By Teaching Standards Co-Chairs Amber Roessner, University of Tennessee-Knoxville, aroessne@utk.edu, and Kristin L. Gustafson, University of Washington Bothell, gustaf13@u.washington.edu

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As AEJMC’s History Division teaching standard co-chairs, we would like to share our two primary goals for the year ahead. First, we want to highlight the best practices in history pedagogy with a special focus on pedagogies of diversity, collaboration, community and justice. And second, we hope to advocate nationally and internationally for the importance of historically informed students across journalism and mass communication curricula. To that end, we will focus on orchestrating the second-annual Transformative Teaching of Media and Journalism History contest and on implementing a new salon venture focused on spreading the word about the importance of historically informed students across journalism and mass communication curricula. 

Sharing excellent ideas and practices: The Transformative Teaching of Media and Journalism History Contest

At August’s 102nd annual conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication in Toronto, five inaugural contest winners, including Roessner, Nick Hirshon, Gerry Lanosga, Kimberly Mangun and Shearon Roberts, shared mini, hands-on teaching modules featuring original and tested transformative teaching practices that offered insight into how award-winning practices addressed pedagogies of diversity, collaboration, community and/or justice; how these practices might be transferred to another institution; and what evidence pointed to transformations in students. Roberts, for instance, shared her experience transforming a traditional converged media writing sequence through a community partnership with the three African American newspapers in New Orleans “to connect with cynical African American students who felt disenchanted about entering careers in journalism because they felt unseen, their communities misrepresented, and their voices unheard when they look at the news today.” The project exposed these students and other students of color to the history, need and achievements of the Black Press.

Moreover, the second-annual teaching contest will continue this tradition of sharing best pedagogical practices that foster engaged communities, embrace diversity and champion collaboration and inclusive practices. In addition to a $75 prize, the 2020 AEJMC conference offers contest winners a platform to communicate their transformative ideas to an eager audience of educators. 

“This contest is a testament to the commitment of the History Division’s leadership team to recognizing and promoting excellence in teaching, especially as it relates to championing pedagogies of diversity,” Roessner said. “I was truly humbled to be selected as one of the inaugural contest winners and thrilled to have the opportunity to shared best pedagogical practices with a community of dedicated educators at AEJMC.”

In the coming months, we also hope to create a permanent online home featuring archived materials from the annual contests by expanding the History Division website’s categories around the ideas of transformative teaching contest winners. We anticipate adding three new categories of teaching syllabi, teaching materials and teaching columns.

Launching an innovative teaching salon

History recently has come under attack from unexpected places both inside and outside of the academy. Amid this reported decline of historical thinking, communities of scholars and journalists are pleading with administrators to reintegrate history into the curriculum to help foster the development of a historic consciousness among students desiring to become professional communicators entering society and the workforce.

To that end, we recommended constituting an academic salon—an inclusive, welcoming space dedicated to fostering diverse thought and collaboration around public scholarship that stresses the importance of developing historically informed students in our journalism and mass communication programs. By establishing a small, dedicated group of media historians committed to public scholarship related to the importance of developing historically informed students in journalism and mass communication programs, we believe we can make incremental progress in what should become a multi-year, multi-faceted endeavor that contributes to efforts happening within the AEJMC History Division and beyond.

Moving forward, we would be interested in hearing your ideas about how to enhance our division’s overarching educational mission, and we would love for you to become more involved in either of the two initiatives outlined above. We look forward to engaging in an extended dialogue soon.  

As journalism educators and media historians, we have excellent classroom practices and curriculum designs like the ones discussed here to share with one another. As teaching chair, I continue to invite you to share your best practices that encourage pedagogies of diversity, collaboration, community, and justice. Send them to me at aroessne@utk.edu.