The first journalism class at Ohio University was in 1923.
Ohio University is renowned for many things, ranging from the HallOUween parties, all the way to being one of the most haunted places on earth. One other reason OU is so well-known, however, is because it’s home to one of the nation’s accredited journalism programs: the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism.
In 1923, Raymond M. Slutz, a professor at the university at the time, introduced the first journalism course to the English department. Slutz often had staff members from the Athens Messenger come in and speak to the 32 students that were enrolled in the course.
Following the creation of this course, E.B. Bryan, the president of OU at the time, achieved the consent needed to make a department of journalism.
Just three years later, Clarence Bolen, who became the president of the Press Club, and his other classmates became the first graduates of the journalism program in 1926. The following year in 1927, Ludel Sauvageot became the first woman to graduate from the program.
Multiple programs were added to the new department, including news reporting, magazine, news-editorial and broadcast courses. In 1952, the programs were consolidated into five classifications: news writing and editing; feature and pictorial journalism; advertising management; radio journalism and public relations.
That same year, the program gained its first accreditation.
Though the original building that became home to the Department of Journalism in 1924 was Ellis Hall, the department moved around quite a bit, residing in Ewing Hall in 1936, Copeland Hall in 1955, the Radio-Television building in 1969 and many other halls to follow.
In 1980, Charles Scripps, a chairman for the E.W. Scripps Company and grandson to the founder of the company, Edward W. Scripps, attended the journalism banquet for the first time.
Just two years later in 1982, the school was honorably renamed the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism.
Throughout the years, the Scripps School became very well-known and accredited even further. In 1996, the journalism graduate program became acknowledged by U.S. News & World Report as being one of top 10 in the country.
To this day, the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism is still sanctioned as one of the best in the country, being named by the Radio Television Digital News Association as one of the top 20 journalism schools in the United States in 2014.
Bri Shaniuk is a freshman studying journalism. What do you know about the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism? Email her at bs714714@ohio.edu.
