Students will all be communicators. . . . It's not the names that are important. Our students talk about information and technology, not journalism. Students take a few integrated conceptual core courses and engage in some experiential learning that emphasizes familiarity and experimentation with, and understanding over technical competence of media message-making technology. But they devote most of the communication and media academic work to intellectually challenging conceptual studies of mass media and communication. . .
Occupational training is neither mandatory nor the center of the curriculum.
It does not absorb a great deal of faculty time and effort, and only a little of it, if any, is for academic credit. Indeed the analysis seems to reject the notion that the basic skills of journalism are intellectual skills. Indeed journalists have refined these skills to a much higher degree than have people in many other disciplines. Journalists who have become educators should be highly prized for the expertise they can provide not only for journalism students but for all students. They believe an integrated communication studies approach is unlikely to provide an education that will infuse students who are potential journalists with the analytical skills, ethics, and passion for public service that are essential to the practice of good journalism.