September 19, 2021 by Philip Lewenstein

My Journalism Schools, Medill and Hubbard, Celebrate 100 Years

As a child, I woke up early every morning to practice my piano lessons. But before starting to warm up with scales and chords, I would pick up our daily Duluth newspaper from the front porch and read every word of the sports section.

My interest in newspapers and sports overshadowed my interest in music, and I decided that I wanted to pursue a career in journalism.

In high school, I considered colleges, particularly those with journalism schools. In spring of my senior year, my parents and I drove to Columbia, Missouri, to visit the University of Missouri’s journalism school, the oldest journalism program in the country, dating to 1908.

We were impressed with the college-town atmosphere of Columbia and the journalism school. We visited with the dean of the journalism school, who asked, “Why do you want to come here; you have an outstanding journalism program in Minnesota?”

After returning home, I visited the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, applied for admission, and began attending in September 1966. I graduated in spring 1970 and applied to the master’s program in journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Being accepted, I started classes in fall 1970, spending the first quarter in the school’s Washington, D.C., reporting program.

The best measure of success for an organization, business, or college is its ability to offer high- quality services and products, especially over time.

Two institutions that meet this standard for success are Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications and the University of Minnesota’s Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

This year, Medill has been celebrating its 100^th anniversary; in 2022, the Hubbard School will celebrate its 100^th anniversary. I am proud to be a graduate of both schools near their mid-century marks. I earned an undergraduate degree with a journalism major from the University of Minnesota in 1970 and a master-of-science degree in journalism from Northwestern in 1971.

The relevancy and necessity of a journalism degree have been debated since the earliest journalism schools were formed. Are journalism schools necessary? Does a liberal arts education provide better preparation for journalists?  Employers are divided on these questions. Some question whether journalism schools are keeping up with the digital revolution.

The longevity and quality of the Medill and Hubbard schools attest to the value of journalism education. Both expect students to gain basic journalism skills and acquire a strong background in the liberal arts.

Journalists must be able to tell compelling and accurate stories, to ask insightful questions, to understand the values and principles of the craft and its place in the history of democracy, and to use the tools of the profession.

The Medill and Hubbard schools have succeeded over time in identifying and responding to changes in the media landscape. They identified and mastered emerging market trends and media technologies and integrated them into journalistic work.

The schools have adapted to the transition of news from print to radio to television to digital spaces. The move to digital has caused huge disruptions in the traditional news industry, especially in print as most Americans get their news from digital devices.

In reflecting on my journalism education, I traced the schools’ histories, learning about the   dramatic changes that have occurred in both Medill and Hubbard. Both schools have greatly expanded options and opportunities for students with the expansion of locations, degrees, specialty centers, and labs.

Medill Offers Programs at Five Locations

Medill provides instruction on five campuses around the world plus online degrees and certificates and has more than 18,000 alumni who are leaders in journalism, media, marketing, communications, and more. The five locations are Evanston, Chicago, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Qatar.

Medill offers three programs in journalism: undergraduate journalism, graduate journalism (the Master of Science in Journalism), and a high-school program (Cherubs). The undergraduate class of 2020 had 159 students while the graduate class had 126 students.

The journalism programs reflect a tradition of hands-on, experiential education such as a quarter-long Journalism Residency program and a global curricular trip. The graduate journalism program features reporting specializations that allow students to gain a focused experience on specific topics, including health, environment, and science; social justice; politics, policy, and foreign affairs; magazine; sports media; video and broadcast; and media innovation and content strategy.

Medill has expanded global opportunities. Second-year undergraduates can participate in a reporting trip during spring break as part of a winter quarter course, “Journalism in Practice,” internationally or in Chicago. Journalism master’s students travel in conjunction with a class during winter quarter as part of the Medill Explores program. Master’s students can participate in an optional fifth quarter in the Global Residency program in a newsroom abroad as an entry-level staff member

Within Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC), several programs are available: full-time master’s program, professional master’s program, undergraduate certificate, and online short courses. The full-time graduate program had 111 students in the class of 2020, average age 24. The professional program had 103 students, average age 34, in the 2019-2020 school year. The certificate program had 120 graduates in 2020.

