Williard D. Rowland Jr.

Dean's Message
Make no small plans

The School can take great pride in its accomplishments in recent years. Regular readers of Bylines have followed the details of the School's growth and development. At a moment of transition it is natural to look back, but the more important issue is what lies ahead. Let me touch on a little unfinished business.

One is the matter of resources. The School has been struggling with budget cuts for the past few years and with facilities problems for decades. The budget problems have left the School understaffed in faculty positions that would make it consistent with its role as a premier teaching and research program, and they have inhibited the prospects for a new building.

There will be some relief on the facilities issue after the move to the Armory building. But that move should be understood as only temporary. While the Armory offers some distinct advantages over the current situation, it is too small to accommodate all of our current instructional space and program needs, and it continues the School's physical isolation from the other programs in communication, media and information technology on the campus.

The long-term health of the School will require significant improvements in both the budget and the housing arrangement. Many previous promises to the School, particularly about the facilities, have not been fulfilled. One of the difficulties has been that the School has been unable to bring adequate outside funding to the table. Without more and larger private contributions to those projects, the necessary state and general fund increases cannot be acquired. But it also is important to understand that the School cannot do its part in raising private funds unless the long-term vision for its programs and its related facilities needs are enthusiastically promoted and clearly conveyed to potential donors.

In that vein, one of the other matters of unfinished business is the need for improving the general understanding of the School's breadth and true interdisciplinary and multimedia nature. Growing out of the classic traditions of journalism education (writing, production, ethics, culture, social impact, law and history) the School's programs have a comprehensive, integrated character about them. They are increasingly strong in the new media and communications and culture dimensions. Yet, as reflected in the common use of the "J-School" and "JMC" shorthands, that reality is frequently misunderstood. Many senior colleagues at CU, and many potential outside supporters, in such fields as cable, computer and telecommunications, continue to be confused by representations of the School that suggest that it is only about reporting and news.

It has been wonderful to see a growing emphasis elsewhere on campus in the realms of technology, arts and media. It is important however to underscore that those developments are not new. They now are possible in large part precisely because of the longstanding core approach to journalism and communication studies and new adaptations reflected in this School. The current campuswide themes about media and technology read as if they were drawn directly from the SJMC's mission statement. Yet in the scramble for new resources and in the effort to appear responsive to the world of the new media, some representations don't seem to acknowledge that heritage, and the School is relegated to, at best, a participatory role.

Many members of the School community understand the way the School has built a solid platform of the old and new, and they recognize the challenge reflected in all the other related developments on campus. They need to be joined by even more alumni and friends.

In speaking to the Constitutional Convention, Ben Franklin is reported to have said, "Congratulations, you have a republic, if you can keep it." The question before the School now is whether it can consolidate its gains of recent years and look beyond them. As with the young U.S. and its nascent Constitution, the School has got the tools in place for an entire new order of things. It has an important set of new goals and a tremendous amount of energy. There is every reason to be optimistic that it can keep what it has. The challenge will be to build on that platform to fulfill the full extent of its dreams and promise. Each of you can make an important contribution to that effort.

On a final note, I want to acknowledge the quality of the staff of this School and all the hard work they do. They are the unsung heroes who have made the trains run on time around here, and they have done much to make the ride enjoyable. They are of inestimable value to the students, the faculty and the administration. They have had much more to do with our many successes than is commonly understood. So, to them all, to Garda, Crystal, Pat, David, Deb, Diane, Alan, Beth, Kay, Robin, Jeanne, Jim, Jonathan and Bob, my deepest thanks for countless jobs well done. And to everyone else, my great thanks for all your advice, help and friendship.

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