By Vivian Martin, Central Connecticut State University
Like their counterparts at large universities, faculty in smaller Journalism and Mass Communication programs are challenged with integrating multimedia storytelling and social media into their curriculum. The task is configured a bit differently than it is in larger programs though, so a priority for the Small Programs Interest Group (SPIG) continues to be programming that helps members respond to the need for changes in curriculum and teaching. After surveying our membership in 2008, we had a pretty good blueprint for how to proceed, and we have hit on a few things that seem to work.
The Best Practices showcase pre-conference in Denver, which featured five presentations chosen through a competition and attracted 35 attendees, is one of the ways we’ve helped our membership navigate this multi-wired world. The pre-conference format allows us to give more in-depth attention to issues ranging from when and how to introduce the first audio and video reporting assignments to the senior capstone. Some of our panels in Denver featured lesson plans on blogs and Twitter, as well. But the pre-conference seems to be in keeping with the ways in which faculty in smaller programs are used to stretching resources. During planning for the 2009 Boston conference, SPIG, in the spirit of trying to do more with our small number of chips, combined a couple of panel proposals on multimedia issues and created a pre-conference for Boston. With the membership’s urging, we decided to go for something bigger in Denver and expect we’ll be back with more pre-conference in the future.
The teaching content offered in the preconference would probably be useful to most any JMC educator. The challenge in small programs differs due to structure and mission. Although a few members teach in ACEJMC-accredited programs, many are in programs where they are the only fulltime journalism or public relations professor;in some cases that one professor teaches both, with three or four courses a semester alongside service and research. Structurally, the curriculum in programs with just a journalism minor or one faculty member who teaches journalism or public relations practice has fewer courses in a sequence. So, while a larger program might be able to spread the introduction of multimedia across several reporting courses of varying levels, the curriculum at a small liberal arts college might have Basic Reporting course and Advanced reporting and a few other regular specialties. The professor has to take care of multimedia in different ways than would a colleague in a larger program, where students might get three sequential reporting classes and separate multimedia reporting classes. When SPIG members get together we talk about multimedia strategies in curriculum where we may be the only one teaching.
And yet there are some real advantages to being small. People in smaller programs can and have made curriculum changes without having to deal with as many obstructionist colleagues (though they are in small programs, too). On the positive side, members are collaborating with colleagues in computer science, design, art, and other areas, relationships that may be easier to build on smaller campuses. What is apparent after each conference is that SPIG members like being where they are—in programs where they can roll up their sleeves and make immediate changes in the lives of the students.