Tom Evans is the chair of the mass communication curriculum committee.

If the English department’s mass communication curriculum committee has its way, NCCU students will be able to major in mass communications for the first time fall semester 2004.

Before that can happen, the committee has to get permission from university-level committees, the NCCU provost, the NCCU Board of Trustees and the UNC General Administration.

If approved, the committee recommends that the English department be renamed the Department of English and Mass Communications.

Currently, NCCU only offers a mass communication concentration for students who major in English. Students who want to work in media are required to take several literature classes to graduate.

Senior English major, David Furtick said that the new major is necessary.

“I wish they would have had it when I first came,” Furtick said. “I think it’s important. A lot of people would go into the field if it were a major.”

According to the committee’s proposal for the major, HBCUs play a vital role increasing racial and ethnic diversity in the communications industry.

Currently, HBCU mass communications programs produce almost 30 percent of all African American communication majors.

English professor Tom Evans, chair of the committee, said that students and the mass media will benefit from the new major.

“The program will increase the number of mass communication majors,” Evans said. “We will be able to offer a higher quality education to mass communication students. Having the major will also make our program attractive to media industries and help us attract funding.”

In the proposal, the committee lists three main reasons to offer the major at NCCU: the shortage of minorities in the mass media industry, the explosive growth of the mass communications industry and the successful growth of university communications programs nationwide.

Nineteen new courses and additional faculty and staff would be added to the English department.

New courses would include Studio Audio Production, TV Studio Operations, Web Authoring, Diversity in the Media, Photojournalism, International Communication, Desktop Publishing, and New Technologies and Society.

Students in the communication major would take fewer English literature courses, but they will be required to complete projects in their mass communication courses that will be evaluated in a portfolio.

The new major would also require students to complete an internship and a media practicum course.

If approved, the major would provide concentrations in broadcast media, journalism, and communications studies.

“The biggest challenge is to get the state to say the program is a good idea, and to get the state to fund it,” Evans said.

The committee recommends that the English department try to attract non-state funding and lists possible funding sources aside from the state.

According to the proposal initial production equipment and capital improvements of $500,000 will be required.