Faculty in LSU’s Manship School of Mass Communication will vote Friday on proposed admission changes that would remove the program’s 3.0 GPA standard, reduce credit hour requirements and permit directly admitting high-achieving high school students. 

Supporters of the proposal say the changes will increase diversity by removing barriers that disproportionately and negatively impact students of color, low-income students and first-generation students. Other faculty, however, express that the Manship School isn’t equipped with the academic resources necessary to ensure students with lower GPA’s succeed and that, as a result, the changes won’t accomplish the intended goal. 

Manship, the university’s college for journalism, public relations, political communication and digital advertising majors, is one of the most selective at LSU. The school requires:

• Thirty hours of college-level coursework, meaning most students aren’t accepted until their sophomore year

• Completion of MC 2010, an intro media writing class, with a B- or better.

• A 250-word essay about career and development goals, and a resume. 

While students with lower GPA’s can still be accepted, priority is given to students with a 3.0 GPA or higher. The proposed changes would:

• Lower the credit hour requirement to 24 hours

• Remove the 3.0 GPA prioritization 

• Consider additional criteria for directly admitting high school students, like high school media experience or other relevant experiences

Josh Grimm, interim dean of the Manship School, first announced the proposed changes last fall. Many high school students’ GPAs drop significantly during their freshman year of college, but this isn’t indicative that they won’t excel in Manship, Grimm said. 

“My biggest concern in the current admission process is that we are evaluating students on how they do overall in large-lecture, [general education] courses,” Grimm said. “And those do not reflect the Manship experience. We have small classes. That’s what we’re built on.”

After pushback from some faculty members, Grimm in May agreed to form a committee to look at the school’s admission policies more closely and recommend changes. 

The committee met five times and delivered its findings at a department meeting on Aug. 16th. It confirmed that the school’s admission requirements disproportionately and negatively impact students of color, low-income and first-generation students. 

A testy debate among faculty members ensued at the department meeting, professors in attendance said, including personal insults.

The committee unanimously recommended admitting high-achieving high school students and reducing credit hour requirements. Removing the GPA requirement did not win the full committee’s support. 

Two other recommendations – removing the essay and resume requirement, and allowing a low-level English course to replace MC 2010 for transfer students – also had partial support, but these won’t be considered in the vote on Friday.

Roxanne Dill, a journalism instructor and Manship faculty member since 2007, served on the committee. She said she’s concerned about what unintended consequences the changes could have on the program. 

“I would rather us take time and look at alternatives before we make this move,” Dill said. 

Dill said she spoke to Saundra McGuire, director of LSU’s Center for Academic Success, about the proposed changes and how they could potentially backfire. 

McGuire declined an interview with The Reveille. 

In the committee’s report, Dill said McGuire identified two ways the changes could work against its intended goal of improving diversity. The first is the “stereotype threat” that can occur when standards are lowered to help students from underrepresented communities. In such cases, negative stereotypes can be reinforced by these kinds of decisions, even if the stereotypes are not uttered aloud. 

The other concern is that reduced standards may reinforce the idea in students’ minds that intelligence is fixed and unchangeable. Some research suggests that schools with more challenging programs and better support systems may encourage the idea that intelligence can be developed and change over time, Dill wrote in the report. 

Grimm pushed back against the idea that the Manship School doesn’t have enough resources to support less prepared students. 

“We brought on a third academic counselor. This summer we hired, in coordination with the Career Center, a career coach. Last year, we launched our first-year experience class.  I think we have a great deal of resources, which is why we have one of the highest retention rates on campus,” Grimm said. 

If passed, the changes will first have to be accepted by upper administration. Grimm said he hopes they can be implemented by the spring.