EUGENE—A national accrediting team has again recommended full accreditation for the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication, giving it high marks on 11 of 12 standards used to measure the quality of the program.

The Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (ACEJMC) will act on the accrediting team’s recommendation this spring. The ACEJMC has bestowed accreditation on only 109 of some 500 journalism programs in the nation’s colleges and universities.

During its visit, the ACEJMC team also videotaped the process to create an explanatory and informational training film to help other journalism schools understand how the accreditation process works.

"The team’s visit is preceded by an indepth self study prepared by the faculty," says Tim Gleason, journalism and communication dean. "It is always useful to stop and examine how well your program matches your goals and where it can be strengthened. Having a knowledgeable outside group also examine your work, pronounce it satisfactory or even laudatory is very gratifying. We have a strong and committed faculty whose excellence and hard work deserve to be acknowledged, and outstanding and ambitious students who need to know that their program meets the highest standards in the nation.

"That the ACEJMC would choose their visit on the Eugene campus as the site for their training video speaks volumes about the reputation and stature of the UO program," Gleason adds.

The ACEJMC team made special note of the quality of the faculty, the caring and supportive atmosphere for students, the academically rigorous program and the school’s effective leadership.

Noting the financial challenges the school faced in the past decade after passage of Ballot Measure 5, the team observed that today the "state budget has stopped hemorrhaging and record endowment payouts are ushering in much brighter days." Four faculty recruitment searches under way this year, the team’s report acknowledged, should help meet the demands of a 31 percent enrollment increase in the past decade.

While acknowledging the UO journalism school’s recent success in recruiting and retaining minority students—an increase from 8.8 to 11.6 percent since the last accrediting visit four years earlier—the team noted that the school had yet to reach its diversity goal of recruiting a better balance of women faculty and faculty of color. The ACEJMC team found the school’s commitment to diversity strong and recommended continued and increased efforts to comply with the ACEJMC Standard 12: Minority and Female Representation.

In its final report, the accrediting team praised the school’s strengths as follows: