Policy and the means by which it is crafted, analyzed and evaluated have become increasingly important and highly sought skills for students pursuing advanced degrees.  As a general category, policy has been a consistent area of interest for graduate students at the University of Texas. Over seven hundred reports, theses, and dissertations produced at the University of Texas in the last thirty years have taken policy as their subject to some extent, including seventy such projects since 2000.  A recent report by the Chronicle of Higher Education stated that the job market for public policy degree holders was likely to remain strong in the foreseeable future as governmental, non-profit, and non-governmental agencies confront shrinking resources and growing public need.

Policy discussions around issues of communication, information, and culture have become especially prominent in public discourse in recent years.  Rapid changes wrought by digitalization, corporate conglomeration, and other trends in the technological and economic spheres are judged by many to be a significant factor in reshaping systems of law and regulation.  Resulting legislation and policies, such as the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, and the USA Patriot Act (2001) have engendered broad debates on many subjects of critical interest to scholars and policy makers, from structures of ownership and control in media content and distribution, to the role of intellectual property and the public domain, from the future of access and privacy in telecommunications, to new forms of media literacy, museum design, and educational technique.  A diverse array of organizations such as the Federal Communications Commission, the Congressional Research Service, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the Ford Foundation have supported these discussions by commissioning research and hiring policy analysts, and major universities are already offering programs to address this need for trained policy thinkers, including the Quello Center at Michigan State University, The Media Center at New York University, and the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford, among others. 

Similarly, concerns regarding national and international cultural policy prompted the creation of the Cultural Policy and the Arts National Data Archive. This organization supports an archive that helps researchers access and develop information regarding the relationship between the cultural sectors and artists, communities, and economic development. Its focus on policies that influence culture extends from the local artist to national cultural identities, from art in public places to national or international programs to support cinema, from traditional media to cyberspace.  Several universities have established programs or centers to explore cultural policy (e.g., the Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies at Princeton, the Research Center for Arts and Culture at Columbia University).

The Graduate Portfolios in Communication, Information, and Cultural Policy offers students at the University of Texas a means to enter this vital field of study by focusing on the theory, history, and comparative aspects of policy. The program supports students’ preparation for careers in academic research or practical careers in policy-making arenas.  Study in Communication, Information, and Cultural Policy is well-suited to a portfolio certificate program because it is a multi-disciplinary subject that can find students drawing on public policy, economics, communications, art, community planning, and information science.  This program invites students to integrate these disciplines into their particular course of study and provides an institutional home for scholars with these shared interests.

Admissions

Students pursuing a graduate degree in any participating school or college are eligible to apply for admission at any time after entering their graduate program.  For more information, students should speak to the participating faculty in their department or contact Sharon Strover at the Telecommunication and Information Policy Institute, Department of Radio-TV-Film (471-6652).  Students should have the consent of their home department graduate advisor to participate.  Students who wish to apply should submit an application that includes a brief (1-3 pages) statement of purpose outlining their interests and intention in completing the portfolio.  The admissions team will meet with interested students, and deliberate on the program of work students submit for the portfolio program.  This program of work should include the courses and presentations the student intends to complete for meet the program's requirements, as well as a list of courses already completed at the graduate level.

The Graduate Portfolios in Communication, Information and Cultural Policy will include a Master’s Portfolio, for students for whom the Master’s degree is a terminal professional degree, and the Doctoral Portfolio, which will include a more rigorous research and writing component.  As well, the portfolio requires that students in both MA and the Ph.D. programs present their work in either a professional conference setting or a public venue at the University of Texas Alternatively, extra-curricular work in a policy setting related to communications or cultural policy can satisfy this requirement. 

