That was the week that was!
The whirlwind of the previous week is over, successfully, I might add, but the whirl continued as we played catch-up this week.
The good news is the visiting accreditation site team found the School in Compliance on all nine standards of the accrediting body, ACEJMC. This is another step in the process. Two more steps will occur in Spring with the accrediting committee’s meeting in March and the Council’s meeting in early May. The May meeting is the final step in our quest for reaccreditation. The faculty and staffed worked very hard on our Self-Study Report.
The Online News Association in Toronto was a terrific meeting. The three presentations by students in the Innovative Incubator Project were awesome. MSU students participated in two of the three presentations, Tandem and Locker Talk. They were terrific. We are already getting nibbles to partner in developing these ideas further working with media companies.
We also had an amazing presentation by artist Bryan Christie of his work and how he does it on Thursday. Arranged by Karl Gude, Christie spoke to a packed auditorium of students, faculty and members of the public.
Company's coming! Help your J-School
We’ve been cleaning and working and organizing for the past two weeks getting ready for company. (And we spent an entire year doing a Self-Study Report about the J-School before this!)
A team of four, representing the Accrediting Council for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (ACEJMC), will be visiting the J-School next week.
The team members, Dr. Ann Brill, dean at the University of Kansas, Dr. Jannette Dates, dean at Howard University, Marcia Prior-Miller, a faculty member at Iowa State and Steve Geimann, a producer at Bloomberg News in Washington D.C. and president of the Society of Professional Journalists, will be in the Com Arts Building all day on Monday and Tuesday, October 15-16. They will be meeting with faculty, students and university administrators to judge the quality of the J-School. They will also be stopping by classes to observe. So, if you see a stranger in the hallway, be sure you greet them and help them out, if they ask.
We have scheduled two meetings of the entire team with students. The meetings are scheduled for 2-2:45 p.m., Monday in 191 CAS (Deeb) and 9-10 a.m., Tuesday in 306 CAS. Please stop by either day, if you can. This is very important to the J-School and to you. We have been continuously accredited since the process began in the late 1940s.
In other news, the second proficiency tests will be given Friday afternoon, October 19 in 147 CAS. Registration for the test will begin at 2:30 p.m. for the first exam and 4 p.m. for the second. Please bring your student ID, a calculator and a pencil with you for the test. This is the final test for the Fall term. You need to pass this test to enroll in JRN 200.
Three students, Jordan Barnes, Katie Rausch and Jonathan Oosting, along with faculty member Darcy Greene and me are heading to Toronto Wednesday for the Online News Association conference. Our students are part of a seven-university grant from the Knight Foundation to develop innovative community news projects. Our students are part of two teams who will be presenting their projects Thursday afternoon to major media executives. Wish them luck!
Generation W (for Web) has hit campus
Here is something to ponder: the entering class of freshmen at MSU this fall were born in 1989, the year the world wide web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee.
They have grown-up surrounded by technology--and it's just a tool to them. They don't worry about breaking it, and if they do, it's replaceable. They are not into authority at all.
Many have created their own identities in virtual worlds like Second Life where no one knows if they are 12 or 45 or younger or older.
They process information differently. They absolutely know they can figure out anything using Google or another search engine. They don’t need to memorize facts or figures or dates, since it’s easier to “google” it.
They are impatient, energetic, live on their cells and text their friends constantly. Frankly, most of them don't get what worries traditional tree hugging, camera toting journalists about the seismic changes in the industry. They figure they’ll figure it out…and they likely will.
They are news consumers but have no brand loyalty. Though they generally don’t read newspapers or watch TV news, they do get information from a variety of sources, and a lot of it. They will spend hours working on something they feel passionate about.
Our traditional approach to education has to adapt with them. We need to become nimble, adaptable and flexible, and in light of Michigan’s budget situation, entrepreneurial, as well.
Got any ideas?? Let me know.
