College History

1950s, School Formation

Question: In what year did the journalism faculty first propose a college-level “School of Journalism and Communications” to incorporate all of Penn State’s curricular and research activities in journalism, advertising, public relations, radio, television, film and media studies? The answer might surprise you, for while many know that the current Bellisario College (then “School”) was created in 1985, few know that the idea for such a unit was formally introduced thirty years before. While that proposal did not, at the time, come to full fruition, it did lead to an important inflection point in the history of Penn State’s communications programs: the creation of the School of Journalism in 1955.

The eventual establishment of our current, integrated College of Communications -- with both a professional and academic mission – was, in fact, an outgrowth of a many-decades-long history that involved complex internal relationships with other academic units and the university at large as well as external relationships with professional media constituencies, especially the state press. This interplay heavily influenced the creation and evolution of today’s Bellisario College -- why the college was launched, how it was structured, and how its faculty sought to balance -- or better yet, integrate -- its responsibilities to deliver high-quality professional education for future media practitioners and to engage in independent academic study of the media's role in society. The process involved difficult decisions made in the context of 1) a national dialogue about the media's responsibilities in a democratic system and the implications for journalism education, and 2) Penn State's aspirations to move beyond its early focus as an agriculture and engineering school and become a top-tier, multidisciplinary academic institution.

The story of the 1955 founding of the School of Journalism is just one chapter in this larger saga, but for both practical and philosophical reasons, one of the more important. Until 1955, journalism instruction at Penn State was primarily, although not exclusively, housed in the Department of Journalism in the School of Liberal Arts. The Department was formed in 1929 and run almost from its inception by Franklin Banner, a former reporter and editor and the central figure in shaping journalism education at Penn State during his 30-year career.[1]

By the early 1950s, the Department had nine full-time and two part-time faculty members and about 150 students.[2] It provided one major, News and Editing, until 1948 when it introduced a major in Advertising. Courses included a full roster of professional “skills” classes in news and advertising, plus courses in history, law and ethics. Most classes were taught in “Carnegie Hall.”[3]

There were other programs and courses in journalism and communications scattered across the University, however. Agriculture offered its own “Agricultural Journalism” with a half dozen courses including, “Writing Agricultural News,” “Agricultural Advertising,” and “Farm-Home Radio Writing and Broadcasting.” The School of Home Economics had a major in “Home Economics and Journalism” (later “Home Economics Journalism and Radio”). It was designed to prepare women for work in areas such as women’s magazines and “homemaking program-management in radio stations.”[4]

The Department of Commerce and Finance – forerunner to the College of Business Administration – had two courses in advertising. The Speech Department offered “Principles of Radio Speech” and “Radio Organization.” And the Dramatics major listed courses in radio drama along with what might have been Penn State’s first survey course in media and society – “Appreciation of the Theatre, Cinema and Radio” which addressed media’s social role as well as content aesthetics.

An effort to pull together these disparate curricula arguably had its origins in two events, one large, one small, in 1950. The larger one was the selection of a new president for Penn State College. Penn State faced several problems at the time. The GI Bill enrollment boom of the late 1940s was fading and student numbers were down. At the same time, there was an expectation of an enrollment rebound – which in fact began around 1955 – and a concomitant need for expanded funding. Relations between the faculty and administration had soured, as had relations between the College and local residents, according to Penn State historian Michael Bezilla.[5] Penn State therefore sought a leader with academic experience and a record of diplomatic and administrative success, finding it, they hoped, in Milton Eisenhower. Eisenhower was then president of Kansas State College. He was a veteran of government service with a reputation for bringing people together, and, of course, he was the brother of World War II General and war hero, Dwight D. Eisenhower. Milton Eisenhower took the office of Penn State President July 1, 1950, with plans for healing and then expanding the College.[6]

The smaller, but perhaps not coincidental, event took place in the Journalism Department. In April of 1950, just a few months after the January announcement of Eisenhower’s appointment, Banner created a faculty planning committee charged with crafting a vision for the future of journalism education at Penn State. The three-person committee included Donald Davis, Ross Schlabach, and Frederick Marbut, as chair. Its first important statement was issued in January of 1951 and, with amendments, adopted by the full faculty on Feb. 27. At a practical level it called for substantial curricular revision, but it was in the introduction that the faculty expressed a clear philosophy of journalism education, its importance in society, and subsequently the Department’s role in Penn State. [LINK: 1951 Dept. of Journalism Planning]

