The Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (ACEJMC) will assess the School of Communication this week to certify that the school will continue to meet the council's national standards.
ACEJMC representatives will watch SOC classes and interview faculty members as part of the six-year renewal process according to SOC professor W. Joseph Campbell, who is involved in the accreditation.
The school wants to abide by the same standards as other journalism schools, said SOC professor Maria Ivancin.
"ACEJMC is an outside entity that judges us by the standards set in the industry," she said. "Having accreditation compares us to Syracuse's and Northwestern's journalism schools, for example."
Ivancin and SOC faculty spent the past year preparing a self-study report, which assesses AU's communications programs in nine different ways, including curriculum, facilities and quality of student services, Ivancin said.
The re-accreditation committee will look at this report and evaluate AU's communications program in person from Sunday to Wednesday, Campbell said, who worked on the report. The committee will then write an early report that describes potential problem areas in meeting accreditation standards.
"Last time, they found us in compliance with all the nine standards," he said. "It wouldn't surprise me if the site team were to find some things we need to work on."
During the last the reaccreditation process six years ago, the council identified five areas AU could improve on, Campbell said.
One of these areas was to better mentor non-tenured faculty as they proceed down the tenured track, he said.
"The five communications classes offered through the general education program should be updated and revised," Campbell said. "They've been here longer than I have."
AU is one of two universities in D.C. with nationally accredited journalism and public communications programs, according to ACEJMC's list of accredited institutions. The other is Howard University.
ACEJMC does not currently accredit George Washington School of Media and Public Affairs. The school did not respond to requests for comment.
Some schools choose not to accredit their communications programs because they do not have a broad enough curriculum or want students to take more credit hours in communication programs, according to Ivancin, who is also on AU's Learning Outcomes and Assessments committee.
Another problem some smaller programs face is that they cannot meet ACEJMC's requirement for a diverse student body, Ivancin said.
"[The credit requirement] is why SOC majors must have a minor or double major," Ivancin said. "Our thinking is that students need something to communicate about anyway."
ACEJMC requires students take at least 80 hours of classes outside their communications major - the same amount SOC requires.
Currently, 111 professional communications programs in the United States and one in Chile hold ACEJMC accreditation, according to the organization's Web site.
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