The Philip Merrill College of Journalism is a journalism school located at the University of Maryland, College Park. The college was founded in 1945 and was named after Merrill in 2001, when newspaper magnate Philip Merrill gave a $10 million gift to the school.blank">http://www.journalism.umd.edu/newrel/sunstory.html The school is somewhat unique in its small size for a prestigious journalism school - about 600 undergraduates and 70 graduate students.

The school began its rise under former _dean Reese Cleghorn. The current dean is Thomas Kunkel.

The school awards B.A., M.A., M.J. and Ph.D. degrees in journalism. Undergraduates can focus on print, magazine, online, or broadcast journalism.

The university's student newspaper, The Diamondback, is not affiliated with the school. However, the school provides opportunities for students to publish work with the Capital News Service, a wire service serving papers in the Washington, D.C. region and Maryland Newsline, a live half-hour news broadcast that reaches over 500,000 households in the greater Washington metropolitan area, as well as Baltimore City. The three college-sponsored student news outlets -- the nightly television show, online newsmagazine, and weekly radio show -- have all been named the best in the nation by the Society of Professional Journalists in the last few years.

The school's faculty includes seven Pulitzer Prize winners - Jon Franklin (who is also an alum of the school), Haynes Johnson, David Broder, Ira Chinoy, Deb Nelson, Jan Schaffer, and former Philadelphia Inquirer editor Gene Roberts, who also led the Inquirer to 16 Pulitzers in his seventeen years as Editor. Other notable faculty members include former Washington Post sports editor George Solomon, who was ESPN's first ombudsman and Lee Thornton, a former CNN and CBS correspondent.

A Washington Post recruiter has said the college is one of the nation's best journalism schools.blank">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2006/05/18/DI2006051801378.html

The school is currently housed in the Journalism building located next to McKeldin Library; the building is the smallest on campus to be home to a college. Much of the broadcast facilities, including the Maryland Newsline studio, is located in Tawes Theater. The college is preparing to build a new journalism building, the _ John S. and James L. Knight Hall, which will be located in what is now a parking lot behind the Benjamin Building. Tawes Theater is also scheduled to undergo extensive renovations in the next few years.