Building a Learning Community for Journalism and Mass Communications: The Nebraska Experience

Abstract

According to Vincent Tinto, a well-- respected scholar of student persistence, 40 percent of all students who start at a four-year college fail to earn a degree, and almost 57% of all dropouts from four-year institutions leave before the start of their second year (Tinto, 1996). Facing the challenge of retaining students, many higher educational institutions have developed a variety of programs designed to help students make the transition from high school to college. One of the strategies that has received widespread interest in the past decade is the effort to enhance collaborative learning by building a community of learners within colleges (Tinto, Goodsell-Love & Russo, 1993). Early assessments of the success of learning communities have been encouraging. Existing research strongly indicates that the integrated learning that takes place in learning communities is closely related to academic achievement, satisfaction with college and higher retention rates (Heller, 1998). However, the research base is small and somewhat limited, according to Heller. In Tinto's work on the learning community model, he calls for multimethod, quantitative and qualitative case studies that will enrich the understanding about learning community models (Tinto, 1998). Answering his call, this research offers a case study of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's experience in developing a learning community for students interested in journalism and mass communications - one of the first of its kind in the country. The goal of this study is to answer these questions: Do learning communities in journalism and mass communications programs make a difference? If so, how? The challenge of student retention in journalism programs Journalism and mass communication programs, like many other disciplines in higher education, face the challenge of student retention. In the last decade, enrollments in both accredited and non-accredited programs have been virtually static. In 1989, 145,781 undergraduate students were estimated to have been enrolled in 395 colleges and universities that offered degrees related to journalism and mass communications (Becker, 1990). Enrollment in journalism programs was estimated to have increased by 2,106 to 147,887 (1.4%) in 453 programs at the beginning of the 1999-2000 academic year (Becker, Kosicki, Lowery, Prine & Punathambekar, 2000). A comparison of these data suggests that there are 58 more schools offering undergraduate education in journalism and mass communications; however, the total number of students has only increased by 2,106. [The number of accredited undergraduate programs has jumped from 90 programs in 1989 to 109 programs in 1999, a 21.5% increase (C. Higginson, personal email communication, Nov. 10, 2000).] Computing the average number of students per program in all institutions, the difference becomes more obvious. From fall 1989 to fall 1999, the average number of students per program dropped from 369 to 326. The decrease in average number of students per program is not the only reason for educators to be concerned about enrollment figures. Becker et al. (2000) note that the number of high school graduates is not expected to grow significantly in the next few years, although stronger growth is predicted in the long term. The number of public and private high school graduates is projected to grow 12% from 1998-99 to 2009-2010 according to the U.S. Department of Education (Gerard, 2001).The largest increase in college enrollment during this time is expected to occur in the traditional college-age population of 18-24 year olds, offsetting a decrease in older segments. This growth represents an opportunity to attract more students to journalism and mass communications careers and indicates that institutions of higher learning would be well served to develop programs targeted toward traditional college-age freshmen. The Becker report also indicates that a robust job market awaits students in the field. …