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College of Media

The College of Media strives to give students solid backgrounds in social sciences and humanities and to provide them broad career competence in advertising, journalism or media studies. The College's premise is that students need to understand the world and its people if they are to communicate effectively and enjoy fulfilling and meaningful lives.

The College offers Bachelor of Science degrees in Advertising, Agricultural Communication and Media and Cinema Studies and Bachelor of Science in Journalism degrees in Broadcast Journalism and News-Editorial Journalism. Students who seek to become leaders in cutting-edge media study with leading professionals and scholars and learn using the latest equipment and facilities. Included are laboratories for reporting, editing, design, and photojournalism; editing suites for radio and television production; and a television studio. The Communications Library is recognized as one of the best in the nation. Career services are available for students.

The College also includes the Division of Broadcasting, which operates WILL-AM, FM, TV and online, and the Institute of Communications Research.

The College has a rich past and a bright future. It traces its history to 1902, when instruction in journalism began. A school of journalism was established in 1927. In 1950 it became the School of Journalism and Communications. In 1957 the school was elevated to college status. The name College of Communications was adopted in 1968. To better reflect the College's emphasis on mediated communication, the name College of Media was adopted in 2008.

Departments and Curricula

The College, fully accredited by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, offers these majors:

• ADVERTISING, which offers students the opportunity to learn and think about advertising as a way of modeling the mind, as a material reflection of social structure, as a fundamentally modern phenomenon, as an art form and even as a basis for community, by drawing on insights from psychology, sociology, history, literature, and anthropology. This program will thoroughly infuse the understanding of consumer behavior and message knowledge base and, therefore, provide a better and longer-lasting education for students.
• AGRICULTURAL COMMUNICATION, which prepares students for a variety of opportunities in communications with a focus on agricultural and environmental sciences. Students pursuing this major choose one of three specializations: advertising, broadcast journalism, or news- editorial journalism. The College of Media and the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences jointly offer this curriculum.
• JOURNALISM (either broadcast or news-editorial), which prepares students for varied and long-term careers as journalists for newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and online media. The primary professional aim is to train students as public affairs journalists. The Journalism Department seeks to prepare broadly educated professionals who will assume decision-making and leadership roles.
• MEDIA AND CINEMA STUDIES, which offers advanced skills in the analysis and critique of media and cinema practices and messages. Concentrated formal academic study in the development of the media and their underlying technologies is designed to give students critical tools they need to assume a wide range of careers in both the public and private sectors or continue their studies and take roles in academia. The major is founded on the principle that media and cinema are central phenomena, primary elements in the study of politics, business, culture, and community.

The Departments of Advertising and Journalism offer graduate programs leading to Master of Science degrees in Advertising and in Journalism. The Department of Media and Cinema Studies offers an undergraduate and graduate Minor in Cinema Studies.  The College also offers an interdisciplinary program leading to a Doctor of Philosophy degree in communications and media. 

Requirements

Admission

High school seniors and transfer students from another institution should contact the Office of Admissions and Records for admission requirements and applications for a specific term.

Current University of Illinois students who will have completed at least one year on the Urbana-Champaign campus should apply during the first weeks of the semester during which they will complete their 30th hour of course credit. Successful applicants will be admitted for the following semester. Applications also will be accepted from more advanced students provided that by the end of the semester in which they apply, they will have completed no more than 90 hours. Forms are available on the College web site. Specific deadlines are cited on the forms.

Students seeking to transfer from another university may apply early in the spring semester provided they will have completed at least 30 transferable hours by the end of the spring semester. Hours planned during upcoming summer semesters are not considered. Forms are available from the University Office of Admissions and Records.

Inter-college transfer students (students already on campus) should include a personal essay of up to 500 words. The essay should demonstrate the applicant's media-related abilities and detail the applicant's interest in and demonstrated commitment to a career for which a College of Media degree would be appropriate.

Admission is competitive. While there is no specific requirement regarding grades, a cumulative University GPA of at least 3.25 is advantageous. For students who have completed few courses on this University of Illinois campus, a higher GPA may be advisable. Students with the best essays and the best academic or professional qualifications, including any pertinent extracurricular activities or internships, will receive highest priority. For a University of Illinois student, one way to demonstrate interest is to have earned a grade of B or better in introductory courses such as ADV 300, JOUR 200, MACS 100, 101, 261, 262, or Discovery courses taught by the College.

Students currently enrolled in other colleges on campus are accepted on the condition that by the time they join the College at the start of the semester after they apply, they must:

• Have completed at least two semesters in the University of Illinois college to which they were admitted, if admitted as freshmen.
• Be classified by the University as sophomores (at least 30 credit hours) or as juniors (fewer than 90 credit hours).
• Be in good academic standing.
• Have completed approximately one-fourth (if sophomores) or one-half (if juniors) or more of the total credit hours required to satisfy the University's General Education requirements.
• Have made substantial progress toward completing any departmental requirements for courses outside the College of Media. For example, applicants for Advertising ideally will have completed ECON 102 and 103, STAT 100 and two of these three courses: SOC 100, ANTH 103 and PSYC 100.

