By Karen T. Braeckel
Hoosier State Press Assn.
   A process started in 1998 culminated May 21 with the Indiana Professional Standards Board's (IPSB) approval of journalism standards for college and university teacher education programs. Once seemed destined to fall under general language arts standards, journalism will have its own license after years of lobbying finally paid off.
   It took dedicated professionals to reinstate the license. One of those, Jack Dvorak, professor at Indiana University School of Journalism and director of IU's High School Journalism Institute, chaired the IPSB's Journalism Advisory Committee.
   "The process we went through in developing the Journalism Standards was on the one hand daunting and on the other pleasant," Dvorak said. "It took us five years to push the standards through the system. The first four were spent lobbying for journalism to be included among the relatively few license areas the IPSB wanted. Once journalism was approved as a licensing area, the last year was spent with a 10-person committee actually developing those standards."
   At one time Indiana recognized 144 licenses in teaching content areas and administration. Those were condensed to 12 to 14 in the latter 1990s.    This caused great concern for high school, college and university journalism educators who recognized the special skills required to teach writing, editing, design, photography, broadcasting and other techniques used in the media as well as freedom of the press issues. They believed distinct lines between journalism and traditional English/ Language Arts skills should be drawn.
   "We wanted to protect our licensure," said Terry Nelson, journalism teacher and publication adviser at Muncie Central High School and member of the Journalism Advisory Committee. "We were going to get squeezed out. The best we could hope for was a strand in the language arts area."
   In the language arts scenario, journalism would cease to exist as it is taught today, Nelson said. Standard English classes would be the norm.
Indiana stood to lose its national credibility without journalism licensure.
    Dennis Cripe, an associate professor of journalism at Franklin College, executive director of the Indiana High School Press Association and advisory committee member, said, "Before the IPSB's decision five years ago, Indiana had one of the highest levels of certification in the country – 24 hours of journalism. The new journalism license should help Indiana retain the national reputation it has earned over the past 75 years."
   IU's Dvorak says approximately 25 percent of states do not have journalism licensure including Pennsylvania and Minnesota, states with other Big Ten schools.

  But once again the colleges and universities in Indiana have guidelines for developing their teacher education curriculum. They will decide whether to offer journalism education and which courses will meet the new standards. The committee deliberately wrote the standards to include a broad range of journalism and mass communication skills.
    "We think the 10 standards developed are clear, fair and reflective of the best goals of journalism education," Dvorak said. "They allow for instruction and advising related to online and broadcast journalism as well as to the traditional print journalism areas."
   In 1992 the General Assembly created the IPSB transferring from the State Board of Education to a separate agency the responsibility for governing the preparation, testing, licensing, induction, and re-licensing of Indiana's education professionals.
   The IPSB has 19 members. The governor appoints 18 for staggered, four-year terms: 9 actively employed Indiana public school teachers, 3 representing higher education, 2 representing principals, 1 representing superintendents, 1 representing special education directors, 1 representing school boards, and 1 representing business. The Superintendent of Public Instruction is an ex-officio member.
   The IPBS's Journalism Advisory Committee, comprised of college and high school educators, a school superintendent, a representative of the Hoosier State Press Association and an IPSB staff member, worked well together, Dvorak said.
   Committee members other than Dvorak, Nelson and Cripe include: Lynn Reed, superintendent, Brown County School Corp.; James Lang, Floyd Central High School; Edward Poe, Lawrence Central High School; Denise Roberts, Greenwood High School; Dave Kinman, assistant dean, IU School of Education and member of IPSB; Shawn Sriver, IPSB; Jayma Ferguson, Ind. Dept. of Education; and Karen Braeckel, HSPA.
   "The next step will be the development of curricular standards for high school journalism and media standards that are aligned with the standards for teachers," Dvorak said.