SJMC receives full accreditation on all standards

The Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication called FIU’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication “unlike any other in the U.S.”

News from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication (SJMC) is good: as April wound down, the school received full accreditation in Portland, Ore., from the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (ACEJMC), which the Biscayne Bay Campus-based program “unlike any other in the U.S.”

The ACEJMC’s team, comprised of communications educators and professionals, completed an exhaustive review of all SJMC programs and operations during the past three months and found the school to be in compliance with all nine standards for accreditation on both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

The council voted unanimously to reaccredit the school, which has been in compliance with each standard for accreditation since it became freestanding in 1991. In addition, the SJMC was one of only three schools to have its graduate programs in compliance with all standards as well.

“This is a fine achievement and one of which everyone in the SJMC can be proud,” said SJMC Dean Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver. “This provides us with a very solid foundation as we move ahead in educating our students for the multimedia world in which they will work.”

The site-visit accrediting team reported that the SJMC is one of the largest accredited mass communication programs in the country. Only 25 percent of mass communication programs in the country are accredited. The team also praised the SJMC administrative team, as well as its faculty/staff, for forging what they called “a student-centered program.”