Students may apply to any major in the College: Advertising, Agricultural Communications, Broadcast Journalism, Media and Cinema Studies or News-Editorial Journalism.  College of Media students may not pursue a Minor in Cinema Studies and may not complete double majors within the College.

Students who would require more than nine total semesters of overall college or university enrollment to complete their degree will be denied admission. Students must complete their College of Media degrees within seven semesters of joining the College as sophomores or within five semesters of joining the College as juniors. A minimum of three semesters within the College is required for students admitted as juniors. A minimum of five semesters within the College is required for students admitted as sophomores.

Minors in areas outside the College are strongly encouraged. However, because considerable coursework in other colleges is implicit within the requirements for all College of Media degrees, students are not admitted to the College of Media for the purpose of pursuing second majors or second undergraduate degrees.

Students completing freshman and sophomore studies at institutions other than the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are strongly advised to defer courses in Media and Cinema Studies, Journalism, Agricultural Communication, and Advertising until they enroll in the College of Media. Students may transfer up to eight hours of Advertising, Agricultural Communication, Journalism, Media and Cinema Studies or College of Media electives. However, those hours will not be applied to the minimum number of hours required in College of Media courses and may not be used to replace required courses.

Graduation

To graduate, students must satisfy all University requirements as to residency, scholarship, and fees and must complete the University's general education requirements. Although the College currently requires completion only of the equivalent of a third-semester college-level course in a language other than English, students planning to join the College as freshmen in future years are strongly urged to plan for completion of the equivalent of a fourth-semester language course as this requirement may change in the future. All students also must fulfill these general requirements of the College of Media:

• Complete a total of 124 semester hours of course credit of which no more than 12 hours total may be in basic physical education activity courses (KIN 100-111, 122-136 and 167-169), vocational and technical education courses, basic courses in military science (AFAS, MILS and NS courses numbered below 300), Institute of Aviation courses, Undergraduate Open Seminar (199) courses, and independent study courses and other experimental or special topics courses (such as LAS 110) outside the College of Media. The exception is that Agricultural Communication majors must complete 126 semester hours of credit. Independent study courses additionally must be approved by the College to ensure that credit is given only for academic work directly supervised by a faculty member. The College encourages its students to have appropriate professional internships and to participate in professional activities. While it does not allow academic credit for such experience, one credit hour is possible through an academic course or independent study supervised by a College of Media faculty member and taken in conjunction with an internship.


• Agricultural Communication majors must complete 20 hours from the College of Media in one of three specializations: advertising, broadcast journalism, or news-editorial journalism.  All other majors must complete not less than 36 hours in courses offered by or cross-listed with Advertising (ADV), Journalism (JOUR) or Media and Cinema Studies (MS, CINE, or MACS), Agricultural Communications (AGCM) or the College of Media (MDIA).


• Complete not less than 80 hours of credit outside the College of Media, of which 65 hours must be taken in traditional liberal arts and sciences, which may include courses offered outside the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Math courses numbered below 100 may not count in this total.


• No course of any number that is offered by or cross-listed with Advertising, Agricultural Communications, Journalism or Media and Cinema Studies or is substantially similar to courses offered by Advertising, Agricultural Communications, Journalism or Media and Cinema Studies may count in this total, regardless of the rubric under which it is taken. For each hour of credit beyond 44 in such courses, the number of hours required for graduation increases by one additional hour to ensure that the requirement of 80 hours outside the College is met.


• Complete not less than 20 hours in courses numbered 200 or above outside the College of Media and not cross-listed in the College of Media, regardless of the rubric under which they are taken. At least 9 of the 20 hours must be in courses numbered 300 and above.


• Complete the specific requirements of one of the five curricula offered by the College.


• Earn a cumulative grade point average of 2.00 (A = 4.00) in all courses presented for the degree and a cumulative 2.00 grade point average for all courses taken in the College.

Special Programs

Dean's List

To be eligible for Dean's List recognition for any semester, students must rank in the top 20 percent of the College in grade point average and must complete at least 14 hours taken for a letter grade (A through F) on the Urbana-Champaign campus. Transfer, study abroad and guided individual study coursework is excluded.

The specific grade point average necessary to achieve Dean's List recognition may vary. College of Media standards are high.

Dean's List recognition is determined before the start of the ensuing semester. Students who are not initially selected but who believe they might qualify because of the late resolution of incomplete, deferred or missing grades may petition before the end of the next semester for retroactive addition to the list.

