COLLEGE OF COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION SCIENCES

Over the past quarter century, UA’s College of Communication & Information Sciences (CCIS) has become one of the nation's leading and most complete educational programs in the various fields of communication.

Since its creation in 1973, enrollment has grown from 275 to 1,900 students majoring in Advertising, Public Relations, Telecommunication and Film, Journalism, and Communication Studies at the bachelor's and master's level; in Library Studies at the master's level; and in Communication at the Ph.D. level. CCIS ranks in the top ten in size and consistently ranks among the best schools of its kind, winning national awards and championships in forensics, advertising, and print and electronic journalism.

The College’s doctoral program, launched in 1988, is among the nation’s most productive. In a survey released in 2005, the National Communication Association ranked the College’s doctoral program seventh among all mass communication programs.

A number of recent developments have produced significant program changes and new strategic directions, and some of these are highlighted below.

Commercial Television

In 2001 CCIS acquired a low-power commercial television station--WVUA--serving Tuscaloosa and West Alabama. A full-power license was added in 2004, and plans are underway to take the sports, entertainment, and information station statewide by 2008. CCIS also created a huge laboratory for faculty and students when it moved into the commercial television arena; the new venture employs about 60 students a year, who work with and shadow a professional staff.

Online News

A commitment to online news services also has taken root in the past five years. DatelineAlabama.com is an award-winning student news service that allows students to develop and format stories in a medium that is already reaching the tipping point for the “new” new journalism. DatelineBlackBelt, a child of the original venture, promises to revolutionize the way news is developed and produced in one of the nation’s poorest regions. Alabama’s historic Black Belt has been studied and written about for years, but in all the writing and telling, the region itself has not developed its own voice. This new medium will allow the region to develop and transmit its own news, the essential commodity for community building.

Print Journalism

A partnership among UA, the Knight Foundation, and the Anniston Star offers what may be the nation’s first master’s degree in community journalism at the Star’s campus in Anniston, Alabama. The first class of students began studies in the fall of 2006.

Online M.A. Degree

In fall 2005, CCIS offered the university’s first fully articulated degree program “online.” At that time 40 students enrolled in the Master’s of Library and Information Studies program, all students off site and the majority out of state. The College’s School of Library and Information Studies also offers the nation’s only Master of Fine Arts degree in the Book Arts.

Public TV and Radio

The Center for Public Television and Radio (CPT&R) celebrated 50 years of broadcasting in 2005. Recently, the Center established The Production House to generate contract activity for a range of clients including WVUA. In a “back to the future” gesture, CPT&R and the College sponsored, produced, and broadcast a fiftieth anniversary concert production of La Boheme. In November 1955, UA helped launch the nation’s first statewide educational television network and on that occasion broadcast the nation’s first televised production of La Boheme.