“Education in general,” declared the new policy, “ – and collegiate education in particular – must be directed far beyond immediate professional and money-making goals and must prepare the citizen to take an enlightened, broad, and competent part in the improvement of the political, economic and cultural standards of our free society.” Journalism and advertising majors in the college, stated the document, would certainly be provided with the “best possible study” of the practices of reporting, writing and editing, but also “thorough study of the nature of the communications media” including “its history and law, its ethics and the writings of its critics.” “We must (underline in the original), give each graduate a thorough comprehension of the nature of freedom of the press – that is, the legal and extra-legal facts and discussions bearing on the free exchange of opinion.” [7]

The policy statement went further to include the responsibility of the Department to all Penn State majors. “We believe also that in the introductory courses of our Department the content is such that a broad understanding of the relationship between press and public in a democratic state is emphasized, that a free press and free enterprise are linked with the concept of an American way of life, and that the courses thus have a definite part to play for all students in their education for citizenship.”[8]

The statement, importantly, was informed, perhaps even driven, by broader, on-going national discussions on both the nature of U.S. post-secondary education and on the role of a free press in society. With respect to the first, a host of reformist proposals were released in the 1940s calling for education at all levels to move away from a model that over-emphasized professional or vocational training and toward a liberal arts or general educational model that sought to prepare individuals for an informed and fully engaged social and political life. The Department report cited, for example, the influential 1945 Harvard report on general education[9] and noted concurring comments from in-coming President Eisenhower.

The journalism faculty also invoked vocal and rising unease among press critics, and even some in the press itself, that the news media was losing sight of its central role as information provider to an informed electorate. Specific complaints included increasing concentration of ownership, a perceived focus on profits over public service, and the effects of emerging competition from radio and even film that drove newspapers toward more sensational content in the constant quest for more readers.

The document cited then-recent examples of expressed concern, including the Hutchins Commission Report on A Free and Responsible Press.[10] That report, released in 1947, became a landmark statement calling on the news media to seek not just journalistic autonomy but journalistic social responsibility.

In drawing on these themes, the Department clearly demonstrated that it was thinking at a sophisticated level about its role in journalism education broadly and, more specifically, about its evolving role at Penn State, and it arguably served as a preamble to the more far-reaching proposal it would advance two years later.

In the interim, the program implemented curricular changes to advance the various goals. Fulfilling the pledge to “give each graduate a thorough comprehension of the nature of freedom of the press,” it made the journalism law course (Journ 68) a requirement for all majors. And in service to the liberal arts philosophy of professional education, it mandated that all news-editorial majors take at least three credits (beyond any other university minimums) in each of five areas including commerce, economics, history, political science and sociology. This was a departure from the prior practice of allowing broad student discretion in the selection of electives. At the same time, the department made several professional-level changes, adding for example a third major, “Community Journalism,” and introducing its first course in public relations (Journ 66).

Meanwhile, President Eisenhower had made good strides in repairing relations between the administration, faculty, students and towns people, introducing what Bezilla dubbed “an era of good feeling.”[11] Eisenhower began to sense, however, that Penn State’s designation as “College” did not clearly communicate its important standing as a commonwealth-supported institution of higher education. “Because of the difficulty of getting this understood, I turned to the task of changing the name of the institution to The Pennsylvania State University."[12] He proposed the name change in the fall of 1953. Passing quickly through the various stages of review, it became official in November of that year.

One of the many consequences of the nomenclative upgrade was the renaming of the academic units of the College. What had been the “Schools” of Penn State College became the “Colleges” of Penn State University. Furthermore, within the new Colleges, including Liberal Arts, thought was being given to elevating some Departments to School status, a term frequently attached to professional programs such as law or medicine, and in some cases could also suggest a measure of increased administrative autonomy for the unit.

