Susanne Shaw, executive Director of the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications, and I were picked up by the driver at 8:30 a.m. and we were at work before 9 a.m.
We met with Ilhem Allagui, interim head of the Department of Mass Communication. She took us to meet Chancellor Peter Heath and Vice Chancellor Thomas Hochstettler at 10:30 a.m. in the Chancellor’s office. We then spent time visiting with other faculty: Peggy Bieber-Roberts, Ph.D.; Harris Breslow, Ph.D.; Ana Marie Castillo; Herman Coutinho; Ana Gavassa; Josehp Gibbs, Ph.D.; Mahboub Hashem, Ph.D., Mohammed Ibahrine, Ph.D.; Don Love, Ph.D., Ph.D.; Hania Hashef, Ph.D.; Tina Richardson; Abeer Al Najjar, Ph.D.; Susan Smith; and Mustafa Taha, Ph.D.
We learned of the rapid developments in the program since it became a department in 2003. I originally had visited in 2004 with Richard Cole, dean at the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of North Carolina, and Tom Kunkle, dean at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland. We were doing an accreditation evaluation for the Commission for Academic Accreditation (CAA) of the United Arab Emirates.
