The WSU Board of Regents, which is meeting today in committees and tomorrow as a whole, will vote on the official split of the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication into three departments.

The college currently has a single department and therefore a single degree in communication, with specializations in what will be the three different departments: journalism and media production, communication and society and strategic communication.

“As it now stands, if you are a journalism and media productions student but you also want to take classes in public relations or dual majors [within the college] that’s impossible,” said Bruce Pinkleton, interim dean and professor of Murrow College.

“We want all journalism media production students to be competent in all forms of traditional legacy media, but also digital media,” Pinkleton said.

The split of the college into three departments will allow communication students within the college to major in something like journalism and media productions and minor in something such as digital communications, he said.

The move will also allow the college to have department chairs and be able to encourage further different units to work together within the letter and spirit of EP 29, an executive policy instituted by Provost Dan Bernardo while he was interim president. EP 29 specifically gives the guidelines for the separate colleges on faculty management, Pinkleton said.

“[The added departments] will provide for a more efficient college as we move forward internally and a college which better fits students’ needs externally,” he said. “At the end of the day, this is about meeting students’ needs in a more effective manner.”

If the board approves the college’s request, the changes will go into effect by fall 2017.

The board’s docket also includes budget items such as the 2017-2018 tuition rate, the WSU technology fee established in fall, and the $5 increase to the student transit fee that the student body approved during the recent ASWSU and GPSA elections. No budget decisions are final until the state Legislature approves the biennium budget later this spring.

The board’s committees will meet throughout the day today to discuss the issues within their own jurisdictions, and the entire board will meet tomorrow at 8 a.m.