On Feb. 24, The Famuan published a letter from Professor Keith Miles that contained the erroneous statement that “the Division of Journalism has been teaching magazine production and design for two decades, but doesn’t have any relationships with that segment of the industry.”
On the contrary, the magazine program has long had relationships with the industry, leading to internships, job placements, guest speakers, workshops, professional development, instructional materials, industry updates and alumni working in the field.
Professor Miles mentioned certain members of the broadcast industry who have joined the Division of Journalism’s Board of Visitors. Representatives of the magazine industry have also served on our Board of Visitors from the beginning.
Most recently, Joe Treen, long-time executive editor at People and current editor of Discover, has served on our Board of Visitors for the past five years. I met with him again the day of the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new building.
In his letter, Professor Miles criticized several unnamed people for various things. As the person who has taught the magazine courses and coordinated the magazine program for two decades, I am the only unnamed person who can be clearly identified in Professor Miles’ letter.
I want to make it clear not only that his statement about the magazine program was in error, but none of the people he criticized without naming should be mistakenly identified as me.
The Division of Journalism earned positive, even glowing reports in eight of the nine measures required for re-accreditation. The re-accreditation team made only minor criticisms of a program that every member, including Professor Miles, worked long and hard to make the best journalism program at any HBCU and one of the best programs anywhere. I have no doubt that those minor criticisms will soon be addressed to the satisfaction of the accreditation committee.
Gerald Grow is a professor of journalism. He is also coordinator of the Magazine sequence. he can be reached at 3308@longleaf.net