At the request of its national association, Elon’s School of Communications celebrated the 100th anniversary of the founding of what today is the largest organization of journalism and mass communications faculty in the world.
Faculty, staff and members of the Dean’s Student Advisory Board gathered with a birthday cake and balloons spelling “100” to hear Dean Paul Parsons explain the origins of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (AEJMC), which was formed Nov. 30, 1912, in Chicago.
In 1912, Willard G. Bleyer of the University of Wisconsin was elected as the first president of what originally was called the American Association of Teachers of Journalism.
Today, AEJMC has more than 3,600 members from around the world, including many faculty members in Elon’s School of Communications.
After the AEJMC birthday celebration, faculty and students in the School of Communications spent an hour discussing how to improve the school’s curriculum in rapidly changing times.