St. Bride's Church

The church's altar of remembrance for fallen journalists

For 500 years, Fleet Street has been the generic term for “the press” in London, and its spiritual heart has been the church of St. Bride.

In the early days, the clergy had a near monopoly on literacy and were the printers’ best customers. The modern image of Fleet Street was born when it became the scene of transformation of the medieval art and “mistery” of printing.

In media history, students learn the name of William Caxton. After mastering the technique of printing in Germany, Caxton returned to London in 1476 and set up a press near Westminster Abbey. He proceeded to print about 100 books on subjects that included history and geography, the lives of saints, and most of Chaucer’s works.

Caxton died in 1491, and his apprentice acquired the press. England’s first printing press with moveable type was brought alongside St. Bride’s. In fact, the apprentice is buried in St. Bride’s.

The photos are compliments of Professor Jessica Gisclair of the School of Communications, who is leading the Elon in London program this fall.

It says something about a professor’s lasting influence when former students make the trek to Waco, Texas, from places such as Alaska, Long Island, Japan and North Carolina. For me, it also was an opportunity to reconnect with classmates whom I hadn’t seen since we were 22 years old.

David McHam was my professor-mentor at Baylor in the 1970s. He now teaches at the University of Houston.

Eight years ago, McHam came to Elon as a guest professor at my invitation. He spoke in four classes about writing, editing and the importance of language precision. He also led a discussion about free speech related to war protests and then talked about the qualities of good teaching at a School of Communications faculty luncheon.

His advice to teachers: Find a good mentor. Always go into the classroom upbeat and smiling. Never talk down to anyone in class.

McHam was a tough taskmaster as a teacher. At the time we thought it was his Marine Corps background. Actually, he just wanted us to be the very best we could be. He drilled the importance of curiosity and precision into us, helped us network to begin careers, and has remained a mentor through the decades. That’s the definition of a teacher who makes a difference.

The team watches the school's video at the start of the visit

For three days, a national accrediting team walked the halls of the School of Communications, visiting classes, interviewing faculty, hearing students, and delving deeply into our self-study.

Today, they presented President Lambert a 49-page report that refers to the growth in the School’s quality and quantity as “nothing short of spectacular,” citing talented faculty, enthusiastic students and an innovative leadership team as keys to building “a positive educational environment … with an exemplary culture of collegiality.”

The team’s findings: Compliance on all standards and a recommendation for full reaccreditation of the undergraduate program and initial accreditation of the three-year-old graduate program.

Penn State Dean Doug Anderson presents the report to me

While this is the outcome we worked toward and expected, we still celebrated knowing that leading educators and professionals from all over the country were impressed at what they found at Elon. You can read their summary of School strengths and challenges here.

National accreditation is the highest benchmark of program quality. In our discipline, this evaluation comes from the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (ACEJMC).

Elon is one of only 18 private universities with an accredited communications school, along with Columbia, Syracuse, Northwestern, Miami, Southern Cal and Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile. In all, 112 colleges and universities in the world have an accredited communications program.

The team’s recommendations will be formally acted upon by the Accrediting Council next April.

My answer focused on his uncanny ability to create elegant products that excited people’s technological imaginations, leading Apple at one point this year to surpass Exxon Mobil as the most valuable company in America.

Time magazine even stopped the presses this week to remake its cover, shown here.

Jobs was imminently quotable. Here are four worth rereading:

Being creative: “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.” (Wired, 1996)

The little things: “This is what customers pay us for—to sweat all these details so it’s easy and pleasant for them to use our computers. We’re supposed to be really good at this. That doesn’t mean we don’t listen to customers, but it’s hard for them to tell you what they want when they’ve never seen anything remotely like it.” (Fortune, 2000)

Mainstream media: “I don’t want to see us descend into a nation of bloggers. I think we need editorial oversight now more than ever. Anything we can do to help newspapers find new ways of expression that will help them get paid, I am all for.” (D8 conference, 2010)

Don’t settle: “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.” (Stanford University commencement address, 2005)

At times, I cringe at an out-of-date reference or an inelegant flow of content. But for the most part, our website has currency and appeal. In fact, I like one Q&A in our section for prospective students so much that I’m repeating it here:

Q: I’m curious. What would you consider the key indicators for a career in communications?

A: You said the magic words when you began “I’m curious.” To succeed in a communications career, you first need curiosity about the world you live in. Do you ask lots of questions? Do you probe under the surface? If so, then that curiosity needs to grow into knowledge so that what you communicate will have depth, context and accuracy.

Being a good writer is important because clear and logical writing reflects a clear and logical mind. Of course, hard work is necessary, with a generous dose of creativity. Finally, you need a strong sense of who you are and what values you hold, so that when you face temptation to do wrong, you will have the courage to do right.

These are six ingredients for succeeding: curiosity, knowledge, writing, hard work, creativity, values.

