The School of Journalism and Communication announced plans Sunday for the creation of a program at the University’s Portland Center. The program, slated to begin as early as fall 2005, will initially include an undergraduate internship and graduate studies in public relations.
“We’ve been talking about a journalism school presence in Portland since the late 1980s,” said Tim Gleason, the dean of the School of Journalism and Communication. “From the beginning of (Campaign Oregon), it’s been one of our goals.”
The University received an anonymous $15 million gift, the third-largest in University history, at a fundraising gala Saturday. The Portland journalism program will receive $4.5 million of the $6.5 million dedicated to the School of Journalism and Communication.
Portland offers access to a number of major media organizations, Gleason said.
While the initial master’s program in Portland will have a public relations focus, the hope and vision for the program will stretch across the journalism school’s focus areas, Gleason added. Apart from public relations, students at the journalism school can focus on advertising, magazine, news-editorial, communication studies and electronic media.
“We’re still in the initial stages of determining what the first programs will look like,” he said.
Journalism professor Jim Van Leuven is helping shape the project.
The University has “pretty much the only full-blown journalism and communications programs in the state,” Van Leuven said. “(Portland) is where the market is if we want to fulfill our mandate to the state.”
Van Leuven envisions a cooperative undergraduate internship and class program for Portland, where he hopes to offer students the opportunity to intern with a media company in the morning and take classes in the afternoon. If students enter the program toward the end of their college career, they can move right into a job, he said.
“If you’re doing a paid internship at a business, you’re already trained in that business,” Van Leuven said.
The graduate program will hopefully combine public relations, advertising and media management programs with MBA courses and also target professionals who have been in the field for three to five years, “people who’re already successful and looking at managerial positions,” Van Leuven said.
“We’re hoping that corporations and agencies will pay their employees’ tuition,” he added.
Gleason said he hopes to cooperate with other institutions in Portland to give journalism students the best education possible.
“We’re very interested in having conversations with other universities in Portland,” Gleason said. “This isn’t a football game; we want to be collaborative in these efforts.”
Some qualified professionals are already applying for teaching jobs.
“We’re lining up very strong part-time and adjunct faculty… (professionals who) want the opportunity to get back to teaching on the side,” Van Leuven said.
In addition, the program would include at least one Eugene-based full-time faculty member, Van Leuven said.
Fundraising for the Portland program is not yet complete.
“We’re seeking additional endowment dollars, which would be more structural,” Gleason said.
The $6.5 million gift to the journalism school is the largest in that school’s history.
“The fact that a friend of this program believes that we were a good place to invest $6.5 million was a great validation of what we’ve been doing at this school and our vision,” Gleason said.
The other $2 million not dedicated to the Portland project will go primarily toward endowments for graduate and undergraduate students.
“It’s extremely important to us to be able to provide scholarships to help offset the cost of a journalism education,” Gleason said.
Senior journalism major Jason Nowlin said he can see the benefits of the program and thinks establishing relationships with firms in Portland is important.
“I’d be excited to have an internship anywhere,” Nowlin said.
Nowlin said he considered the advertising program at Portland State, but was interested in the University because of its reputation
and tradition.

[email protected]