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As a publishing arm of the National School Boards Association, most of our coverage, naturally, centers around K-12 education. But learning doesn’t and shouldn’t stop once kids graduate from high school. But just like their K-12 collegues, higher education officials are having to respond and adapt to changes in the market and workplace.
Today, for instance, I am at the University of Maryland, College Park, participating for the third year in a row, in the Philip Merrill College of Journalism’s recruitment fair. We’ve plucked a number of our interns from this distinguished J-school, but I wonder how has the college adapted to the changes that technology has brought to the field of journalism?
“We’re constantly looking and relooking at our curriculum,” says Chris Harvey, a UM professor, who teaches online journalism courses and is the college’s online bureau director. Harvey says the J-school overhauled their curriculum two years ago and is in midst of revamping their course offerings again, to reflect the dominance of Web 2.0 and social media tools.
Last year, for instance, more than 600 magazines closed up shop and venerable newspapers like the Christian Science Monitor, ceased its print edition.
“I don’t believe print will go away but clearly there’s a sea change from print being the main medium to digital formats dominating the field,” Harvey says. “So we make sure that no student leaves here without at least a basic knowledge of web and social media in both reporting and publishing.”
For freshmen like Allison Gibeily such transitions would seem effortless, given she grew up in a world where the Internet has always been present.
“They’ve really prepared us for the fact that print journalism may or may not be there in the future, which bothers me,” Gibeily admits. “I personally like the aesthetic of opening up the paper and reading it. I hope it never goes away, but we have to be prepared if it does.”
Naomi Dillon, Senior Editor