This moment was not lost on the Department of Journalism. In September, 1953, the same month that Eisenhower sent the University name change request to the State Council on Education, journalism’s planning committee released a dramatic proposal for curricular integration and expansion. Going far beyond the policy statement of two years earlier, it called for creation of a new “School of Journalism and Communications” which “would centralize under one administrative authority instruction in the theory, fundamentals, and techniques as applied to all media of mass communication.“[13] [LINK: 1953 School of Communications Proposal]

The blueprint saw possible coursework “in such fields as News and Editorial Journalism, Advertising, Radio and Television, Publication Management, and Public Relations.” While film production was not specifically mentioned among the curricular possibilities, a proposed new building that would house a motion picture studio was a major component of the plan. That building, the new home for the School, would also contain administrative facilities, laboratories, classrooms, the student press, photography labs, a school library, and college radio and television stations.

The “Committee Recommendations of Future Goals of Journalism Education at Penn State” set out seven benefits of the re-organization, including improved student preparation for professional work in communications; increased efficiencies and costs savings for Penn State, maintenance of a strong national reputation in the discipline, and, as item number seven, an underscoring of “the important role played by communications in a democracy, and the social responsibilities of people who work in the communications field.”[14]

While the document called for the creation of a “School,” it’s important to note that Penn State was still in the process of changing its name and technically was still a College at the time. The proposal has to be read, therefore, not as one recommending a new School within Liberal Arts, but rather a School with equivalent standing to Liberal Arts or Engineering within Penn State College -- essentially, the status the Bellisario College of Communications enjoys today.

It was clearly an ambitious vision, but not one without precedent. The statement cited field-leading institutions that had already created such comprehensive programs, specifically The University of Illinois and The University of Iowa. In fact, school status, again a traditional label for professional programs, was then common in many of the Big 10 universities, as well as in state institutions from Rutgers to the University Oregon to the University of Florida (albeit most typically within a larger college). The post-War period, in fact, saw programs across the country expanding and creating curricula in radio and television, public relations, and mass communications theory. In 1951, for example, the University of Washington renamed its “School of Journalism” the “School of Communications” reflecting its integration of the various related fields. Similarly, The University of Denver aggregated journalism, radio, TV and theater into a new School of Communication Arts in 1952. In addition, by 1955, at least seven institutions, including Minnesota, Stanford, Illinois and Northwestern, offered Ph.D.’s in communications and many more were adding Masters degrees. Finally, resonating with the faculty proposal for a new building was word of significant state and private spending for construction of modern new facilities at places like the University of Oregon, the University of Iowa, Syracuse and even San Jose State College in California. In short, programmatic growth and integration was on the rise nationally. The Penn State journalism faculty were well aware of the national trends and seemed eager to take part.

It was, however, a vision too grand, at the time, for some within Penn State. Our research has yet to discover documents that might shed light on subsequent relevant discussions within Liberal Arts, but on November 24, 1953, the Dean of that unit, Ben Euwema, sent a note to President Eisenhower recommending that the Department of Journalism be renamed the “School of Journalism,” adding “It is not our intention to recommend at this time, or in the immediate future, any division of this School into departments.”[15] As the short memo implied, and subsequent documents demonstrated, both the name and the scope of the proposed program were being significantly scaled back from the concept of a free-standing College of Communications. This reduction was not without some resistance in its turn, however. After months of what were no doubt lively conversations between university colleagues over academic autonomy and administrative control (i.e., “turf”), the Journalism Department issued a revised proposal on June 25, 1954.[16] It ceded the issue of full administrative independence and accepted a continuing home in the (now) College of Liberal Arts (CLA). It took pains, however, to lay out specific guidelines for increased administrative latitude as a new School within the College, including appointment of a Director, creation of departments within the school and, especially, greater control over curricular requirements within its majors.

It also stuck tenaciously to its idea of pulling all the various activities in communications education at Penn State under one administrative roof. It clung to “School of Journalism and Communications” as its preferred label, and envisioned three departments: News and Editing, Advertising, and Radio and Television Journalism, with a possible future Department of Agricultural and Technical Journalism.

Importantly, it added one new item to its list: “To carry on a constructive program of graduate study and research.”[17] The start of that effort, a Master of Arts degree in Journalism, in fact had been launched in the spring of 1954. Courses included Research Methods, Criticism and Ethics of the Press, as well as Advanced Reporting and Advanced Advertising Copywriting.

