The A.Q. Miller School is accredited by the Accrediting
Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications. To graduate,
JMC students are accountable for following two national accreditation
rules.
Those rules are:
1. Students must have at least 87 hours outside the School.
2. Students must have at least 65 hours in the arts and sciences,
apart from JMC credits.
The first accreditation rule is easy to follow. It means that all
electives must be outside the School of Journalism and Mass Communications.
If students want to take more than the required 39 hours in the
major, they may do so - but it does not advance them toward the
126 hours necessary to graduate. Still, many JMC students choose
to take more than the minimum 126 hours.
The second accreditation rule is a problem only for students who
take large numbers of courses outside the College of Arts and Sciences.
Basic college requirements for the B.S. or B.A. degree total roughly
60 hours, and an Outside Concentration (if it's in an Arts and Sciences
discipline) brings the total easily above 65 hours. Only courses
offered in the College of Arts and Sciences count toward this 65-hour
requirement.
Why have these rules? These national accrediting guidelines specify
the need for all students to obtain a broad liberal arts education.
After all, our students are earning their degrees at a university,
not a trade school. These rules are applied to all accredited JMC
programs nationwide.