Philip Merrill College of Journalism Building Campaign, University of Maryland

Dear Friends,

In recent years, the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland has emerged as one of the most respected and influential journalism programs in America.

The reasons:

Our outstanding faculty, which includes five Pulitzer Prize winners and internationally acclaimed researchers.
Our selective admissions policy, which has even higher standards than the university.
Professional outreach programs that attract journalists from all over the world.

Currently, the college operates from an outdated main building and several locations around campus. The Journalism Building, constructed in the 1950s, long ago ran out of classroom space. Our faculty’s ability to use the modern tools of teaching is severely limited by the building’s antiquated setup. At a time of media convergence, the college’s broadcast and online operations are dispersed.

At the very time we are in critical need of a new building, we are also facing state budget constraints. The state’s contribution to a new building will be generous, but we must raise private funds to make up the difference. With your help, we can.

A new journalism building will cost $25 million. The college needs to raise $10 million of that amount.

What would your gift help to provide? The new building would bring together the print, online and broadcast programs; provide an 80-seat auditorium/lecture hall where distinguished visitors could be interviewed for live broadcast; vastly improve the labs used for online journalism and computer-assisted reporting classes; provide a library/study area; equip an executive conference room for training seminars conducted by the college’s professional centers; and add more seminar rooms for small-group classes.

The new building would occupy a prominent site just north of Tawes Theatre. It would be the signature structure on a planned second campus mall.

University President C.D. (Dan) Mote has made clear that the Merrill College of Journalism is one of a handful of university programs that can be premier schools in their field. He also believes that in order to achieve that distinction, the college needs a building that accommodates all of its programs and provides state-of-the-art learning opportunities.

Please help us reach our goal to be the best journalism program in the country.

Sincerely,

Thomas Kunkel
Dean