cuba, and several trips for students to travel and learn close-up about that country’s culture and produce journalism about it. Students also have traveled to France, Greece and South Africa. In addition, the school has partnerships with West Virginia, North Carolina A&T and Brigham Young universities—where journalism students from each institution work together to tell stories on various topics.
The SGJC follows a Teaching Hospital model, Jones said, which exposes
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