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UNH reportedly set to eliminate journalism major from English Department

Journalism education will continue at the University of New Hampshire, but staff will take a more interdisciplinary approach.

The University of New Hampshire campus in Durham. Jim Davis/The Boston Globe

March 15, 2024

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The University of New Hampshire is reportedly preparing to scrap its English/journalism major.

Journalism education will still continue at UNH, but faculty have already agreed to eliminate the major, according to a Boston Globe report this week.

College of Liberal Arts dean Michele Dillon told the paper that UNH is “restructuring” and “reimagining” how it handles journalism education.

“This decision comes on the heels of funding challenges, declining enrollment and drastic changes in the journalism business,” UNH spokesperson Tania deLuzuriaga said in a statement Friday.

The goal is to set up a new, interdisciplinary journalism major. Up to this point, the journalism program at UNH has been housed in its English Department, with a heavy emphasis on teaching young reporters how to write news stories. Now, journalism students will be exposed to more classes from across departments.

“This new major will have to go through the University’s curriculum review and we expect it to be ready for the 2025-26 academic year. We will also continue to support journalism students with scholarships, internships, and other professional programming,” deLuzuriaga said.

The curriculum will focus on building communications and digital media production skills, alongside traditional journalism, according to the Globe.

“We’re living in the largest communication revolution in the history of humanity that has essentially redefined everything from the commerce of news and information to the ecosystem in which it exists,” UNH journalism professor Tom Haines told the paper. “So education about that has to be as dynamic and fluid as it can be.”

Haines was reportedly one of two professors who, a year ago, brought up the idea of eliminating the major in its current form. They deemed the program “unsustainable,” and members of the English Department approved the proposal in March 2023, according to the Globe.

The number of students enrolled in the major dropped by almost 50% over the past six years. UNH decreased the number of journalism courses needed to graduate in 2022. Changes to the curriculum “watered down” the major, preventing it from offering a sufficient education for aspiring journalists in the modern media landscape, according to a memo obtained by the Globe.

Some faculty said that UNH failed to hire new journalism professors, contributing to the program’s demise. Dillon cited a “challenging financial environment,” and told the Globe that many academic departments have been denied their requests for more faculty.

Still, Dillon said she remains committed to journalism education at UNH.

“We’re still teaching journalism,” Dillon told the Globe. “All of our current journalism students will get the courses that they expect to get. And we continue to welcome and accept new journalism students.”

The UNH program produced multiple Pulitzer Prize winners, among other notable journalists.

“We are proud of the many UNH journalism alumni who have gone on to have an impact in their field and wider world and look forward to finding new ways to train students in this important profession,” deLuzuriaga said.

Jane Tarricone Harrigan, a former journalism professor at UNH, said in a Facebook post that the program has been “starved out” over the years. Outstanding faculty members chose to leave due to a lack of adequate pay and benefits, leaving the remaining faculty to try to “create miracles without the most basic level of resources.”

“Democracy needs journalism, and journalism needs the kind of thoughtful practitioners UNH has long educated. We care, and we write, and we’re watching. Whatever form it may take, do not let journalism at UNH die,” she wrote.