Despite apparent differences over the scope of the plan, Dean Euwema forwarded a recommendation for study to President Eisenhower, who, on Sept. 16, 1954, appointed a five-person committee to investigate the possibilities of a new school. The committee members included Dean Euwema as chair; assistant CLA Dean Richard Maloney; administrative assistant to President Eisenhower, Lawrence Dennis, and two members of the journalism faculty, Professor Donald Davis and Associate Professor James Markham. Interestingly, the President’s letter of appointment presupposed a particular organizational structure. “Presumably, this would be a School of Journalism in the College of Liberal Arts,” wrote Eisenhower.[18] But a subsequent article in The Daily Collegian seemed to keep open wider possibilities, reporting “The committee has been discussing the possibility of establishing a School of Journalism and Communications, to include all communication media study at the University.”[19]

The “Committee on Journalism Education at Penn State” conducted its review through the winter of 1954-55. There is only fragmentary evidence on the extent and nature of that process, but some of it is revealing. For example, for more than 20 years, the Pennsylvania Newspaper Publishers Association (PNPA) had been heavily engaged with the Journalism Department. A PNPA Advisory Committee to Penn State, largely instigated by Banner, was instrumental in the establishment of the Department in 1929 and it had both promoted and influenced the program over the years. It now wanted a hand in selecting the new Director of the School.[20] In November 1954, Dean Euwema wrote a letter to the Committee thanking it for its support and interest and offering an open door to discussion. The fact that the committee represented the politically consequential state newspaper industry could not have been lost on Dean Euwema, or on President Eisenhower. A year later, the potential for this kind of outside influence drew a critical comment from the Middle States Association of Colleges in their 1955 Penn State evaluation report. [21] While some members of the evaluation team were supportive of the creation of the School, others warned of “proliferating colleges and schools” which weakened Penn State overall, noting specifically that “some members of the evaluating team feel that the School of Journalism has no good or sufficient reason for its existence rather than political pressure from state organizations.”[22]

The Presidential review committee faced similar internal skepticism during its deliberations. A memo to Euwema, dated Dec. 13, 1954, argued against School status for Journalism declaring, “there is no evidence that the formation of a School is a matter of urgency.”[23] While unsigned, the language of the note suggested an insider’s perspective on the issue and a possible lack of unanimity among the journalism faculty.

The correspondence with other Penn State units was somewhat less oppositional, usually constituting forms of negotiation on curricular authority over specific courses or subject areas. The review committee proposed the academic equivalent of joint custody for journalism programs in Agriculture and Home Economics. The courses were to be controlled by the new Journalism School; the instructors would have dual membership in journalism and in the relevant home department. Agriculture and Home Economics were amenable. (Journalism, in fact, had assumed control of the Agricultural Journalism courses a year or two before.)

Not all the discussions were friction-free, though. An early iteration of the School proposal included the designation of a major in “Advertising and Public Relations.” The College of Business Administration found “disturbing” the use of the term “Public Relations” insofar as Business was considering development of its own PR program. Dean Euwema suggested employing the term “Public Information” instead of “Public Relations” or dropping it altogether from the title of the major. (The latter course was eventually adopted.)[24]

The Speech Department provided a particularly illustrative exchange. A February 3, letter from Department Head Robert Oliver responded, in part, to a proposal for the creation of an interdepartmental committee on the integration of courses and programs in mass communication, to be headed by the new Director of the School of Journalism. While supporting the concept generally, Oliver was distressed by the assumption that the new Journalism Director should lead the committee. “I see no reason whatsoever for any assumption that Journalism is any more intimately, essentially, or deeply concerned with mass communication than is our own department – or others, for that matter. . . . It makes no difference at all to me who the chairman may be – so long as there is no implicit assumption that mass communication is an area of unique, peculiar, or special concern to either journalism or any other department (our own included).[25]

Oliver took a similar position, and tone, on the matter of jurisdiction over the emerging television curriculum and facilities. “. . . it is essential” he wrote, “that this new medium (with enormous potentialities) should be viewed clearly as a function of the entire University, not in any sense at all as an adjunct of any Department. . . “ Stipulating Speech’s strong interest in TV, he concluded, “. . . to do anything at all that would imply that television – and the basic theories of mass communication – are adjuncts of any one department would, I feel, be untrue to the facts and detrimental to best educational utilization.”[26]

