Texas A&M journalism program continues to grow and move forward from last summer (2024)

Texas A&M’s journalism program is growing and continuing to move forward eight months removed from being cast into the national limelight in a negative and controversial manner amid being revamped into a full program again.

A&M announced the hiring of three professors of the practice on Friday afternoon during an A&M Former Journalism Students Association Hall of Honor reception inside the Memorial Student Center. A&M’s FJSA honored two former students — Cathie Anderson, A&M Class of 1986, and the late Al Reinert, A&M Class of 1970 — who will be inducted into its Hall of Honor.

A&M has hired Mariano Castillo, A&M Class of 2002 and CNN’s senior director of news standards and practices; Flora Charner, CNN’s director of coverage for international newsgathering; and Paul O’Donnell, who previously served as business editor at the Dallas Morning News. All three will begin at A&M in the fall. Professor of the practice is the highest rank in non-tenure track and is designed to bring in experienced individuals outside of academia.

“Our sense was journalists aren’t timid and we thought that we would have a lot of people from industry who could come here with a strong sense of purpose and wouldn’t shy away,” said Hart Blanton, head of the Department of Communication and Journalism. “That really, I think, has proven to be the case. There was genuine interest from the journalists to come here and get involved. I think the industry professionals are going to create foundations that we now can pivot to looking at tenure-stream hires.”

A&M’s journalism program currently has 46 students in the new bachelor’s of arts or sciences degrees and 41 are still in the old university studies program. Another 48 are journalism minors and about 20 students are expected to transfer into the program next year. At least one student is expected to graduate this May with the new degree.

“I’m just happy I can have this report for you here,” Blanton said during an overview of the current state of the program during the Hall of Honor reception.

It’s been a long year for A&M’s journalism program and the attempt to build it up after the university announced plans to revamp and relaunch the program in a full capacity after a 20-year hiatus.

Last June, A&M tabbed esteemed journalism alum Kathleen McElroy, A&M Class of 1981, to be its next journalism program director. When McElroy was introduced in June 2023, she was celebrated like a five-star recruit. A&M administrators began to meddle in her hiring process, though, and her offer was altered so much over the next three weeks she didn’t consider it legitimate anymore as she backed away from coming to A&M.

The mishandling of McElroy’s hiring resulted in the resignation of A&M President M. Katherine Banks and Jose Bermudez, who served as interim dean for A&M’s College of Arts & Sciences, and prompted a university investigation that showed a number of high-ranking university and system officials, including Banks, were involved in McElroy’s botched hiring. A&M gave McElroy a $1 million settlement and she returned as a tenured professor to her previous employer, the University of Texas at Austin.

The controversy surrounding McElroy’s failed hiring put A&M’s journalism program in flux, but the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board still approved the program later in July and A&M’s request for a bachelor of arts or a bachelor of science degree to begin in fall 2023. The approval also included a five-year budget worth $4.3 million.

First-year A&M President Mark A. Welsh III has expressed his support for the university’s journalism program to move forward on multiple occasions since he took over first in an interim role after Banks resigned. Castillo said during the reception that multiple FJSA members met with Welsh in wake of McElroy’s failed hiring and asked for assurances that the momentum to grow the journalism program wouldn’t slow and pressed for support from administration.

Current students attended a panel featuring Anderson before the Hall of Honor reception. Anderson is seen by A&M’s FJSA as a trailblazer. She was chosen to be the first Black editor-in-chief of The Battalion for the 1986 fall semester. After graduation, she spent over 30 years as an editor and reporter for large metro newspapers, including the Austin American-Statesman, the Dallas Morning News, the Detroit News and the Sacramento Bee. Before her remarks, she welcomed Castillo, Charner and O’Donnell to A&M’s staff.

“It’s a wonderful place with wonderful students and I know you guys are going to accomplish great things and I look forward to seeing them,” Anderson said.

Reinert was a filmmaker and had a passion to tell stories about America’s space program. He was co-writer of the 1995 blockbuster movie “Apollo 13.” His 1989 documentary “For All Mankind” had original footage of the Apollo space program and was nominated for an Academy Award. Reinert began his career as a reporter at the Houston Chronicle and became one of the early writers at Texas Monthly.

Amid Friday’s celebrations and announcements, A&M is still searching for a journalism program director. Blanton said it is currently a soft search and there have been conversations with potential candidates. A pivot was made after last summer’s events, Blanton said, and now the focus has been building a strong program that would attract a qualified program director.

Nonetheless, Blanton said although A&M’s journalism program has been retooled to grow moving forward, it never left and existed at the university in different capacities.

“Journalism never left and our students, as FJSA has demonstrated, have succeeded in getting jobs in journalism,” Blanton said. “But they’ve done that often by working creatively and working hard to find ways to maximize the A&M experience in a way that they could pair it with journalism training and internships to get jobs. What we’re trying to do is do the work for them. We want to put together more systematic training, put forward a first-class training in journalism.”