I just wanted to thank you for everything you contributed to make the
World Journalism Education Congress a resounding success. It was
wonderful to watch colleagues from 45 nations making new friends,
talking about serious issues, and being stimulated by the
programming. It all came together far better than any of us could
have imagined. Clearly, having AMIC as a partner was a major boost
to our efforts. Their organization of the meeting and the site were
suburb. It set a new standard for many of us.

As I mentioned at the closing meeting, our ranks are growing. The
Nigerian association joined us on Monday. The Indonesians showed a
strong interest on Tuesday. By Thursday, the Indians were starting
to organize a journalism education association for the first time.
If all of this comes through, we would have 30 member organizations.
And, there were rumors that other countries were thinking seriously
about starting organizations. I firmly believe that the stronger the
infrastructure we have for journalism education, the stronger our
field will be. I know that Charles Self was approached by people of
many nationalities who were eager to help with the census, and that
is very good news. By this time next year, we should have a firmer
grasp on exactly what programs are emerging throughout the world.

I will get back to you later with a detailed follow-up on our meeting
Monday. As it stands now, we will be working on a planning meeting
for 2009. I heard several comments from participants at the
conference requesting that we meet, but we'll have to talk about what
interval serves everyone best.

Please distribute the Declaration of Journalism Education Principles
widely among your members, university administrators, journalists and
other stakeholders in your country. Given the comments about it at
WJEC, it will no doubt be a work in progress as we respond to our
members.

Finally, I want to thank again some of the key people who worked so
hard to make this historic meeting possible: Robyn Goodman for more
than five years of work on this whole enterprise, including the WJEC
program; Suellen Tapsall for creating and executing the very
successful syndicate meeting and organizing the book project; Jyotika
Ramaprasad for running the paper competition; Dennis Davis for his
six years of work on WJEC, and most recently, for organizing the
paper program; Ang Peng Hwa, Indrajit Banerjee, and Sandihya
Srinivasan for superb work as hosts and co-organizers for the WJEC;
Charles Self for strong leadership of the census project, Kathy Adams
for stepping in and doing a wonderful administrative job of
organizing our efforts; Scott Hodgson, Ken Fischer and Ed Jones for
their work on the WJEC video and the many hours that WJEC organizing
committee members devoted to judging papers, planning panels,
supplying creative ideas, etc. Our thanks also to the Knight
Foundation, the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, the
Scripps Foundation, AEJMC, JEA, and AMIC for their strong financial
support of this enterprise. My apologies to those I have overlooked.

Most of all, I want to thank the WJEC organizing committee members,
many of whom have devoted more than three years to this effort. I am
convinced that the trust, vision and dedication displayed at these
meetings in Toronto, San Antonio, San Francisco, and Penang provided
the strong foundation that carried us through. Now, we have to seize
this momentum and move forward.

I'll be back in touch when we start to put the pieces together.

Congratulations on a job very well done! You have moved our field
forward in a very significant way.