RICHMOND, Va.

A national body will re-accredit Hampton University’s journalism school a year after threatening to downgrade its credentials for failure to meet standards, school officials have said.

The recommendation by members of the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications will be finalized in May.

Accreditation isn’t mandatory for journalism programs, but it is valued as a signal of excellence to students and future employers.

“This decision to re-accredit our program reinforces our determination to continue the excellence we have achieved in a very short period of time,” says Tony Brown, dean of Hampton’s Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications.

Brown cites new writing-improvement programs and upgraded broadcast software, as well as smoothed relations between the school and Hampton administration, for the recommendation.

“We’re beginning to see more and more demonstration of the results,” he says.

ACEJMC accredits 109 journalism programs, assessing schools on nine areas, including governance and research. Hampton was judged lacking in both areas during a site visit last spring.

In May, the body granted the school provisional accreditation, a second-tier rating that gave the department two years to shape up.

Hampton appealed. ACEJMC officials revisited the school last month.

“I just don’t believe — and the university didn’t believe — that it was a good process, that first one,” Brown says. The new decision will stand for six years.

It’s good news for Hampton’s journalism school, troubled in recent years by a series of staff departures and public disagreements over the school’s mission.

In 2004, Christopher Campbell resigned after one year heading the school, citing a clash with Hampton administration. His predecessor also resigned, following similar conflicts.

Hampton made news in 2003 after administrators confiscated the school’s student-run newspaper for not running a letter from the university president on the front page.