Keith Becker

Recently there was an opinion piece written by a graduate student that appeared in the Daily Emerald. The author bemoaned the fact that the journalism school was losing its credibility by housing the Public Relations and Advertising majors within the college. He argued that because PR and ad don’t fall under the umbrella of “journalism”, the two disciplines would be better suited for the business school. In fact, he’d rather replace them with foreign and sign languages, respectively, because those are more “legitimate” forms of communication.

On the contrary, it is the opinion of myself and most others in the SOJC that this is exactly what makes the school so great, and why its loss is a tragedy of epic proportions.

   

The School of Journalism and Communication prided itself on being an elaborate community of writers and thinkers, scholars and producers, strategists and storytellers. No matter if you were an undergrad or grad student, a professor, GTF or alum, you were welcomed with open arms. The SOJC honored the legacy of a rich journalism tradition, just as it understood the power of innovation and social responsibility. It solved problems, found truth and inspired new ideas. And for that it will be incredibly missed.

The SOJC was a bastion of creativity, a vehicle to hone and polish the skills of the future media professionals that would set out to improve the world – one blog post, video, tweet and idea at a time.  Students were able to jumpstart their careers with work in professional publications and organizations such as the Emerald, Flux, Ethos, Allen Hall Advertising, Allen Hall PR, Duck TV and a variety of other opportunities that provided valuable experience for students to take on into their careers. While not everyone would go on to become Ann Curry or Dan Wieden, the number of SOJC success stories is innumerable. By teaching how to think, rather than what to think, the SOJC left room open for individual interpretation and creativity. Diversity of ideologies that sprouted as seedlings back when they were studying in Allen Hall have now blossomed into full blown innovations. The media industry will lose a great deal of future contributors that could have gone on to follow similar paths.

Without the SOJC, the University community will be profoundly affected. The SOJC served as the creative lifeblood on campus through its publications, faculty and alumni presence, and the spirit of its undergrads. After all, it was a professor in the J-school who started the I Stand With the Hat campaign and a group of three students whose video project created the war cry that took fire a couple years ago and is still the anthem of Oregon students: I Love My Ducks. 

It’s saddening that the $20 million investment that the University made into the construction of the new Allen Hall will not serve a single J-schooler. Allen Hall just won’t be the same without the inspirational speeches of Deb Morrison or the piercing cries of frustration  in the wee small hours at the labs when Final Cut Pro displays a message saying it will take three hours to render.  

Now that the SOJC has vanished from planet Eugene, current students are forced to look elsewhere to continue their studies. Bjorn Johnson, a senior advertising major, said, fittingly, on twitter that without the SOJC he would “drop out completely, reapply as a freshman, enroll in Honors English, aspire to be a writer, and settle for career librarian.” A frightening fall from grace. Kelsey Wilkins, a fellow senior ad major, said that moving 150 yards from Allen Hall to Lillis was no option. “I’d Cry. Try to become a marketing major in the (gasp) business school. Except I would fail the math classes, then cry some more.” Try to imagine what would happen if the University reassigned 3,000 bright young journalistic minds into business school, number-crunching, excel spreadsheet-reading zombies. I know, I don’t want to either.