 Proposed by CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein, the school was to focus on teaching reporting skills and news values at a time when other journalism schools were emphasizing education in academic disciplines such as political science and statistics.After a search that weighed dozens of journalists and educators, former BusinessWeek editor-in-chief Stephen B. Shepard was chosen as the school's first dean.Goldstein and Shephard had worked together before; as head of CUNY's research foundation, Goldstein helped BusinessWeek formulate its business school rankings in the 1980s.