Balancing Arts and Sciences, Skills, and Conceptual Content.

Journalism and mass communication is not one of those ancient disciplines that has had centuries to evolve into a mature, respected part of the modern university. Some disciplines were hundreds of years old when a "rather meager course of journalism instruction" was established in 1869 at Washington and Lee University (O'Dell, 1935, p. 2); when the first newspaper printing class was offered in 1873 at Kansas State University (Wilcox, 1959, p. 5); and when the first school of journalism was established in 1908 at the University of Missouri (Dickson, 2000, p. 12). Journalism and mass communication education, which endured substantial growing pains as it evolved during the 19th and 20th centuries, clearly has an ongoing identity crisis. More than 80 years ago, Harrington (1919) felt justified in writing, "Of all subjects that have recently found a place in the college curriculum, probably none is more intensely concerned in working out a pedagogical method than journalism" (p. 197). More recently, Rakow (1993) says journalism and mass communication education is " ... (a) gridlocked by real and imaginary obligations to students and employers, (b) fragmented and overly specialized, (c) partial and incomplete, and (d) passive in response to the pressing need for global change" (P. 155).1 This study attempted to determine the status of two aspects of journalism and mass communication education that have been widely debated: (a) The relative weight of skills development and conceptual content, and (b) the extent to which students study the liberal arts and sciences, in courses outside communication and in communication courses.2 Skills vs. concepts Skills content refers to the practical operating knowledge needed for entry-level jobs. Students learn, for example, the mechanics of writing for digital and print media, designing Web pages, editing copy and videotape, taking photographs, designing pages and advertisements, launching public relations campaigns, and producing computer-based, multi-media productions. Conceptual content typically is organized around traditional academic themes (e.g., history, theory, research, literature, law, ethics, criticism), and/ or around non-traditional academic themes (e.g., gender studies, post-colonial studies, cultural studies, literary theory, revisionist history, critical studies). Many programs in the latter part of the 20th Century evidently were oriented primarily toward skills development. A comprehensive study of journalism and mass communication programs by the University of Oregon's School of Journalism (1984) concludes: "Although journalism schools had begun with lofty ideals and great expectations for the advancement of the press and the public, many were little more than industry-oriented trade schools by the 1970s and 1980s" (p. 5). In a broad critique, Carey (1978) challenges the long-established and entrenched view that "professional" education, with its typical emphasis on skills development and narrow occupational training, is desirable. In his plea for a return to the university tradition, Carey criticizes the " ... long campaign to professionalize American universities, to make them expressions of the interests and status aspirations of professional groups" (p. 849), and the move to establish professional ethics that serve primarily to protect and extend the power of the profession. Carey concludes: "We would, in short, all be better served if professionals, including journalists, were to see themselves less as subject to the demands of their profession and more to the demands of the general moral and intellectual point of view" (p. 853). Such an attitude change would almost certainly lead to a reduced emphasis on skills development. Blanchard (1988), who seconds much of Carey's argument, says faculty must reject a view that " ... would limit our priorities to that of entry-level media job prep schools designed to meet every passing need from supplying cheap labor to recruiting minorities" (p. …