Faculty in Professional Programs: The Mix of Experience and Degrees

Abstract

The release of Betty Medsger's (1996) Winds of Change: Challenges Confronting Journalism Education sounded an alarm for educators in the nation's schools of journalism and mass communication. Among its findings, Medsgers report concluded that hiring practices emphasizing a doctoral degree over experience threatened the future of journalism and mass communication education. Another study, commissioned by NBC's Jane Pauley and dubbed the Pauley Report (Davis and Zeigler, 1996) found that broadcast journalism faculty with significant experience are decreasing in number and are being replaced by Ph.D. holders with little or no media experience. The report's authors concluded that this phenomenon contributes to a belief among the nation's television news directors that graduates are lacking the skills, knowl-- edge, and ability they need to become working journalists. Thus, the familiar green eyeshades versus chi-squares debate has resurfaced. This study offers a new perspective on the old debate through a survey of professional who spent years working in the communication industry before getting an advanced degree and turning to higher education. The difficulty presented by an argument regarding the relative merits of a Ph.D. versus experience is that the two are often cast as mutually exclusive. Many of the Ph.D. respondents in Medsger's study had no media experience and many more worked in the industry for only a few years. However, some could claim a number of years of experience and a terminal degree. This study reports the results of a mail survey of educators with terminal degrees and five or more years of experience, regarding the relative merits of each. Their perspective is important because journalism and mass communication education is in the throes of an identity crisis. At issue are programs' efforts to serve two masters - the profession, which values work experience, and central administration, which often places greater emphasis on academic scholarship. At the same time, professors must also try to meet the needs of students. Survey respondents know all three masters and can speak to each side of the issue. Sumner (1995) wrote that the academic community expects lots of research and the community wants educators to teach practical skills and forget the research. Hart (1989) wrote that disagreements about their relationship to the world have ripped faculties apart. Though the problem has been stated in many different ways over the past several years, it comes down to two central themes: What should be taught in journalism/mass communication programs and who should teach it? Some argue that the academy is producing what Kees (1996) called generic communicators. those able to discuss with great effectiveness uses and gratifications theory but wholly unable to demonstrate the skills needed to produce a newspaper article, television story, press release, or advertising campaign (See also Balk, 1994). Others point out that, under threat of their very existence from cost-conscious university administrators, journalism and mass communication programs must be more than glorified vocational schools in order to survive (Hamilton & Izard, 1996). Program administrators such as South Carolina's Judy VanSlyke Turk have noted that journalism practitioners cannot ignore the political reality in higher education that makes a doctorate a prerequisite for tenure on most campuses. Shirley Staples at Norfolk State said that faculty members with doctorates may or may not help produce better practitioners, but they help journalism and mass communication programs hold their own in the academy (Making Experience Count 1994). Some administrators want their universities to look like great research institutions (Wicklein, 1994) and a high proportion of Ph.D.s on the faculty contributes to such a perception. …