The Daily Plan-it / Dean of Students Blog, Columbia J-school

FOR PART-TIME M.S. STUDENTS.

A letter from Bill Grueskin, Dean of Academic Affairs.

Dear part-time students,

Welcome, or welcome back, to the Graduate School of Journalism! You are about to embark on one of the most challenging periods of your life. In the upcoming months, you will be expected to learn and hone the reporting, writing and editing skills that form the bedrock of incisive journalism, while also developing the technological acumen you’ll need to advance our profession in a time of unparalleled change.

But before I get into the details, I want to offer the new students a word of congratulations. We were honored with the largest applicant pool ever last winter. You were admitted to this school after at least two, and often three or four, faculty and staff members read your essays, tests, transcript and clips. The fact that you made it here in this competitive year means that we have great confidence in your ability to succeed at Columbia and beyond.

All of you also have our admiration. This is a tumultuous time in journalism as the business models that have supported most news organizations are facing huge challenges. Despite that, it is clear that you share our confidence that new models will emerge, and that for those with creativity and courage, this is a time of tremendous opportunity for reporters to practice and distribute journalism in new and exciting ways.

Finally, the faculty and staff of this school believe, as we expect you do, that journalism is integral to a free, open and vital democracy. We want you to learn not just skills but values, not just techniques but the understanding of how a dynamic press fuels the transparency our society needs.

The letter below will give you vital information on how the school year proceeds, what our expectations are of you, and what you can expect from us. Please read it carefully.

HOW THE SCHOOL IS ORGANIZED:

Several departments at the school will affect your life here.

The Dean of Students Office will handle most of your day-to-day needs. This department, run by Prof. Sree Sreenivasan and Assistant Dean of Students Melanie Huff, includes admissions, financial aid and career services. Obviously, you’ve already run the gauntlet with the admissions department. If you have questions or concerns about your financial aid, you should contact The Office of Admission and Financial Aid in Room 203.

You will be dealing quite a bit with both Dean Huff and with Elena Cabral, an adjunct professor who also serves as interim director of the part-time program. Prof. Cabral is a graduate of the part-time program and an experienced journalist; she can advise you on curriculum and scheduling issues. Dean Huff oversees the balloting process for courses and also plays a vital role in helping students understand course points, navigate relationships with other schools at Columbia, and deal with school and university policies.

As the year progresses, you will hear more from Career Services, led by Ernest Sotomayor. This department is in close contact with employers and will help guide you through the process of identifying and qualifying for opportunities after you graduate.

The Academic Affairs Office oversees the school’s curriculum, hiring of adjuncts and placement of faculty in courses. I am the academic dean, and am assisted by Prof. Laura Muha, who is assistant dean for faculty affairs. While most of the decisions for the fall curriculum have already been made, we welcome student input into the lineup for the spring.

The Technology Office, overseen by Larry Fried, handles issues associated with checkout and upkeep of our cameras, recorders and computers.

You may at some point come into contact with other assistant deans here, including Sheila Thimba, who oversees administration and budget; Elizabeth Fishman, who handles communications; Susan Shine, who oversees development; and Arlene Morgan, head of prizes and programs.

Finally, there’s Nicholas Lemann, the dean of this school. He is an accomplished journalist and author, and is also an instructor, teaching classes for M.A. and M.S. students and, like the rest of us, advising master’s projects and theses.

FALL SCHEDULE:

The fall semester officially begins Sept. 8, 2009, or the day after Labor Day. Please note that not all classes begin at this time; most RWIIs (electives) and a few others begin in mid-October.

One of the more significant changes in the curriculum this year affects our full-time M.S. students, and some (but not all) part-time students. In the place of the Critical Issues class (which combines history and ethics) and the Law class, which were each two points, we are offering one-point classes in Law, History, Ethics and Business of Journalism. Full-time students will take two of those classes in the first half of the Fall semester and two courses in the second half; the order of how those classes are taken will be randomly assigned by the Dean of Students Office. Those classes will be offered in the mornings and afternoons on Fridays.

Part-time students who haven’t taken Law or Critical Issues are welcome to join full-time students in those Friday classes. Or, they can take the traditional Law or Critical Issues classes which will be offered on weeknights in the fall.

Please use this link to review the M.S. graduation requirements and the semesters in which specific types of classes are offered.

CHANGES IN CONCENTRATION: Students occasionally ask to switch their medium of concentration. Because there are equipment and lab demands associated with each concentration – particularly broadcast and digital media – we are only rarely able to accommodate that. Any such request should go to Assistant Dean Huff. (Please note: We’ve changed the name of the New Media concentration to Digital Media.)