Honors at Graduation

For graduation with honors, a student must rank in the upper 20 percent of his or her graduation class in overall grade point average.For graduation with high honors, a student must additionally rank in the upper 10 percent. For graduation with highest honors, a student must additionally rank in the upper 5 percent.

For purposes of this award, "graduating class" means all students listed as receiving or as being candidates for receiving bachelor's degrees in all College majors at the College's annual commencement convocation each May. This includes students who graduated in the previous December and those who are candidates for graduation in May and August. Grade point averages are computed through the fall semester immediately preceding the annual convocation and include all transfer courses and other grades posted as of that date.

Transfer students, in addition to meeting the general requirement, must have cumulative University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign grade-point averages as high as the lowest ones listed for students who qualify on the basis of having completed all of their work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and must have earned 40 or more semester hours at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign through the fall semester immediately preceding the annual convocation.

Kappa Tau Alpha

Each year, scholastically high-ranking graduating juniors and seniors in the College of Media are considered for membership in Kappa Tau Alpha, the seventh oldest national honorary society, founded to recognize and promote academic excellence and scholarship in journalism and mass communication.

Students must rank in the upper 10 percent of their class, must have completed at least five semesters of degree work and must have completed at least nine semester hours in professional skills courses, as defined by the national society.

Edmund J. James Scholars

The James Scholar Program, named for the University of Illinois' fourth president, Edmund J. James, focuses on giving high-ability students the opportunity to gain additional knowledge by working closely with instructors.

To remain in good standing as a James Scholar in the College of Media, students must maintain semester and cumulativeGPAs of 3.5 and higher, complete at least 14 credit hours for traditional letter grades each semester and complete at least one honors course or project each academic year. Students may choose from taking a Campus Honors Program course, completing an Honors Credit Learning Agreement with a professor in any course, working on an honors project with a College of Media professor as an independent study, or from the pre-approved honors activity list as provided by the honors coordinator to complete the honors requirement. Freshmen must take a College honors course during the spring semester. Students who study abroad will be exempt of the GPA and credit hour requirements during the semester(s) they are abroad. The honors requirement should be completed the semester the student is on campus.

James Scholars' academic records are reviewed each summer. If a student has met the stated requirements for each of the two past semesters at the time of the review, he or she will be certified as a James Scholar for the next academic year and the James Scholar designation will be added to his or her transcripts for that academic year. Any student who does not fulfill the requirements will be removed from the James Scholars program. Because James Scholar review takes place once a year, a student who does not meet the requirements in the fall semester will remain in the program for the spring. However, s/he will be dropped during the summer review period and the James Scholar notation will not appear on the transcript for the previous academic year. In order to graduate with the James Scholar designation, all students must have completed a minimum of four honors activities, with at least one being completed each year the student is in the program.

Students entering the College of Media as freshmen are invited to join the James Scholars program during the summer if they rank in the top 20 percent of the College's incoming class, as determined by an Office of Admissions and Records standard that combines factors such as standardized test scores and high school GPA.

Students already in the College of Media are invited to become James Scholars for the upcoming fall semester if they have completed fewer than 75 hours, have at least a 3.5 overall GPA and were included on the Dean's List for the spring semester. If a student loses the James Scholar status, he or she must sit out of the program for at least one semester before becoming eligible for reinstatement. A student may only be reinstated by making the College’s Dean’s List.

Students who transfer into the College of Media from another college on the Urbana-Champaign campus are invited to participate in the James Scholar program immediately if they were a James Scholar in their previous college or for the upcoming fall semester if they have fewer than 75 hours, are in the top 20 percent of the incoming class, and have at least a 3.5 GPA. On-campus students who transfer into Media during a spring semester would fall under the rules of a current student; see description above. Students who transfer to the College from another institution may request to participate if they have a transfer GPA of at least 3.7.

A qualifying student may enter the program for his or her sophomore or junior year, but not for his or her senior year alone. Students who join the James Scholar program during the sophomore or junior year will need to pick up additional honors activities in order to graduate with the minimum four required to graduate with the honor.

Credit/No Credit Grading Option

The College follows credit-no credit provisions described in the Grading System and Other Regulations section of the Programs of Study.

All courses listed or cross-listed with departments in the College, or specifically required by one of those departments for its majors or used to fulfill University General Education requirements, must be taken for a traditional letter grade. For Advertising majors, this means these courses outside the College must be taken for a grade: STAT 100 (or any of the allowed substitutes for it), ECON 102-103, BADM 320, and two out of the three courses PSYC 100, SOC 100 and ANTH 103. For all majors, courses taken to fulfill the College's advanced hour requirement (20 hours outside the College in courses numbered 200 and above) also must be taken for traditional letter grades.