North Texas j-department to become college

This North Texas Daily story (via Pegasus News) says UNT's journalism department will split off from Arts and Sciences to become its own college in 2009. Congratulations! Also interesting was this mention of grants (second excerpt):

... the conversation was "re-ignited" when NT President Gretchen Bataille took office in 2006 and brought with her a new administration.

... (In the past) Wells said the department has applied for grants and has been turned down because of its status.

"A couple times we applied for some pretty lucrative grants and we were turned down because we were a department and not a school," he said.

He said the journalism school's free-standing status would make it easier to get such grants but would also make competition for them more intense.