“Since its founding, Medill has been a beacon of practice, innovation, and thought leadership in the fields of journalism, advertising, and integrated marketing communication,” said Dean Charles Whitaker.

“Throughout the decades, Medill has grown and reimagined itself to meet the demands of the ever-shifting industries we serve. Yet one constant remains: we have been and will forever be committed to experience-based learning and scholarship that prepares students not only to work in journalism, marketing, and communications enterprises, but ultimately to lead those organizations.”

Journalism Program Dedicated on Evanston Campus in 1921

Northwestern’s journalism school was dedicated on the Evanston campus on February 8, 1921, and was part of the School of Commerce until 1937.

Leading up to Medill’s incorporation, Chicago Tribune reporter Edward J. Doherty urged Northwestern President Walter Dill Scott and Tribune publisher Robert R. McCormick to start a journalism program at Northwestern. With funding from the Tribune and support from McCormick, the school was established.

The school was named for Joseph Medill, McCormick’s grandfather. Medill was a leading abolitionist who used the newspaper he owned, the Chicago Tribune, to promote anti-slavery views and helped propel Abraham Lincoln to the U.S. presidency. He also served as mayor of Chicago after the Great Chicago fire of 1871.

The first courses offered in 1921-22 were reporting and news writing, law of the press, history of journalism, editorial writing and policy, the community newspaper, advertising, and feature and magazine writing.

In 1922, the first nine bachelor’s degrees in journalism were awarded and, in 1924, the first masters of science in journalism degrees were awarded to three students.

After the widespread adoption of radio in the 1920s, a radio-writing course was added in 1931. The Cherub program started in 1934. High-school journalists from around the world come to the Medill-Northwestern Journalism Institute, nicknamed “Medill Cherubs,” to gain hands-on journalism experience in an immersive five-week summer program. About 7,000 students have participated in the program.

Medill opened its first TV broadcasting studies/studio in 1958. Also in 1958, a Ph.D. program was established; it produced only 18 graduates and closed in 1965, with a formal end in 1974.

The Medill News Service in Washington, D.C., where students work as credentialed reporters on Capitol Hill, was started in 1966. Also, in 1966, an urban journalism center was established to provide continuing education for journalism professionals and to focus on issues affecting American cities. In1967, a master’s program in advertising began. In l986, the graduate advertising program added public relations and direct-marketing specializations.

In Medill’s Washington bureau, students have the tools to master different storytelling platforms, producing everything from live shots to podcasts with state-of-the art technology. Both undergraduate and graduate students have an opportunity to spend a quarter, or more, in the D.C. program.

Operating as professional journalists, graduate students cover politics, national security, health, education, and businesses. Medill partners with more than 20 traditional media outlets plus local news stations and trade publications as part of the Medill News Service.

The student journalists file original multimedia stories on deadline and use social media and multimedia tools to enhance their storytelling and coverage.

“When they leave Washington, students should feel comfortable walking into any newsroom and knowing what to do,” says Professor Ellen Shearer, the Washington, D.C. bureau chief and co-director of the National Security Journalism Initiative.

Participating in the Washington reporting program in fall 1970 was the highlight of my Medill education. I served as a correspondent for the Edinburg, Texas, Daily Review and the English-language Mexico City News. Our program director assigned me daily to find stories throughout the city of importance and interest to audiences of these papers. In addition, we had a weekly seminar with George Reedy, a former press secretary for President Lyndon Johnson.

In l972, Medill introduced its Teaching Newspaper Program (now called JournalismResidency), which allows undergraduate students to work full time as reporters in media outlets across the country.

In 1991, Medill started the first graduate-level marketing communications program in the United States after consolidating the school’s advertising, direct-marketing, and public-relations curricula. The Master of Science in Advertising degree, begun in the late 60s, switched to a focus on direct marketing in the 80s. In 1991, the IMC program continued to grow from a full-time master’s program to include part-time and online study for working professionals and an IMC undergraduate certificate program that enrolls nearly 350 Northwestern students from every school.

The IMC curricula include a range of opportunities from immersive courses in Chile and London to a fourth-quarter summer immersion program where student teams work with companies to solve marketing challenges of strategic importance.

