News

Excerpt from March 2008 Monthly Memo pdf.

Greenlee School welcomes University of Iowa to research roundtable

By Erin O'Gara

About 30 graduate students, researchers and educators in journalism from Iowa State and the University of Iowa met in a collaborative forum on January 22 at the Scheman Continuing Education Building on the Ames campus.

Michael Whiteford, dean of the college of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State, made opening remarks about the importance of collaboration between the state's two journalism schools and welcomed the faculty and students from the University of Iowa.

University of Iowa brought six doctoral candidates and two faculty members to the event. About half of the Greenlee School's faculty attended and shared plans to implement its own doctoral program in Science, Technology and Risk Communication. The exchange was well-timed, said Eric Abbott, professor and director of the Greenlee School graduate program.

“As we move our Ph.D. program down the line we will have more things in common,” he said. “We need to secure their support and create dialogue to work together and collaborate.”

Several Iowa State master's students expressed interest in Iowa's doctoral program, and a few doctoral students from Iowa expressed interest in working at Iowa State.

Eric Abbott, professor and director of the graduate program and Assistant Professor Jay Newell talk with Daniel Berkowitz, a University of Iowa professor.

Michael Bugeja, director of the Greenlee School, addressed the conclave on the “strategic importance of our bond.”

“Now more than ever, journalism and communication schools must work together, pooling intellectual resources, collaborating on research and underscoring the strategic importance of our bond—not only in relation to each other or academe—but also to industry,” said Bugeja.

After opening remarks, the two schools discussed research contributions and interests of their respective faculty members.

Following this exchange, student researchers took part in a poster session that showcased projects in both programs, providing an opportunity for one-on-one discourse between students and faculty members.

Over the past three decades the two programs have held somewhat similar events, but faculty from both schools say that they would like to see it become an annual exchange. There was talk of the University of Iowa hosting a very similar event next year.

“We have wanted this kind of exchange,” Abbott said. “There is a dialogue now, and it wasn't there before.”

Currently, faculty from any Regent institution, (the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa), can sit on graduate committees of students from any of the aforementioned schools, although it is not something that is frequently done. Abbott believes that increasing the dialogue between the schools may allow for this to become a more utilized tool for students at these institutions.