Reaccredited

Southern University’s Department of Mass Communication received reaccreditation last week, but on a provisional stipulation requiring the department to hire more staff and conduct student assessments within a two-year period.
The decision was rendered after a four-day on-site evaluation conducted by a four-member team of mass communication professionals representing the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications.
“Provisional accreditation means we have two areas that is going to require of us to submit evidence that these two areas have been corrected within two years,” said Mahmoud Braima, interim chair of the department.
According to their evaluation, the ACEJMC team cited the department failed to be in compliance with providing evidence of student assessments, lacked acknowledged resources, facilities and equipment made available to the department’s students and faculty.
“Assessment is basically providing evidence the students learn what we say we are intending for them to learn,” Braima said. “In other words, the students achieve the level of education we think they should achieve here. But we have to prove evidence of that.”
Braima said over the next two years students could look forward to better equipment and a more rigorous education.
“We (the department) want you to be patient with us as we do the assessment,” he said. “It’s going to make your (the students) life a little harder, but it’s for the best.”
Braima also said students may be required to take extra exams and be asked to fill out a questionnaire to address their satisfaction with the department all in an effort to ascertain the student’s levels of competence.
The department also failed to comply with an adequate number of faculty and staff, which the ACEJMC team felt has led to course overloading for professors. University requirements state a regular teaching load for full-time faculty consist of 12 credits hours per semester, states the report. The accrediting team cited “four professors taught either one, or two, courses over their prescribed limit.”
Braima said the vice chancellor of academic affairs, Johnny Tolliver, has already contacted him and asked that he prepare job descriptions for two faculty positions.
“We are committed to strengthening whatever needs strengthening within the department,” said SUBR Chancellor Edward Jackson.
Jackson added that overall, he was pleased with the team’s evaluation and he pledged to be very attentive to their concerns.
“My goal is to have every program accredited within the system,” he said. “We are going to do whatever they said as quickly as we can!”
Senior mass communication major Kismas Simmons said she is looking forward to the changes in a department that made her feel wanted and welcomed.
“I now feel more confident in pursuing my degree here,” Simmons, a Baton Rouge native, said.
Cherita Kado, also a native of Baton Rouge and senior mass communications major, expressed excitement with the department’s re-accreditation as well.
“I’m extremely excited because I know that since I’m about to go into the job market, I know they look down upon universities that aren’t accredited,” Kado said.
According to Braima, Southern is one of two historically black colleges to have an accredited mass communications department. Howard University is the other.
“It’s really going to make the department and the program a much better program,” he said. “For the students, for the university and for faculty and staff.”