LETTER FROM THE DEAN

Letter from Will Norton, Jr.

During the last few decades, many outstanding graduates of the Department of Journalism were graduates of the public relations and magazine emphases and the broadcasting program. Very few graduates went into newspaper jobs.

Now, with the weekend reporting trips, depth reports and continuing improvements in the Student Media Center and a quality Integrated Marketing Communications degree major, all aspects of the Meek School are churning out fine graduates in increasing numbers.

An employer called me recently and said, “I am seeing really bright, aggressive young majors from the Meek School every time I have an opening.”

The many contest awards that Meek School majors earn indicate that Meek School graduates will continue to be media leaders in the future.

We are doing everything we can to publicize the school. As a result, enrollment has increased. The official census for Fall 2015 was 1,322. As of the end of the spring semester, the school had 1,390 undergrads, 442 in BAJ and 948 in IMC, an increase of 5.1 percent. In Spring 2015, the school had 1,192, an increase of 16.6 percent from the previous year.

The school has outstanding students from throughout the nation and other parts of the globe. They never would have considered Ole Miss a few years ago. However, Whitman Smith, director of admissions, and his staff have done exceptional recruiting for the Meek School. * * * During the last three months of 2015, and the first four months of 2016, I was invited to the Balkans, Chile, Bangladesh, Hong Kong and half a dozen universities in the U.S. where I told the story of the Meek School. Other faculty members are traveling more than ever, and they are demonstrating the quality of the Meek School. This would not be possible if it were not for the vision of Dr. Ed and Becky Meek, who have not only given major donations to the school, but also have established a business entity that will provide funds to the school for decades to come. When Ed and Becky made their major gift to the university to

create the Meek School of Journalism and New Media, their vision included more than putting funds into an endowment. They created New Media Lab LLC, whose profits would perpetually go to the Meek School. Allison Brown Buchanan (’82), the new CEO of New Media Labs, has had a successful communications and business career. She is charged with refining and building the two existing companies.

HottyToddy.com and its sister magazine, Experience Oxford, are New Media Lab’s first companies. They provide internships for students in addition to profits that benefit the Meek School.

This funding is providing a margin of excellence because of two entrepreneurs who love this school and understand that we cannot solely depend on state funding.

With last year’s New Media Labs’ profits, the Meek School received 35 iPad Pros for faculty, camera equipment for student media, financial support for faculty projects and a state-of-the-art, school-wide digital display communications system.

The Samsung digital display system is a network of five, 55-inch displays and one very large 85-inch display, which has yet to be installed as it awaits proper power hookups at Farley Hall’s main entrance.

A portion of the New Media Lab gift went to the S. Gale Denley Student Media Center, which used the donation to purchase a new JVC camera for “NewsWatch,” the studentrun daily, live television newscast.

Clearly, New Media Labs is making a difference for the Meek School, and that difference will be significant through the years.

The author is dean of the Meek School.