The Global Perspectives class combines coursework with a two-week experience in Asia. Students have visited leading local and multinational companies in major cities. Students also can apply to spend their final quarter in San Francisco to expand their knowledge about the convergence of marketing, communications, and technology.

TheMedill Innocence Project started in 1999. It focuses on advocating for releasing wrongly-convicted prisoners. In 2011, the project was renamed the Medill Justice Project, and the scope was expanded in 2019 to cover broader social-justice stories with the launch of the MedillInvestigative Lab. The two-quarter program, the first in Evanston and the second in Washington, D.C., enables undergraduate and graduate students to develop significant investigative stories.

In 2000, the IMC part-time program started.

In 2002, the McCormick Tribune Center opened, providing a new home for Medill in addition to Fisk Hall. The center was subsequently named the McCormick Foundation Center.

Medill expanded its international presence in 2008 when the school opened a campus in Doha, Qatar, known as NU-Q. Northwestern was selected in 2008 to bring media and communications studies to Doha’s Education City in Qatar, a cross-cultural educational complex that houses branch campuses for six leading American universities. Medill graduated the first Bachelor of Science in Journalism class in 2012 and has continued to increase enrollment.

Medill’s invitation to teach American-style journalism in Doha demonstrated a step to help Qatar develop its media sector.

Students produce stories in English, but they may interview sources in Arabic, Urdu, and Spanish. Most NU-Q students speak at least two languages. They represent about 40 nationalities, and 50 languages are spoken. About 45 percent of NU-Q students are Qataris; the rest come from all over the world.

NU-Q students can major in communications or journalism and earn the same bachelor-of- science degrees as Evanston undergraduates receive. They take courses from the other universities in Education City to receive a diverse liberal-arts education.

Medill students in Evanston can take a semester in Doha or participate in a journalism residency in Qatar.

The IMC undergraduate certificate program started in 2009. In 2011, the name of the school was expanded to the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. The online IMC program began in 2012.

Media Teens was launched in 2010 to teach journalism skills to Chicago neighborhood high- school students.

The Knight News Innovation Lab was started in 2011. It is a joint initiative of Medill and the McCormick School of Engineering. Journalists and computer-scientists come together to accelerate media innovation by creating new media tools, building partnerships with media organizations, and expanding the media innovation community.

In 2016, Medill launched programs with the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern’s new space in San Francisco. The school also opened new space in downtown Chicago.

The Chicago location provides graduate journalism and IMC professional students a downtown base close to events in downtown and innovative work space. Graduate journalism students take nearly all their courses in Chicago; Northwestern runs a free shuttle from Evanston to downtown.

The San Francisco campus opened at the start of the 2016 school year in collaboration withthe McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. The space is located in the middle of the city’s financial district. Students study journalism and marketing with a focus on technology.

Through their immersive experience, students encounter the culture, community, and nuances of Silicon Valley with its focus on technology and innovation. Medill’s academic programs provide a blend of classroom work, guest speakers, and Bay Area excursions.

After gaining a foundation in journalism principles during their first quarter in Chicago, graduate students in the media innovation and content strategy specialization shift their studies in San Francisco to explore the intersection of technology, digital media, content strategy, and human-centered design.

The media-innovation graduate students take classes in audience, business, and technology. They participate in an internship at a media or tech company. Graduate journalism students who complete the specialization don’t pursue traditional newsroom jobs; instead, they usually follow careers related to product management, audience development, and content strategy.

IMC full-time students can apply to spend their fifth and final quarter in the Bay Area taking courses on how marketing communications, technology, and data work together.  IMC professional students who take courses online and part-time may participate in week-long immersion courses in San Francisco.

The Medill IMC Spiegel Research Initiative was founded in 2011; it became the IMC Spiegel Digital and Database Research Center in 2014. The center focuses on evidence-based, data-driven analysis to prove the relationship between customer engagement and purchase behavior. Student researchers are collaborating with Medill’s Local News Initiative to analyze anonymous data about readers and their engagement with news content and media services.

The Medill Local News Initiative was started in 2018 to seek ways to save and strengthen the ailing local news industry. The project works to diagnose the challenges facing news organizations and develop solutions.