Having digested the full range of opinion, the committee presented its report to President Eisenhower in May. Trimming substantially the original breadth of the faculty proposal, it recommended creation of a School of Journalism inside the College of Liberal Arts, with departments in news and editing, and in advertising. A curriculum in radio and television journalism was tabled for development as a sequence “as soon as possible,” along with a sequence in magazine and technical writing. A sequence in public relations was to be created “within the immediate future.” Inter-college committees were recommended for the oversight of advertising curricula (with Business, Art, and Psychology), and mass communications interests (with Speech, Dramatics, Psychology, and General Extension, among others).[27]

About half the document was devoted to laying out the justification for the change. It pointed to the size and growth of the journalism program, the seventh largest in the nation at the time. And it noted a broader professional and social context, including: “the emergence of mass communications as a significant and recognized field of study,” “increased public awareness of the vital role free and responsible mass media must play in the thorough, objective reporting and interpretation of public affairs,” and “the coming of age of journalism as a profession.”[28]

More practical reasons were highlighted as well, including expanding career opportunities in mass media, and a “greatly strengthened” relationship “with members of the Commonwealth’s publishing, advertising and broadcasting associations.”[29]

In June, the Board of Trustees approved the recommendations, and the new School of Journalism was inaugurated in the fall semester of 1955.

The only significant bit of remaining business was the selection of a Director for the School. (Banner had announced he would retire, after 30 years on the faculty, at the end of the 1955-56 term.) The initial choice for the position was George Palmer, an editor at the New York Daily News, a former AP war correspondent and a 1937 Penn State graduate. Unfortunately, Palmer pulled out on June 30, the day before he was scheduled to begin his new job. Markham and Davis stepped in as interim co-directors, and I.W. Cole, Assistant Director of the School of Journalism and Communications at the University of Illinois, was named to the position the following year.

In 1956, President Eisenhower left Penn State, becoming President of Johns Hopkins University, in part to be closer to Washington DC, facilitating his involvement in his brother’s Presidential administration. Franklin Banner retired to San Diego, California, where he resided until his death in 1983.

The new School of Journalism, then, began with two Departments, a dozen faculty members and 137 students.[30] It offered three undergraduate majors -- News and Editing, Advertising, and Community Journalism -- and a Master of Arts degree. It was not the comprehensive communications college envisioned by the faculty in 1953, but it was an important step toward that goal. It was a nucleus that in 1985 would be separated from Liberal Arts and combined with CLA’s Telecommunications program and the Film program from the College of Arts and Architecture to finally become the integrated college-level body of the 1950s concept.

Footnotes

[1] The story of the creation of the Department in 1930 and of Banner’s role in piloting its early history will be the subject of a subsequent article.

[2] Student numbers fell from about 200 in 1950 to 135 in 1953 before they began their steady rise through the following decades. “Journalism Enrollment Drops 20.5 Percent from 1949,” Warren Price, Journalism Quarterly, 27: 4 (Fall 1950), 482; Robert Root, “Journalism School Enrollment Resumes Upward Trend,” Journalism Quarterly, 31:4 (Fall 1954), 538.

[3] All information on courses and programs, including major requirements are drawn from the Penn State Bulletins for the respective years, unless otherwise noted.

[4] Penn State Bulletin, 1950-51 p., 205.

[5] Michael Bezilla. Penn State: an illustrated history. (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania University Press, 1985). https://libraries.psu.edu/about/collections/penn-state-university-park-campus-history-collection/penn-state-illustrated-10

[6] Bezilla.

[7] “Department of Journalism Planning,” Feb. 27, 1951. Journalism, 1958-1968, folder, 9, Box: 23. Pennsylvania State University, College of the Liberal Arts records, 00574. Eberly Family Special Collections Library. https://aspace.libraries.psu.e... Accessed January 19, 2023.

[8] “Department of Journalism Planning,” Feb. 27, 1951.

[9] General Education in a Free Society. (Harvard University Press, 1945.)