Professor Max Negin (photo by Julia Sayers, Pendulum)

A School of Communications faculty member and three of the school’s alumni are recipients of Emmy Awards this year.

A special congratulations to assistant professor Max Negin, who won his third Sports Emmy from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for his work on NBC’s team coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Negin previously won Emmys for his work as video coordinator for the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team and for promotional writing for Fox 29 in Philadelphia.

At Elon, Max teaches Sports & Media, Digital Media Convergence and Sports Broadcasting in our school and advises the student-produced Elon sports show that airs on Saturday mornings on ESPN2.

We also celebrate the regional Emmy successes of Matt Belanger (class of 2005), Amy Clark (class of 2007) and Mitch Pittman (class of 2009).

Matt Belanger

Belanger is a reporter at WGAL-TV in Lancaster, Pa. He was honored by the Academy’s Mid-Atlantic chapter for an investigative report on the practice of “ghost voting” in the Pennsylvania legislature. Some lawmakers have been using coins, paper clips or pieces of paper to jam their voting buttons down, effectively casting votes, even when not present in the state Capitol.

This is Matt’s second Emmy. He graciously offered his first to be on display in the School of Communications lobby, where it resides today as an inspiration to current students.

Mitch Pittman

Pittman is a multimedia journalist at KSTP-TV in St. Paul, Minn. He won a Video Journalist Emmy, which recognizes reporters who shoot, write and edit their own stories. Mitch won the Emmy from the Academy’s Upper Midwest chapter. He joined the staff only six months ago after working for two years in Burlington, Vt., with Fox44 News.

Clark won a regional Emmy from the Academy’s Lehigh Valley chapter for video editing she did at PBS 39 in Pennsylvania. I wish we had a similar photo of Amy holding her Emmy, but she holds nursing instruments these days. Amy recently earned a degree in nursing. A communications degree can lead in many directions!

A "hover hand" from actor Jim Carrey

Time for a little silliness. This blog just passed 85,000 views since its origin three years ago. Entries are usually serious observations about the media world or recognitions of outstanding student and faculty work at Elon. But since we have Photoshop in our labs, I can’t resist passing along this satire of a Photoshop tutorial from collegehumor.com. Here is the video about how to remove those awkward “hover hands.”

We hosted our School of Communications Advisory Board yesterday, with professionals from Fortune magazine, “60 Minutes” and other media leaders. The professionals spoke in classes, talked with President Lambert about the future of the university, and interacted with faculty and staff on topics such as curriculum, student portfolios and summer programs.

I said farewell to the last board member at 4:28, looked at my watch, and momentarily longed to just head home on a Friday afternoon after a very full day. But I really did want to hear Peter Buffett, and I made it over to the theatre just in time.

Peter Buffett is the son of legendary investor Warren Buffett, but Peter has made his own name through his music. He played the piano, sang, talked about his life, and answered questions from the standing-room-only audience of Elon students and parents on Family Weekend. It was one of the most enjoyable hours I’ve spent at Elon.

Kevin Costner asked Peter to score the “Fire Dance” scene in his Oscar-winning movie “Dances With Wolves” because Buffett often writes music from a Native American perspective. Peter says he watched the soundless scene about 20 times to feel the mood and the beat, and then the accompaniment flowed. Peter showed the scene on the big screen at Elon. Here it is.

Our upcoming site visit by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications will occur October 9-12, and we are ready. We forwarded a massive self-study to the team two days ago that was both a labor of love and, well, just pure labor.

The self-study asks us to list what has happened in the school in the past six years, and the length of that answer surprised us.

We implemented a new curriculum, established the M.A. in Interactive Media program, created the student agency Live Oak Communications, initiated the nation’s only undergraduate research journal in communications, converted to high-definition technology, enjoyed the national successes of student media, added a career services specialist in the school, originated and expanded summer programs in Los Angeles and New York City, founded the state’s Sunshine Center to promote government transparency, added Sport & Event Management as a new major, received the national Equity & Diversity Award in 2010, and welcomed Brian Williams as national chair of the school’s advisory board.

When the ACEJMC team comes to campus next month, they will visit with students and faculty, sit in classes, study our curriculum and budget, review our faculty scholarship and service, and talk with the provost and president.

Elon is one of 18 private universities in the nation with an accredited communications school, along with Syracuse, Northwestern, Columbia, Howard, Miami and Southern Cal. We are prepared to remain one.

Glenn Scott is a Fulbright Professor in Japan. Follow his blog here as he and his family spend a year at the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa.

This photo from his blog shows that a picture can be worth a thousand words, especially if you don’t speak the language. (The text reads: “Dear Dogs, Don’t walk by yourselves. Please bring your owner with you. And don’t forget to clean up your poop.”)

Department chair Jessica Gisclair is teaching this fall in Elon’s London program, and Tom Nelson is teaching in Elon’s program in Florence, Italy. We’ll see if they can provide similarly interesting signs in their overseas environs.