The program requires the completion of nine credit hours (for Master’s Portfolio) or twelve credit hours (for Doctoral Portfolio) in approved graduate level courses and the preparation of a scholarly research paper, submitted and approved by the Portfolio Committee.  At least two of the student’s completed courses shall be from departments outside the student’s home department.  Of the completed courses, no more than one may be taken as an independent study or conference course without approval of the Portfolio Committee.  The following are examples of twelve-hour course sequences CICP portfolio students might use:

For a concentration in Cultural Policy:

• FA 381, Dempster, Funding Art and Sustaining Culture
• FA 387, Daly, Cultural Policy and the Arts
• RTF 393N, Strover, Technology and Culture
• INF 385T, Doty, Copyright and Information: Legal/Cultural Perspectives

For a concentration in Telecommunications Policy:

• RTF 393C, Sinha, Telecommunications Information Systems
• RTF 384, Stein, Communication, Law and Power
• INF 390N, Doty, Federal Information Policy
• PA 388K, Public Policy and the Internet

Students should check the course schedule each semester to find graduate course offerings of CICP faculty associates.   A sample of courses typically offered follows:

• FA 381, Dempster, Funding Art and Sustaining Culture
• INF 380K, Doty, Information Technologies and Information Professions
• INF 385T, Doty, Copyright and Information: Legal/Cultural Perspectives
• INF 331, Doty, Finding Information
• INF 390N, Doty, Federal Information Policy
• INF 391D, Doty, Uses and Users of Information
• INF 397, Doty, Intro to Research in Library and Information Science
• INF 382L, Dillon/Doty, Understanding and Serving Users
• INF 382, Harmon, Introduction to Research in Information Studies
• INF 384, Harmon/Doty, Information Networks
• INF 382, Harmon, Information Resources in Health Sciences
• INF 385N, Harmon, Informatics
• INF 385T, Harmon, Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems
• INF 387, Harmon, Information Marketing
• PA 388K, Public Policy and the Internet
• PA 882A, Community Informatics
• PA 882A, Digital Transformation of Organizations
• PA 882A, Policy Research Projects (topic changes each semester)
• PA 882A, Flamm, Policy Research Projects (topic changes each semester)
• PA 693A, Flamm, Political Economy
• RTF 393N, Strover, Technology and Culture
• RTF 393C, Strover, Information Society
• RTF 393N, Strover/Phillips, Telecommunication and Information Policy
• RTF 393N, Strover, Communication Policy
• RTF 393C, Phillips, Technologies of Identity
• RTF 393C, Phillips, Culture of Technology
• RTF 393N, Phillips, Surveillance, Representation and Identity
• RTF 384, Stein, Communication, Law and Power
• RTF 387F, Straubhaar, Global versus Regional Media
• RTF 387D, Straubhaar, Digital Divide
• RTF 393C, Sinha, Telecommunications Information Systems
• DRM 387D, Daly, Cultural Policy and the Arts

Students seeking portfolios will be encouraged to propose a dissertation related to policy studies and encouraged, but not required, to include at least one Communication, Information and Cultural Policy faculty on their dissertation committee. The portfolio certificate will be awarded contemporaneously with the student’s graduate degree.

Administration

The Graduate Portfolio in Communication, Information and Cultural Policy will be administered by the College of Communication's Telecommunication and Information Policy Institute through the formation of a Portfolio Committee comprised of faculty representatives from each participating academic unit: The Colleges of Communication and Fine Arts, School of Public Affairs, and the School of Information. The faculty administering the program will be responsible for admission to the portfolio, for advising students who wish to complete it, and for certifying that students have completed the work necessary to qualify for the portfolio certificate.

Director Sharon Strover, Professor Department of Radio-Television-Film
CMA 6.118, A0800
(512) 471-4071

Portfolio Contact Phil Doty, Associate Professor
The University of Texas at Austin School of Information
1 University Station D7000 Austin TX 78712 (512) 471-3746 

List of Affiliated Faculty/Portfolio Committee as of Fall 2004

• Andrew Dillon, Dean, School of Information
• Philip Doty, School of Information
• Ann Daly, Department of Theatre and Dance, College of Fine Arts
• Douglas Dempster, Department of Theatre and Dance, College of Fine Arts
• Kenneth Flamm, LBJ School of Public Affairs
• Glynn E. Harmon, School of Information
• David Phillips, Department of Radio-TV-Film, College of Communication
• Laura Stein, Department of Radio-TV-Film, College of Communication
• Nikil Sinha, Department of Radio-TV-Film, College of Communication
• Joe Straubhaar, Department of Radio-TV-Film, College of Communication
• Sharon Strover, Department of Radio-TV-Film, and Director, Telecommunications and Information Policy Institute
• Robert Wilson, LBJ School of Public Affairs