It all began with a surprise announcement. During the 1947-1948 academic year, a young English professor, Russell Jandoli, had proposed to then-university president Fr. Thomas Plassmann, OFM, the establishment of a separate department for the school of journalism. Having only been a teacher at the college beginning in 1947 and not even aware that his report had been read, Jandoli was taken by surprise when, during the commencement ceremony in 1948, Fr. Plassmann stated that a new department, the Department of Journalism, would be established with Jandoli serving as head. As Jandoli himself wrote in his 1986 Departmental History Narrative:
"It was the first I'd learned that my report had been read, no less that it was approved and action was forthcoming. In less than three months, from recommendation to fruition, we had a Department of Journalism at St. Bonaventure College."
The ease with which a department could be created resided mainly in the fact that authority of the college was in the hands of a few people, the legendary Fr. Plassmann being key. Opposition from other people and departments (most notably the English Department, which could have had the reasonable concern that the newly created department would draw its own students away from it) were negligable and January of 1949 officially marked the beginning of the Department of Journalism at St. Bonaventure.
In a lot of ways, St. Bonaventure was among the first in the field of journalism to build such an ambitious program. Only a few other colleges (namely Duquesne, Fordham and Marquette) had any substantial journalism programs at the time in the Eastern United States and by 1947, only 37 colleges in the nation offered any journalism courses at all.
The remainder of the decade served mostly as years of preperation and orientation. Obviously lacking in resources and faculty, by the end of the 1949-50 academic year the Department of Journalism at St. Bonaventure considered itself "a full-grown, responsible member of the college community." The increasing number of students taking journalism classes, from 67 in the '47-'48 academic year to 151 the next and 167 during the last year of the decade, as well as the first four graduates from St. Bonaventure with a degree in journalism led Jandoli to declare the 1949-1950 academic year a "banner year."
The Department, started from scratch, looked to have a bright future.
The following are links to Jandoli's initial 1947 Report to the Head of the English Department
The following is a Press Release announcing the establishment of a Journalism Department
The following is the concluding paragraph of Jandoli's report on the 1948-49 academinc year
The following is the concluding paragraph of Jandoli's report on the 1949-50 academic year