The following is courtesy of Jessica.

 

Will

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Excellent meeting with Dean Foote and Prof. Blevins; the Dean sounded very impressed with the PW program and its potential. He expressed interested in our proposals, and seemed willing to work with us to improve the program.

The bad news: there is no extra funding available. Boren cancelled the grant for program funding and instead plans to use the money (i.e. the $15 million)  to build another addition to the Gaylord building. The Deans have no discretion over how the money is spent; it is a Presidential decision.

Which means we'll have to be creative with our resources.  Or we can try to convince Boren that program improvements lend far more prestige to a college than bricks and mortar.

Now for the good news:

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- Visibility/Information -

* The Dean put Will in charge of the PW website. We've got the green light to write up information for it now.

* The Dean also mentioned the need for a PW brochure highlighting our program, and possible even a short advertisement in the future.

* We also talked about a PW day, where we could showcase student works, articles, short stories, or that novel you've been slaving away on day and night.

* He agreed that the collection of PW alumni published works deserves a special display in the library, or another suitable location.

* PW guest speakers would not be too difficult to get. We just need students and/or faculty saying "Hey, we'd like this guy to come and speak." Obviously within reason budget-wise.

- Classes -

He was very supportive of cross-listing classes with other colleges, and liked the idea of conferences attendance counting towards class hours.

* We need to compile a list of courses that we would like to see cross-listed with the Journalism college undergrad or graduate program.

* We need to compile a list of conferences we would like to count towards credit hours.

Kathy also brought up an idea for reducing workload for our professors in introductory PW classes. The professor would lecture to the entire class one day a week. Then once or twice a week, the class would split into sections taught by TAs (trained in the PW program) for more in-depth information.

The Dean was very supportive of this idea, and Prof. Blevins said it would be a fairly easy change to make. This would apply to introductory courses only. 

* We need to find out what our professors think of this idea. If they are for it, we need to find out what courses they would like to see changed.

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All in all, a damn fine meeting. I for one am a little sore over loosing the funding to a new building, but there are things we can do to improve the PW program as it stands right now.  Heck, I'd be up for trying a meeting with Boren if I thought it would do any good. I have no idea how University politics work at that level though. Anyone know?

-Jessica