The department of journalism at SMU has lacked stability in the last several years.
It has had four chairman in the past six years, after the Center for Communication Arts was broken off and transformed into separate divisions including journalism, corporate communications, advertising, broadcasting and video. It will soon have a fifth.
Some students expressed their concern about the high turnover. “The constant rotation has become an unhealthy trend,” senior journalism and philosophy major Jake Lewis said.
Other journalism schools in Texas have been far more stable when it comes to the top job. The University of North Texas has had two chairmen in the last five years. At the University of Texas at Arlington, the current chairman has been in place since August 2002; the previous one was there for six years.
According to secretary in the journalism department at the University of Texas at Austin, “I’ve been here for 22 years and we’ve had five chairs.”
SMU officials did not respond to repeated phone calls.
In the fall 1997, Dr. Allan Albarron stepped down as the last chairman of the CCA. He was replaced by Dr. Ray Carroll, who was hired to run a newly created journalism department. He decided to give it an academic profile, putting an emphasis on professors with doctorates.
However, after several journalism professors departed, the department was left in turmoil. Ralph Langer, the former editor of the Dallas Morning News, became the executive in residence and interim chairman of the division in the fall 1999.
Langer decided to concentrate more on hiring professors with professional experience. Many people say his approach brought stability to the department. “We had great leadership under Ralph Langer and moved forward tremendously by creating and implementing a convergence journalism curriculum,” assistant professor in journalism Carrie Criado said.
Langer was the head of the department when it received a $5 million grant from the Belo Foundation to build a digital newsroom, television studio and Web site.
“This is the largest gift ever given by the Belo Foundation,” foundation chairman Burl Osborne said at the time.
In January 2002, Langer was replaced by Chris Peck, the former editor of the newspaper in Spokane, Wash. Peck was thought to be the right leader when he was hired in the spring 2002 to serve as the first person to hold the Belo Distinguished Chair position in journalism and also be the head of the journalism division.
But Peck, who had no academic background, unexpectedly left the department after eight months.
Administrators and students did not know about his departure until Craig Flournoy, an assistant journalism professor, read on Poynter.com that Peck had been chosen to be the executive editor of the Memphis Commercial Appeal newspaper.
Since October 2002, James P. Goodnight has served as the executive director of the division until a more permanent chairman is hired. “I’m performing all the functions that a chair would perform but temporarily,” Goodnight said.
According Goodnight, it is not unusual to have someone appointed director on a temporary basis. “What is unusual is that we are on a shorter time frame,” he said.
Normally, the search for a chairman starts in August and goes on for the entire year. But in this case, Peck left in the middle of the fall semester. That gave the search committee less time to find “the exact right person,” said Dr. Rita K. Whillock, the search committee chairwoman and the head of the corporate communication and public affairs department.
According to the criteria established by the search committee, which includes Belo Foundation members, “the ideal candidate will have experience in and enthusiasm for building a distinguished program in journalism with combines print, electronic media and Web-based initiatives.”
Committee members offered the job to Tony Pederson last week, who until recently, was executive editor and a senior vice-president at the Houston Chronicle.
Several faculty members and students who met with him said he made a good impression.
Pederson promised he would stay. “I guarantee I won’t take a job in another newspaper,” he said.
When Peck left, some professors and students suggested that it was hard for him to fit into an academic environment because of his professional background. Some people worry that the new chairman will face the same problem given his background.
Sophomore Brett Warner, a journalism major and Spanish minor, is not bothered by the high turnover of the chairman position. “I trust the journalism department in general, and I believe that they are looking for the best candidate, not just a mediocre one who could fill the position immediately,” she said.
Despite the lack of stability, there have been many improvements in the department. Goodnight has overseen the opening of the digital newsroom and the move of campus cable operations and radio station under control of the division.
However, Jayne Suhler, an assistant journalism professor, said a chairman is needed to make adjustments in the curriculum, such as deciding whether some courses should be combined and if others should be required. The Belo Distinguished Chair will also help determine what the best use of the new studio should be.
According to Suhler, the department has had interim chairmen that propelled it. “But they don’t want to stay,” she said.