In 2020, Medill merged its part-time online IMC graduate programs into a revamped IMC Professional Master’s program to provide more flexibility for working professionals. Students can take classes online or in person at Medill’s Chicago campus or combine both methods of study. The program will offer immersive five-day courses tailored for working professionals in San Francisco.

Hubbard School Integrates Mass Communication Education, Research, and Outreach

At the University of Minnesota, a public research university, the mission of the Hubbard School of Journalism & Mass Communication is to integrate mass communication education, research, and outreach. The focus is on preparing students for careers in a wide variety of specializations within journalism and strategic communication, and on expanding and sharing knowledge of mass communication and its role in society.

“We do this through teaching, research, and outreach that are focused on improving the practice of journalism and strategic communication,” the school’s mission statement says. “We believe in professional preparation and in a liberal education rooted in the arts and social sciences. We are committed to teaching students to think critically and creatively in an environment that is diverse, dynamic, globally aware, interactive, and intellectually challenging.”

At the undergraduate level, the Hubbard School offers a major in journalism, a major in strategic communications—advertising and public relations—and a major in mass communications.

The journalism major provides students with familiarity in basic technology skills behind today’s media platforms, including blogging software, audio slideshows, and video. Two types of courses are provided—hands-on skills training and academic theory.

The strategic communications major provides courses in advertising, account-related positions, public relations agencies, government, non-profit advocacy, corporate communications, and health communications.

At the graduate level, several degrees are offered: a master of arts in mass communications, a Ph. D. in mass communications, a professional master of arts in strategic communications, a master of arts/Ph. D. and JD in mass communications and law, and a master of arts in health communications, currently suspended.

Journalism Established in 1922 at University of Minnesota

The department of journalism was established in 1922 within the College of Science, Literature, and the Arts. Five years earlier, journalism education formally began with plans drawn for a major curriculum. Then, in 1918, William J. Murphy, publisher of the Minneapolis Tribune, bequeathed a portion of his estate to the university for “the establishing and maintaining of a course of instruction in journalism.”

In 1938, the construction of Murphy Hall, a new home for journalism, was authorized by the Board of Regents and completed in 1940. The department became the School of Journalism in 1941. My best memories of the University of Minnesota are working for the Minnesota Daily in the basement of Murphy Hall.

A School of Journalism Research Division—the first of its kind in the nation—was established in 1944. In 1948, Minnesota was one of the first 35 journalism schools to be designated “accredited” by the American Council on Education for Journalism. In 1950, the school’s library expanded with the establishment of the Thomas Heggen Memorial Library. A famous author and playwright, Heggen was a University of Minnesota journalism graduate.

During the 1960s, faculty developed a curriculum statement establishing specializations in broadcast journalism, magazine journalism, creative graphic arts, photojournalism, and public relations.

A major revision of the undergraduate curriculum occurred in 1965 with the addition of an introduction to journalism course and creation of a course in basic visual communication.

The number of undergraduates grew from 300 in 1960 to 602 in 1970 and then to 1,156 in 1980. Special entrance requirements were started in the mid-1970s because growth had surpassed available space.

In 1979, the Minnesota Journalism Center, funded by a gift from the late John Cowles, Sr., chairman of the Minneapolis Star and Tribune Company, and his wife, the late Elizabeth Cowles, was created to promote interaction between journalism academics and professionals. The journalism library was named the Eric Sevareid Library in 1980. A graduate of the University of Minnesota, Sevareid was an award-winning CBS news journalist for many years.

The Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law was established with a gift from Otto and Helen Silha in 1984. The center conducts research in areas where legal and ethical issues converge and monitors changes in laws in journalistic practices that may result. Otto Silha was a newspaper leader and philanthropist. He was publisher, president, and chairman of the board of directors of the Minneapolis Star and Minneapolis Tribune company.

In 1997, a Communications Studies Task Force report—created by the university president–called for creating a $9 million renovation of Murphy Hall with new labs, updated equipment, and new faculty lines. The task force also called for creation of a “New Media Institute” and state-of-the art information center to bring journalism and mass communication education in Minnesota back to its original prominence.

Construction began for the Murphy Hall renovation, which was unveiled in 2000. In 2000, the school received a transformational $10 million gift from the Hubbard Broadcasting Foundation. The money has been used for scholarships, fellowships, and a digital media lab in the basement of Murphy Hall.

