Diversity advancements require change: educators need to plan for the long and short term.

Whenever journalism educators discuss accreditation, standards 12 and 3 are the ones that elicit the lion's share of attention. Standard 12, Diversity, focuses on a school's commitment to increased diversity in student populations and faculties and to creating learning environments that expose students to a broad spectrum of voices and views* Standard 3, Curriculum, focuses on students learning the mission and responsibilities of journalism and mass communication in a diverse and democratic society. Each aims to help educators teach students about the diverse world they will soon enter*

I have spent most of my career at the Howard University School of Communications. Howard is an HBCU--a historically black college or university--and it is one of seven HBCUs accredited by the Accrediting Council for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (ACEJMC). The other accredited HBCUs are Hampton, Florida A&M, Norfolk State, Grambling, Southern, and Jackson State.

I mention this because, for the past five years, the University of Georgia has produced an Annual Survey of Journalism & Mass Communication Graduates that has concluded that if it were not for journalism programs at HBCUs, there would be almost no students of color going into the nation's newsrooms. There are a few mainstream universities with …