REGISTERING FOR CLASSES: You do not register yourself for classes; we do that for you. We do, however, ask you to let us know your preferences via an online ballot which will be available from 10 a.m. July 6 to July 13. Not every student will get every first choice, as some classes are oversubscribed. We do promise, however, that we will do our best, as long as you fill out the correct ballot for your concentration and submit it by 10 a.m. on July 13. If you fail to do so, you will be assigned to classes on a space-available basis.

Here are the steps for making your selections:

Look over the fall course offerings, available online here. You can read students’ evaluations of many of the classes and professors here. You will first need to have activated your Columbia email account.

On July 6, we will post a link to the fall ballot on the Dean of Students Blog.

Click on the ballot for your concentration, fill it out and submit it by 10 a.m. on July 13. The balloting process is not first-come, first-served; as long as you fill out the correct ballot and submit it by the deadline, you will be given equal consideration for all classes. Please note that you do not ballot for RW1, Master’s Project, law, ethics, history or business of journalism, or for any skills classes and/or electives dictated by your area of concentration. We automatically place you in those classes.

If you want to be considered for Prof. Judith Crist’s Personal and Professional Style elective, you must submit writing samples along with your ballot. These can be sent in the body of an e-mail – not as an attachment – to Assistant Dean Huff at dos@jrn.columbia.edu. The deadline is 10 a.m., July 13. Please indicate in the subject line that the clips are for Prof. Crist’s class.

ADDING OR DROPPING CLASSES: You may request to change one or more of your classes during the official add/drop period each semester. The add/drop period for Fall 2010 begins at 10 a.m. on Aug. 24 and ends at 10 a.m. on Sept. 18.

During this time, a link to the add/drop form will be available on the Dean of Students Blog. On each form, you may request to add one class and drop one class. All add-drop requests are processed on a first-come, first-served basis. We stress that they are only requests; there is no guarantee that we can accommodate them. It is particularly difficult for us to change RW1 classes or Master’s Project advisers.

We do not send e-mails approving or rejecting requests for schedule changes. You must keep checking your class schedule on the web at Student Services Online. Sometimes it takes days for a space to open in a class. Sometimes a space never opens. Until you see a change reflected on your class schedule there, your request has not been approved. All requests remain on file during the add/drop period.

OUTSIDE CLASSES: In lieu of one of your required journalism electives, you are eligible to take a 4-point language course or a 3-point elective in another division within the university. To do so, you must do the following:

• Fill out the J-School’s Fall 2009 ballot as if you were taking all of your classes within the J-School, since cross-registrations aren’t always possible.

• Identify a graduate-level class (4000+) that meshes with your proposed J-School schedule and is justifiable in light of your journalistic goals. You can look up courses here.

• After your Journalism course assignments have been posted in Student Services Online, send an e-mail to dos@jrn.columbia.edu asking to replace your elective with the outside class. You must include the class name, course number, professor, number of points, and a description of how it will help you to achieve your professional objectives. Note: The meeting time of the outside course must fit within your J-School course schedule. We can’t adjust your J-School schedule to accommodate an outside class.

• Once the Dean of Students Office has approved your request to take the outside class, you must fill out the M.S. approval form and get it approved by the outside division (dean or professor).

• Once you have done this, give the form to Assistant Dean Huff, and she will register you for the course. Please note that for Fall 2009, this must be completed between 10 a.m. Aug. 24 and ends at 10 a.m. on Sept. 18.

  INTERNSHIPS: Students sometimes ask about doing internships during their time at the J-School. While this is not forbidden, it is highly discouraged during the fall semester and cautiously encouraged in the spring, because we feel your studies come first. Our curriculum is intense and demanding, and we find that students often underestimate the amount of time that it will take to complete their coursework.

  That said, some students do juggle internships and schoolwork successfully. If you are interested in an internship, please let Career Services know early in the fall; that office can help you identify appropriate opportunities and hone your applications.

  Please note that if you wish to receive credit for an internship – and many media companies that offer internships require this – your RW1 professor must confirm to Career Services that you will be able to handle both internship and coursework. More information on internships is available via the internship link on our Career Services page.

AUDITING CLASSES: Students may audit classes in which they are not formally enrolled as long as the instructor agrees. Please keep in mind that most instructors expect student auditors to attend all classes and participate in all discussions. In addition, university regulations prohibit the instructor from editing or grading your work unless you’re formally enrolled as a student in the class. So before you approach an instructor for permission to audit, think about your workload, especially since you won’t have the benefit of formal feedback from the instructor.

GRADES: The journalism school has a pass-fail system of grading, which is designed to encourage you to do your best here without making you feel as if you’re competing with your classmates. To give you a sense of your progress, you’ll receive a written evaluation from most of your instructors at the end of each term; in RW1, you’ll also receive a written midterm evaluation.

