Who's better for j-schools?

By: Mark Fitzgerald It's academic, SPJ hears
despite the eternal 'ph.d.s vs. the pros' debate, students say
it doesn't make a whole lot of difference

In the popular image, there are two kinds of teachers at journalism schools: the ivory-tower theorist who publishes inscrutable articles in obscure journals ? and the grizzled veteran who sits around in class telling war stories of his glory days.
At a time when newspapers are growing ever more concerned about the quality of new graduates they are getting, j-schools are struggling to find the right balance of academics and professional experience for their faculty. "Ph.D.s vs. the Pros," was how the Society of Professional Journalists (spj) described the issue at its convention in Indianapolis Oct. 4.
To some journalism educators, the balance is shifting inevitably towards academics. "I think that people ? who have professional experience are a dying breed" in journalism schools, said Carolyn S. Carlson, an educator from Georgia. She noted that Georgia's Board of Regents now requires any tenure-track professor to hold a "terminal" degree, that is, one as high as the most advanced degree offered by the school. For teachers in j-schools of any size, that means a doctorate.
Professionals may also feel a freeze-out down at the department level, some say. "Universities are not necessarily collegial when it comes to journalists. There is a lot of 'credentialism,'" said Jerry Duane Dunklee, who was a radio journalist for 15 years before becoming a full professor at Southern Connecticut State University. "We have a little problem ? we write in English and not in academese."
Even so, those with doctorates do not yet dominate at most j-schools. Will Norton Jr., dean of the University of Nebraska's College of Journalism and Mass Communication, said the number of those who hold doctorates in that 20-person faculty has increased from five to nine over a fairly long period.
"For us, a big thing is to have diversity," said Norton, who earned his doctorate after a stint as sports editor at the Chicago Tribune.
When Trevor Brown was a young South African beginning his newspaper career, he accepted the conventional wisdom about journalism school.
"Everybody told me it was of no use whatsoever," he recalled. "They said, 'Don't expect to come back here and get a job,' because you would have to start over and unlearn everything they taught you."
Brown went to graduate school mostly, he says, as an excuse to see the United States. "I went without any conviction it would do me any particular good," he said.
Now Trevor Brown is dean of the School of Journalism at Indiana University-Bloomington, a Ph.D., and a believer in journalism academics. Still, he worries about why j-schools are adding more people with doctorates.
"There's been tremendous pressure to shift the balance towards scholarship with an eye to prestige," he said. "And one of the quickest ways to claim academic prestige is to say that every one of your faculty is a Ph.D."
What do students think? A random survey of about a dozen undergraduates attending the spj convention found general satisfaction, whether the teacher's greatest asset was experience or a sheepskin.
"Basically I haven't found that it makes a profound difference," said Ohio University student Jeremy A. Markovich. "They all have some [professional] experience. All the teachers I've had have been very well-qualified, whether they have a Ph.D. or not."
There is one difference, says Jennifer Walsh, a student at Southwest Texas State University: "Teachers with professional backgrounds have amazing amounts of professional contacts. The ones who come right out of college might have some contacts, but they don't have as many, and they don't get the respect of a professional."

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