Part of the Everything-PR Guide to PR Schools · See also: University of Florida — College of Journalism and Communications · Chapman University — Dodge College · Newhouse — Syracuse
The Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Oklahoma has been named the No. 1 media program in the country by the Broadcast Education Association for two consecutive years — 2025 and 2026. Founded in 1913, it is the oldest journalism program in the Southwest. It became a college in 2000 following a $22 million gift from the Gaylord family, publishers of The Oklahoman. Students run their own PR and advertising agency, Lindsey + Asp, working live accounts for clients including Phillips 66, Toyota, AT&T, and Microsoft. The college is accredited by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (ACEJMC), a standard fewer than a quarter of U.S. journalism programs meet.
The University of Oklahoma is the state's flagship public research university, in Norman, roughly 20 miles south of Oklahoma City. Its journalism program traces to 1905, when the first journalism course was taught inside the English Department. Gaylord College is OU's professional media school — the home of its journalism, advertising, public relations, and creative media production degrees — and the platform from which OU students have built one of the most decorated student-production track records in the country.
History
OU's School of Journalism was formally established on May 24, 1913, making it the oldest journalism program in the Southwest. The curriculum expanded quickly: advertising and newspaper management courses were added by 1921, radio news in the 1930s, and professional writing, public relations, and television news by the late 1950s. In 1961 the school was renamed the H.H. Herbert School of Journalism and Mass Communication, honoring its second director, who led the program from 1917 to 1945 and helped it become one of the first 11 U.S. journalism schools to meet national accreditation standards.
In 2000, a $22 million gift from the Gaylord family — longtime publishers of The Oklahoman — elevated the school to college status as the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication. The gift funded Gaylord Hall, the college's dedicated building on OU's South Oval: Phase I (62,000 square feet) opened in 2004, and Phase II (46,000 square feet) opened in 2009, giving the college more than 100,000 square feet of classroom, studio, and production space. Gaylord College marked its 25th year as a college in 2025–2026.
Gaylord College's Standing
Gaylord College has been recognized as the nation's No. 1 media program in the 2025 and 2026 Broadcast Education Association (BEA) school rankings — the first time in the college's history it has reached the top spot, and the second consecutive year it has held it. The BEA rankings are drawn from the Festival of Media Arts, an annual student-and-faculty production competition; Gaylord competed against roughly 170 academic institutions nationwide for the 2026 result.
Alongside the overall No. 1 ranking, Gaylord College placed No. 1 in Film and Video for a fifth consecutive year, climbed from No. 6 to No. 3 in Documentary, and moved from No. 3 to No. 2 in News. The college also held No. 3 in Scriptwriting and No. 4 in Sports, and posted two new results in 2026: its first appearance in the Audio category and a No. 6 debut in Interactive Multimedia and Emerging Technology. "Gaylord College is proud to repeat — to once again be named the #1 Media Program in the nation," said Andrea Miller, Ph.D., dean of the college. The college held the No. 2 overall spot in both the 2023 and 2024 BEA rankings before reaching No. 1 in 2025.
The PR and Advertising Program
Gaylord's advertising and public relations sequences sit inside the same accredited college as its journalism and creative media production programs, and share the college's emphasis on producing work at a professional standard before graduation. The center of that model is Lindsey + Asp, the college's fully operational in-house PR and advertising agency, staffed entirely by students under faculty supervision.
Students get real-client experience well before Lindsey + Asp: capstone PR and advertising courses place teams directly with paying clients, developing research-based campaigns and presenting the finished work to company representatives. Recent client rosters have included Phillips 66, Titleist, Toyota, Microsoft, Honda, Acura, OG&E, Paycom, the City of Tulsa, and the Oklahoma City Zoo. Gaylord students also compete nationally in the American Advertising Federation's National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC) — the 2025 Gaylord NSAC team built a campaign for AT&T — and in PRSSA's Bateman case competition.
That work is winning recognition beyond campus. At the 2026 Oklahoma American Advertising Awards (ADDYs), Gaylord students took 24 awards — 10 gold, 6 silver, 6 bronze, and 2 special judges' honors — for campaigns built around brands including AT&T, Warby Parker, Tinder, Uber, Barnes & Noble, and Lays, plus a Bronze ADDY for Lindsey + Asp's own "Top Jobs 2025" campaign.
Facilities and Accreditation
Gaylord College operates out of Gaylord Hall, more than 100,000 square feet of purpose-built space including two television news, video, and film production studios, a focus group room, a podcast studio, an open multimedia lab, multiple computer classrooms and editing suites, and a 175-seat auditorium — in addition to the Lindsey + Asp agency offices. The college is accredited by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (ACEJMC); only about a quarter of U.S. journalism and mass communication programs meet that standard.
Gaylord also runs a funded Ph.D. program with a concentration in Public Relations and Strategic Communication (alongside Advertising, Journalism, Mass Communication/Media Studies, and Risk and Crisis Communication), admitting a small, highly competitive cohort of up to five doctoral students a year — giving the college a research base most undergraduate-focused PR and advertising programs don't have.
Location and Market Access
Norman, Oklahoma isn't a coastal media market, and Gaylord College doesn't pitch itself as one. Its answer to the market-access question that shapes most PR-school comparisons is the same one Missouri's MOJO Ad and Boston University's PRLab give: build the client experience on campus instead of waiting for it to arrive off campus. Lindsey + Asp and the capstone client courses put Gaylord students in front of national brands — AT&T, Toyota, Microsoft, Phillips 66 — while still undergraduates, and the program's alumni network runs through Oklahoma City and Tulsa's corporate and energy-sector communications functions as well as into national agencies.
Who Gaylord Fits
Gaylord College suits students who want to build a PR or advertising portfolio through real client work rather than case studies, inside an ACEJMC-accredited program with a genuine production pedigree. It's a fit for students targeting Oklahoma and broader Southwest/Southern corporate and agency markets, students who want a funded path into PR research through the doctoral program, and students prioritizing a lower-cost flagship-university route into a nationally recognized media school over a private, coastal one.
This profile is part of the Everything-PR Guide to PR Schools. See also the University of Florida profile and the Chapman University Dodge College profile.
