I also was at yesterday's "Town Hall" meeting and I, too, was taken by the phrase "small, expensive, niche program."

I particularly wondered about the administration's definition of "small."

We have about 2,000 students enrolled the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, which also offers PR and advertising majors.

About 38,000 students attend FIU as a whole.

In other words, SJMC students comprise nearly 1 out of 20 students at the university.

Small?

Neil Reisner
Associate Professor Journalism

By niche, they probably mean a program from which the grads won't become millionaires who will donate lots of money. The school of social services will probably be next, followed by the education department. They'll probably leave the new med school and the business-type programs--and some liberal arts stuff for the jocks (because EVENTUALLY there'll be a decent athlete who can throw part of his signing bonus this way). Who needs to inform the public when you can just use it to make money?

President Maidique should be ashamed of himself for not knowing or acknowledging the size of the School of Journalism and Mass Communications; furthermore, it is in the school’s best interest to keep this school from being depleted of its brain trust, professors and staff, which allows students to be successful and prosperous.

If you deplete that brain trust, FIU will experience a serious brain freeze.

* Note: SJMC also graduates advertisers, which can make the millions of dollars.

The president of FIU makes $476,486.65 a year.

The president of the United States of america makes $400,000 a year.

"Of the school’s $677 million budget, $19 million goes to fund a variety of university sports -- much of it is spent on a football team that is 1-11."

Talk about misguided priorities.

Remember the infamous Orange Brawl?

I, too, think the president is in error to ask for cuts of that large a scale to the journalism program at FIU.
But there are several things to consider here:
1. The state of Florida is experiencing a serious budget crunch. Almost nothing connected to state government finances is sacred from cuts.
2. State universities are, in fact, not fully state supported at all. They receive about a third of their funds from state government.
3. Journalism programs are expensive relative to other programs that are not hard-science programs. Journalism programs require computer labs, IT personnel, TV studios, video editing equipment, digital cameras and many more things.
4. Compare a journalism program to a program like creative writing, also a niche program, and it becomes clearer how expensive a journalism program is.
5. President Maidique can speak for himself, but his use of the word "niche" is being misinterpreted. Niche, in this context, probably means that the journalism school is not a broad-based program that can help educate other, non-journalism majors.
For example, all journalism programs teach classes that could be of some help to the rest of the student body, but their accrediting agency requires small class sizes. Journalism programs, then, can't afford to teach its own majors as well as the rest of the university.
Stated more bureaucratically, a history major can't take a journalism course and expect to have it count toward his degree, but a journalism student can since all journalism programs mandate their students take a healthy number of non-journalism classes.
Along those same lines, the sort of journalism classes that could be of benefit to the entire university are typically not marketed as such. Using the history major again as an example, that major is not asked to take the journalism history course nor is his department asked to accept the journalism history course toward the student's degree. Such interdisciplinary position makes the journalism program's position stronger when the budget axe comes down.
Business students could benefit from the public relations or advertsing courses offered by a journalism program. But, here again, they are rarely asked.
Therefore, when the budget axe comes down it's every program for itself. The journalism program has no natural allies, no program that also will suffer if it suffers.
That is what I think Maidique means by "niche." It is in a world unto itself.
Take note that the programs most threatened are probably those that are "professional" in nature rather than academic. The university must teach, say, philosophy since this is core knowledge that all college graduates need.

Thank you for that wonderful clarification on the word "niche." I do think that many have misinterpreted this word as it being a "bad" thing. It"s curious to see what happens when people let their emotions get the best of them. They switch to the "attack" mode even if they are completely off track.

The president of FIU makes $476,486.65 a year.

The president of the United States of america makes $400,000 a year
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True, but hasn't Maidique been delivering more bang for the buck?

“Niche” or not, there is no justification for pouring more money into a program that may be successful one day, like athletics because we are a “football state” Maidique says, while taking money from a program that has proved itself time and time again, like FIU SJMC whose graduates have won 8 Pulitzers.

As a grad of the FIU SJMC and a working journalist, I am saddened to see what is going on at my alma mater.

But I do wonder, how many Pulitzer Prize winners never went to a J-school? I bet the number is pretty high.

I loved my J-school experience, but I have had plenty of colleagues (I have worked at newspapers in Delaware, Florida, Indiana and Chicago)who have degrees in things other than journalism.

Maybe it's time to re-examine the whole role of the traditional J-school in journalism.

I'm saddened by this because I as a freshman going into FIU..I was hoping to be a photo journalist D:
This is very frustrating, especially since i waited so long for the acceptance to even get in.

I'm about to cry...