The Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications will open a new program in San Francisco in the next academic year.

Medill is looking for a location in San Francisco to establish the school, Medill Dean Brad Hamm said.

The school will be more extensive than Medill’s journalism bureau in Washington, D.C., which hosts graduate students for most of the year and undergraduate students during Winter Quarter. The San Francisco site will be “more like a full school,” Hamm said and will include undergraduate and graduate programs in both journalism and Integrated Marketing Communications, as well as alumni events, workshops and career services.

“It’s a comprehensive Medill program in San Francisco,” Hamm said.

Hamm said the new site would help the journalism school become a “coast-to-coast” program, as Medill has increased its journalism residency locations on the West Coast in recent years.

“Our goal then would be to take this school, combined with the best of technology and innovation, and see what develops,” Hamm said, noting San Francisco’s proximity to Silicon Valley.

The new school’s programs, while still being determined, will feature a combination of journalism and technology, similar to the Knight Lab media project, a collaboration between Medill and the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. 

“Using that model of working together, we believe that there’s a big stage where we could do this in San Francisco,” Hamm said.

Hamm also said the new school’s location is ideal for the Integrated Marketing Communications program, which is not offered in Washington, D.C.

Medill is also working on an initiative to give every student opportunities to go abroad. Hamm said he is trying to raise money for Medill scholarships to fund this, whether through short reporting trips, Northwestern study abroad programs or international journalism residencies.

This post was updated Nov. 11 at 10:08 p.m.

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