A new school year at the Manship School of Mass Communication brought bright faces, big names, bigger ambitions and a new big guy.
Dean Jerry Ceppos, a former dean of the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada in Reno, stepped into his new shoes in 2011 with plans to run the school “like a newsroom” and strive after two specific goals during his first year.
The first was for the school to break into the scene of the digital world.
Early into the fall semester, the Manship School recommended that all students have laptops in the fall of 2012. The suggestion was only a “soft requirement,” but will be a hard requirement in about two years, Ceppos said.
Professors got new gadgets, too – iPad 2s. Ceppos said the Apple tablets are for classroom purposes and for professors to share insight into the future of technology with their students.
“We owe our students the chance to be prepared for what’s to come,” he told The Daily Reveille in August 2011.
Months later, Dan Gillmor, one of the “foremost thinkers in the country on the role of new media,” according to Ceppos, lectured students in February about how technology is affecting the way people interact with the media.
Gillmor also taught an entrepreneurial journalism class as a visiting professor with Associate Prof. Craig Freeman. Ceppos’ second intention was for the University to develop its “signature” feature – the intersection of public affairs and media.
A program in Washington, D.C., that combines an internship and classes has been in the works throughout the year, Ceppos said. The initiative is about “halfway there,” he said.
“We’re determined to make it work,” he told the Daily Reveille in August. “The exciting thing to me is that others [at the University] want to participate.”
Another visitor, distinguished Louisiana political consultant Roy Fletcher, joined a number of guest speakers in teaching the Manship School’s first Academy of Applied Politics. The program aimed to teach students the ins and outs of political and public campaigns.
Three more guests talked about changes in journalism and politics at the Reilly Center’s “Inside Watergate” retrospective in April – a month before the 40th anniversary of the infamous scandal.
Barry Sussman, the Watergate editor for the Washington Post; Earl J. Silbert, the first Watergate federal prosecutor; and Max Holland, the author of “Leak: Why Mark Felt Became Deep Throat” guided students through the onion-layered scandal, involving Richard Nixon and Deep Throat.
“I was wallowing in it,” Ceppos said about the event. Ceppos’ two visions polymerized toward the end of the year with the Manship School’s announcement to revise the mass communication degree curriculum.  
The changes will reduce the credit hours for a degree from 128 to 120. Library science, six social sciences and humanity hours and one approved election hour will be eliminated.
Additionally, a digital journalism class will be added to the core curriculum, meaning it will be a requirement of all students. “It’s sort of emblematic of our interest in technology,” he said.
Other classes are being reviewed, revamped and renamed to prepare students for the profession’s ever-changing atmosphere. Associate Dean Andrea Miller said the change is not a complete overhaul but a reinvigoration.    
“It’s to strengthen our signature of political and public affairs and to emphasize the importance of technology,” Ceppos said about the changes.
The year ends on a high note as Ceppos reveled at the news he had yet to share with his faculty. The Manship School applied and was accepted to a $50,000 program by the Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism.
The Manship School’s goal in 2013 is to nationally brand the University as a mass communication forerunner, Ceppos revealed. The school will invite alumni and friends for a three-day celebration with fun activities, classes and discussions, he said.
Ceppos said though this year was his first and he has nothing to compare it to, he thinks it was two great semesters.
“We set out to do two big things – focus media and public affairs as far as we could and bring us up to date on digital journalism – and I think we’ve done that,” Ceppos said.
____
Contact Ferris McDaniel at [email protected]