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Letter from the Director

Dear Schieffer School advocates:

This summer has been filled with developments that we hope will draw Schieffer School into a position of prominence in journalism and strategic communication education and create future leaders and astute professionals in our changing media landscape.

I’m looking forward to engaging all of you in initiatives that will align with the goal to prepare our students for a multi-media future and make TCU Schieffer School nationally recognized.

First, an introduction and a welcome to our new faculty members:

• Jacqueline Lambiase, who earned a doctorate at the University of Texas at Arlington, joins us from the University of North Texas. Jacque is an associate professor in our Strategic Communication sequence.
• Catherine Coleman, who is completing her doctorate at the University of Illinois, will join Strategic Communication faculty and teach Advertising Principles and Research and Evaluation.
• Jennifer Kowalewski defended her dissertation in May at the University of North Carolina. Jennifer worked as a reporter and editor for more than a decade. She will teach reporting. Her special area of interest is political journalism.
• Aaron Chimbel, a TCU alumnus, comes from WFAA-TV and wfaa.com in Dallas. Aaron, who has a master’s from Columbia University, will work with student media and serve as assistant professor of professional practice.

Renovation in Moudy South is on schedule.  It appears that the most critical student-facing elements of the project will be completed by the fall semester.  We intend to be using the Convergence Center, the New Media and Broadcast Journalism labs and a new seminar room for instruction and student media by then.   The key word is “use.”

Unlike the silo-like layout of the past, our new facilities will be available for all of our educational endeavors.  That is especially true of the Convergence Center, the centerpiece of Schieffer School’s bricks and mortar.   We are wiring the 2,300 square-foot space for teaching and laboratory applications for journalism and strategic communication, as well as student media.   Live television and radio components have been added to the center.

A personal approach to freshman orientation this summer has elicited enthusiasm.  Each student who has chosen a Schieffer School major has been advised by a full-time faculty member.  They have been introduced to our school’s leadership and, as the groups gathered, have been shown our new facilities and learned about our new direction.   They will be the first class to use the facilities and benefit from our evolving curriculum for all four years.  Advisers have worked with each student to start them as early as possible in our required courses, including Media Writing and Communications in Society.

Every prospective Schieffer student on a summer tour of campuses has been met by school leadership.  One wrote that she was ready to come to TCU because of the difference between this approach and what she perceived as “slough-offs” by other institutions.

Our Schieffer Web site is changing.  It will become our store window and address good questions that prospective students want answered.   It will be more visual, more interactive, more intuitive and more convenient to use.  It will be updated on a regular basis, and we are hiring a web coordinator to make sure that happens. 

To the bigger picture, our priorities for 2009-2010 are:

1. Adaptation to our new facilities.  Test-driving the new facilities and technologies and incorporating them into our students’ experience are, of course, essential so we can show a return of TCU’s investment in the Schieffer School.  This will be a learning time for all of us.
2. Curriculum change.  This ties with No. 1.  We will simplify degree plans and reinforce our strategies to look forward on behalf of our students and not back to the media of the past that might be more comfortable for us to teach and for the students to ignore.
3. Advising.  We want to be in the forefront of addressing student and parent concerns about receiving consistent advising, while making sure that students do their part.   Beginning in the fall, each Schieffer student will be assigned a permanent adviser that is a member of the full-time faculty.  That adviser will stay with the student throughout her/his undergraduate career at TCU.
4. Accreditation. Associate Director Tisdale already has been documenting where our challenges will be for accreditation this coming year and has monitored the fate of those schools involved in the 2008-2009 process.
5. Fund-raising.  We’re fortunate to have most of the facility issues addressed in the $5.6 million Moudy renovation.  We still need to do some fundraising for the project as back-fill, but we are turning more toward scholarships and scholars in defining our needs.  Our faculty needs to grow in numbers and in special expertise.  Our incoming students need to reflect our efforts to attract the leaders of the future.  Development is going to be more than raw dollars:  we have to have “apostles” as well as “angels.”
6. Recruitment.  Simply put, we need to attract the brightest and most motivated students to TCU because they choose the Schieffer School and it happens to be at TCU.  This requires more outreach than before, better identification of top prospects, and personal attention/follow-up.  It also requires money – hence, the pivot to scholarship and scholars in our development strategy.

In doing these things, we must align with the Schieffer School mission:

To educate journalism and strategic communication students to think and act as responsible professionals and ethical citizens in a global community; to help students develop competencies necessary to prepare them for professional employment or advanced studies; and to develop skilled professional communicators who understand their social, legal and ethical responsibilities, and their career opportunities in a technological society.

Initiatives that relate to our priorities are:

• Schieffer School in Washington.  We are developing plans introduce this as a special Schieffer School offering, with our own ties to The Washington Center.  More details will follow.
• Student media.  Now that there are no longer silos, our vibrant student media will reflect the converged nature of our facilities, our curriculum and our evolving goals.
• Media collaboration.  Retaining our emphasis on internships and practical experience in student media, we also will seek opportunities to weave the experential learning into commercial media operations, including cooperation of projects and programming.
• Follow-through on the student experience.  It is essential that we identify how our students are performing in internships and our graduates are doing in life after TCU.   Prospective students and their parents want to know our success rate.  We can’t tell them.   We are creating a position for internship and job placement with existing resources that will address this.
• Alumni involvement.  An example is the change in the Homecoming event for alumni.  All who major in programs now a part of Schieffer School will attend a “Grill-out at Moudy” in atrium before the game.  A tour of our new facilities and a video will be available.  Our web site will feature alumni, with a direct link from the Schieffer home page.
• Symposia/ visitation.  We want faculty and students to see and be seen and we want students to be exposed to leadership in American media and in media education.
• Retraining.  When you meet an incoming freshman from Winnsboro, Texas, who already is adept at Dreamweaver and web page design, you know you need retraining if you are like me.  We will develop opportunities for Schieffer faculty in retraining.

University leadership, the trustees, our school’s namesake and our key alumni are with us.   We are taking advantage of this special opportunity.  To quote a former presidential candidate, “This is our moment.  This is our time.”

I’m deeply honored to join TCU in our quest and appreciative of your support and your work so far.

Sincerely,

John

Convergence Center Video Archive