[2] The school offers undergraduate degrees in media & journalism as well as advertising & public relations.
[3] The school is home to the North Carolina Journalism, Advertising, Public Relations and Broadcasting Halls of Fame.
King came to the school from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, where she was vice president for external affairs and program director for the journalism initiative.
[6] The Department of Journalism was founded in 1924 with Gerald W. Johnson, an editorial writer for the Greensboro Daily News, as its first chairman.
[11] Coffin was succeeded in 1953 by Norval Neil Luxon, at the time an assistant to the president of Ohio State University.
The same year, Karen L. Parker, the University's first black female undergraduate, enrolled in journalism classes.
[19] Adams' tenure included the implementation of the spelling and grammar test developed by faculty members Tom Bowers and Richard Cole.
As a test case in 1978, the school became the first journalism program in the nation to receive unit-wide accreditation.
[23] With Reed Sarratt as president, the school formed the Journalism Alumni and Friends Association (JAFA) on January 26, 1980.
[27] "Carolina Week," the school's student-produced newscast, debuted Feb. 2, 2000, under the supervision of professors Charlie Tuggle and Richard Simpson.
[30] In 2009, Folkerts led the school through reaccreditation and oversaw the implementation of an ambitious new curriculum to better reflect the changing media environment.
In September 2019, UNC alumnus Walter E. Hussman Jr. and his wife, Ben, donated $25 million to the school.
[31] In April 2021, the University of North Carolina announced Nikole Hannah-Jones would join the Hussman School in July 2021 as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism,[32] and the school's tenure committee recommended approval of her application for tenure.
[35] More than 40 Hussman faculty members signed a statement criticizing the board's inaction, noting that the previous two Knight Chairs were given tenure and claiming that UNC "unfairly moves the goal posts" by not offering Hannah-Jones the same.
[36][37] The school's Black Caucus condemned the terms of her contract, and some students joined faculty in protests.
[38][39][40] Hannah-Jones stated, "It's pretty clear that my tenure was not taken up because of political opposition, because of discriminatory views against my viewpoint and, I believe, [because of] my race and my gender.
[35] On June 30, 2021, the Trustees for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill voted in a closed session to include tenure in the position offer.
[49] Founded in 2009, the stated is a student-run communications agency which focuses on advancing public relations, marketing, and advertising services developed by other students.
Primarily using augmented reality and artificial intelligence, the organization has worked toward finding better ways of conveying news and other media by collaborating with consumers and other journalism schools and companies.
The program was created in 2004 to produce a path for students interested in enrolling in both prestigious professional schools that previously did not exist.
Its curriculum prepares students for positions primarily in journalism, but also in public relations and internal communications.
The Roy H. Park Fellowships provide graduate students with fully paid tuition, fees, health insurance and stipends.