[10] The Commission on Freedom of the Press, A Free and Responsible Press. (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1947).

[11] Bezilla.

[12] Bezilla.

[13] “Committee Recommendations of Future Goals of Journalism Education at Penn State,” Sept. 22, 1953. Journalism, 1958-1968, folder, 9, Box: 23. Pennsylvania State University, College of the Liberal Arts records, 00574. Eberly Family Special Collections Library. https://aspace.libraries.psu.e... Accessed January 19, 2023.

[14] Department of Journalism Planning,” Feb. 27, 1951.

[15] Memo to President Milton Eisenhower, 11/24/1953. Journalism, 1958-1968, folder, 9, Box: 23. Pennsylvania State University, College of the Liberal Arts records, 00574. Eberly Family Special Collections Library. https://aspace.libraries.psu.e... Accessed January 19, 2023.

[16] “Recommendations Regarding The Establishment Of A “School of Journalism and Communications,” June 25, 1954. Journalism, 1958-1968, folder, 9, Box: 23. Pennsylvania State University, College of the Liberal Arts records, 00574. Eberly Family Special Collections Library. https://aspace.libraries.psu.e... Accessed January 19, 2023.

[17] Recommendations Regarding The Establishment Of A “School of Journalism and Communications,” June 25, 1954.

[18] Inter-Office Correspondence from Milton Eisenhower to D.W. Davis, L.E Dennis, Ben Euwema R.C. Maloney and James Markham, Sept. 16, 1954. Journalism, 1958-1968, folder, 9, Box: 23. Pennsylvania State University, College of the Liberal Arts records, 00574. Eberly Family Special Collections Library. https://aspace.libraries.psu.e... Accessed January 19, 2023.

[19] “5 Probing Journ Plans For School,” The Daily Collegian, Oct. 23, 1954, p. 1.

[20] Letter to Dean Euwema from J.E. Holtzinger, Nov. 13, 1954. Journalism, 1958-1968, folder, 9, Box: 23. Pennsylvania State University, College of the Liberal Arts records, 00574. Eberly Family Special Collections Library. https://aspace.libraries.psu.e... Accessed January 19, 2023.

[21] The Commission on Institutions of Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. “An Evaluation of the Aims and Affairs of The Pennsylvania State University,” Nov. 6 – 9, 1955. Box 119. Pennsylvania State University, College of the Liberal Arts records, 00574. Eberly Family Special Collections Library. https://aspace.libraries.psu.e... Accessed January 19, 2023.

[22] Middle States report, p. 87.

[23] Untitled, Unsigned memo, Dec. 13, 1954. Journalism, 1958-1968, folder, 9, Box: 23. Pennsylvania State University, College of the Liberal Arts records, 00574. Eberly Family Special Collections Library. https://aspace.libraries.psu.e... Accessed January 19, 2023.

[24] Correspondence between Dean Ossian MacKenzie, College of Business Administration, and Dean Ben Euwema, College of Liberal Arts, February 1, 1955 and March 30, 1955. Journalism, 1958-1968, folder, 9, Box: 23. Pennsylvania State University, College of the Liberal Arts records, 00574. Eberly Family Special Collections Library. https://aspace.libraries.psu.e... Accessed January 19, 2023.

[25] Letter to Dean Euwema, 2/3/1955. Journalism, 1958-1968, folder, 9, Box: 23. Pennsylvania State University, College of the Liberal Arts records, 00574. Eberly Family Special Collections Library. https://aspace.libraries.psu.e... Accessed January 19, 2023.

[26] Letter to Dean Euwema, 2/3/1955.

[27] “Report of the Committee on Journalism Education at Penn State.” Undated. Journalism, 1958-1968, folder, 9, Box: 23. Pennsylvania State University, College of the Liberal Arts records, 00574. Eberly Family Special Collections Library. https://aspace.libraries.psu.e... Accessed January 19, 2023.

[28] “Report of the Committee on Journalism Education at Penn State.” Undated.

[29] “Report of the Committee on Journalism Education at Penn State.” Undated.

[30] “1955 Fall Registrations in Journalism,” Journalism Quarterly, 32:4, (Dec. 1955), 518.

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