The CCJA History
Issue date: 7/29/10 Section: Home
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The Community College Journalism Association (CCJA) was founded in 1968 (as the Junior College Journalism Association; the new name was adopted in 1974) as a direct result of two summer seminars for community college journalism teachers at the University of Texas-Austin in 1966 and 1967. The seminars were sponsored by the Newspaper Fund, Inc., and were directed by the late Dr. DeWitt Reddick, then Dean of the School of Communication at UT-Austin.
Both Reddick and Paul Swensson, then Executive Director of the Newspaper Fund, were strong proponents of a national organization for community college journalism teachers.
The CCJA Constitution was adopted and the Association formed August 27, 1968, during the National Convention of the Association for Education in Journalism (now named the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication -- AEJMC) at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. At that convention, the AEJMC Executive Committee accepted CCJA as an Affiliate organization. In 1983, the AEJMC Advisory Board unanimously voted to seat CCJA as a Board Member.
CCJA was the second non-Division of AEJMC to hold membership and a vote on the Advisory Board, known today as the Council of Divisions. In 1996, CCJA was granted full division status by AEJMC, which was formalized for the first time in the Council of Divisions By-Laws. Signers of the original CCJA Constitution were CCJA Interim President Fred Walker Jr. of Vincennes University* (Vincennes, Indiana) and Interim Executive Committee members Frank Deaver of The Victoria College* (Victoria, Texas), Edgar E. Eaton of Green River Community College (Auburn, Washington), and Jim D. Sullivan of Eastern Oklahoma State College* (Wilburton, Oklahoma). (*=Schools are two-year community colleges.)