The school launched a new Professional M.A. in Strategic Communications in 2004, and in 2016, it started a dual-degree BA/ MA in 2016.

In 2017, the University Senate All-Honors Committee and the Board of Regents approved renaming the school the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Founded in 1923, Hubbard Broadcasting operates broadcast stations and companies from New Mexico to New York. Hubbard has been a major supporter of the University of Minnesota.

Elisia Cohen, selected as director of the school in 2017, stated she was ready to “find ways to infuse the best qualities of Hubbard Broadcasting into the University’s program. I hope to bring the Hubbard family’s entrepreneurial and innovative spirit toward the school’s new research and teaching initiatives in digital media strategy, health communications, and media, ethics, and democracy.

“In an era when all media is in flux and when ‘fake news’ accusations have become commonplace, the Hubbard name will continue to encourage students and faculty members to embrace some of the most important elements of great journalism and communication: tenacity, ambition, and openness to new ideas.”

This summer, the school launched a capital campaign to renovate and modernize Murphy Hall, which turns 82 in 2022; the purpose is to transform the building’s digital and instructional labs and broadcast studio.

Ambitious Agendas Planned for Second Century

Both the Medill and Hubbard schools have ambitious agendas for their second century, building on their strong reputations as preeminent schools of journalism and preeminent marketing communications. The schools will focus on innovation, technology, storytelling, diversity, and equity.

Whitaker says that Medill will not only be an innovative training ground for aspiring storytellers and marketers but a guiding force in creating and implementing  new ventures that help transform the worlds of marketing, media, and strategic communications.

“Our faculty will remain engaged as practitioners and scholars, undertaking path-breaking work that sheds new light on the human condition and moves the industries we serve forward,” Whitaker says.

Key initiatives for the future include research that focuses on sustainability of media as well as data-driven storytelling and decision-making, according to Whitaker.

“We will experiment with machine learning and artificial intelligence and become a standard-bearer in diversity, equity, and inclusion,” he says. “Medill’s future is as bright and limitless as our imaginations. We look forward to the exciting new endeavors that lay before us.”

Whitaker says he is committed to building a more inclusive Medill community, one that better reflects the demography of the country and is more attuned to its cultural, racial, and socio-economic diversity.

“Of course, we will continue to rigorously uphold the principles of balance, fairness, and accuracy in storytelling that have been the hallmarks of a Medill education since our founding,” Whitaker says. “But we also will interrogate practices that have led to the disaffection and mistrust in media that have contributed to the balkanization that makes the country nearly ungovernable and placed the institutions we prepare students for in jeopardy.”

At Hubbard, a five-year program review before the Covid-19 pandemic identified some pressing needs, says Dean Cohen.

“We wanted to build a faculty that was as diverse and inclusive in its intellectual work and expertise as our student population,” Cohen says. “We also knew that our facilities needed to be upgraded to meet the demands of modern multimedia news and content production for journalism and strategic communication.

“The five-year strategic planning process allowed us to prepare for our digital future and helped us pivot during the pandemic with agility. We transformed our learning plans and discovered how teaching can leverage the latest in digital audio-visual technology for our classrooms and library spaces.”

Noting the racial reckoning in the community, Cohen says that training students to cover difficult stories, to work with others who have different backgrounds and experiences is a vital part of the Hubbard school experience.

“Our commitment to supporting every student who enters Murphy Hall is strong,” Cohen says. “Hubbard school students continue to have the best retention and graduation rates at the university.

“It is also true that there is work to do to ensure that inequities caused by the pandemic do not disrupt students’ higher education goals. We take great pride in working to eliminate equity gaps and providing scholarship opportunities and support to all of our students to ensure continued success.

“We also have more work to do in building an inclusive pipeline, preparing students to move from classrooms to professional careers.”

Quality journalism and communication have been and will continue to be particularly important to a democratic society. Ensuring quality journalism depends on the availability of dedicated professional journalists, many educated at journalism schools in the nation’s colleges and universities. For the past 100 years, Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications and the University of Minnesota’s Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication have led the way in journalism education, and they plan to continue leading in their second century.