Christopher Braider, a CU professor of French and Italian,
has been named director of the journalism and mass communication faculty at the university.
On July 1, when the journalism program loses its “school”
status and becomes a department, Braider will begin overseeing administrative
operations of the faculty and implementation of the Journalism Plus program in
the graduate school, but he will not teach or be directly involved in curriculum
design issues, according to a CU news release.
Braider has been a part of the CU campus for 20 years,
serving as a professor and chair of the French and Italian department, acting
director of the Center for Humanities and Arts and chair of comparative literature
and humanities, according to the release.
Braider was chosen as director because of his tenure on
campus and programmatic leadership, Provost CU-Boulder Provost Russell Moore
said in a prepared statement.
“The transition from the School of Journalism and Mass
Communication to a new program requires a fair-minded leader who will not be
influenced by past conflicts and issues in the school,” Moore said in the
release. “Chris Braider has demonstrated in a number of positions at CU-Boulder
that he can lead with fairness and objectivity while carrying out the many
administrative tasks required to run a program.”
On April 14, CU Regents voted to discontinue the School of
Journalism and Mass Communication with the hopes of being able to reformat the
program to offer journalism education through a dual-major structure by spring
2012.