If at any point during the semester, an instructor feels you are not doing passing work, he or she will inform the Dean of Students Office, which will issue you a letter placing you on warning or, in more serious cases, on probation. The letter also will describe what you must do in order to be removed from disciplinary status. If you have not met the conditions of the probation letter by the end of the semester, you will not be permitted to register for the following semester’s classes or to graduate.

On the other side of the curve, an instructor who judges your work to be superior can choose to pass you with “honors in class,” a designation that is taken into account when considering graduation prizes.

Copies of all evaluations, honors designations, warnings and probation letters are kept on file in the Dean of Students Office.

GRADUATION REQUIREMENTS: To graduate, you must complete all required courses, accumulate at least 33 points and pass the four “core” courses in the curriculum: RW1, the Master’s Project, along with two courses usually taken in the spring, the Reporting/Writing Seminar and the Media Workshop. A student who fails any two courses, or the same course twice, will be dismissed. In addition, the faculty reserves the right to withhold a degree from any student deemed unworthy because of poor performance or unprofessional behavior.

CAUSES FOR DISMISSAL: Faking a story, making up quotes or plagiarizing constitutes grounds for instant dismissal. Students are not allowed to use work they do in one course for another course without the written permission of instructors in both courses.

E-MAIL: When we received your enrollment fee and you were logged into the university system, you were assigned a UNI (short for “university network identifier”), which consists of your initials plus an arbitrarily assigned number.

To activate your UNI, go to http://uni.columbia.edu/

Once your UNI is active, you can log into your Columbia e-mail here. (Your e-mail address is your UNI plus “@columbia.edu”; however, when entering your UNI into the system as a login, leave off the “@columbia.edu” and enter only the letter-number combination.)

All official communications from the J-School and the university will be sent to your Columbia e-mail address; if you wish them to go to another e-mail, you can set up your Columbia account to forward your messages electronically.

TUITION: Your tuition bills are issued by and paid directly to the university, not the journalism school. The university will send you an electronic statement at the beginning of each semester; you can also access it through the Student Services Online link on the university’s website. There is no need to worry if you have not received a tuition bill yet; the university tells us they won’t go out until Aug. 10, with payment coming due on Sept. 17.. Information on payment options, plus access to your online account, can be found here.

TECHNOLOGY: You can expect to use both a digital camera and a digital audio recorder while reporting stories for class and for our main student web site, http://columbiajournalist.org. We have this equipment on hand, so it is by no means mandatory for you to purchase your own; however, many students wish to do so. If you are considering this, please take a look at our technology guide for incoming students, where you’ll find suggestions for affordable equipment that interfaces smoothly with the rest of our technology. The guide also includes information on computers and laptops, as well as vendors who give discounts to our students.

DEAN OF STUDENTS BLOG: For one-stop access to information about all aspects of student life at the J-School, check out the Daily Plan-It, a blog published by the Students Affairs Office. On the blog, you’ll find special-event announcements; links to upcoming (and archived) chats and webcasts; transcripts of talks by guest speakers; housing resources; financial-aid information; technology resources; and links to the official school calendars – to list just a small portion of the information you’ll find here. Get into the habit of checking the blog regularly; in particular, we recommend that you read the “Prepping for the J-School” section on the blog.

ACADEMIC & EVENTS CALENDAR: For quick reference, here is a link to the page through which you can access (and import) the J-School’s master calendar.

SOCIAL LIFE: The Society of Professional Journalists, our student organization, organizes a wide variety of social activities, from movie nights and Friday happy hours to the annual Halloween party and the end-of-term faculty roast. Elections for SPJ officers are held in September. The 2009-2010 SPJ adviser is Prof. Duy Linh Tu.

CLASS OF ‘10 FACEBOOK PAGE: Interested in getting to know some of your classmates before you arrive on campus? Join the Class of ’10 Facebook group

SUMMER READING: New York City will serve as your journalistic laboratory for the next 10 months, and the more you know about its history and dynamics, the better prepared you will be to cover it. To that end, we recommend that you choose some additional titles and websites of your choice from this list recommended by the faculty.

MISCELLANEOUS THINGS TO DO BEFORE ARRIVING ON CAMPUS:

• Fill out the Journalism School Emergency Contact Form: http://fs8.formsite.com/cjdos/Emergency/
• Record your meningococcal meningitis vaccination decision at: https://ssol.columbia.edu/ssv/crt/menIntro.html
• Complete a measles, mumps and rubella record and submit it to Health Services: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/studentservices/newstudents/docs/MMR/index.html
• Register your mobile number to receive important communications from Columbia University in case of an emergency situation: https://ssol.columbia.edu/?tran[1]_tran_name=seni