Feedback May 2002 (Vol 43 No 2)

Just as a balance is required between liberal arts and broadcast courses, within theirmajor, a good balance is required between theory, writing and production courses. Ifthe production load dramatically cuts into the student’s ability to perform well in otherclasses, the amount of production should be reconsidered. Unfortunately we have manystudents that are so excited about broadcasting that they slip in their other classes.Instructors must be observant and make appropriate adjustments perhaps on a studentby-studentbasis.The advantage of having a strong broadcasting skills element is that it may helpstudents perform well in internships and thus have a more “fluid movement” fromclassroom to newsroom (Hilt & Lipschultz, 1999, p. 18).Faculty and Staff Satisfaction or BurnoutJob satisfaction in broadcasting is linked to the opportunity to advance and also anindividual’s control over his or her work (Lipshultz & Hilt, 1999). These same factorsapply to broadcast faculty and staff. Broadcast faculty must be aware that while greatservice is provided to students through production experience, it may not be best forthe program to increase the faculty and staff workload. Faculty burnout may be aconsequence.Avoiding faculty and staff burn out can be resolved in three ways. Programs cansimply limit the amount of time faculty and staff devote to television production. Thisallows faculty and staff the needed rest from in-class projects. Another solution is totake on projects that generate additional revenue so that faculty and staff can be paidfor their efforts and not feel like they are being overworked and underpaid. The thirdsolution is to make sure the television production is on very intellectual or creative leveland faculty and staff receive satisfaction in the process of creating a great show. Toproduce a lot of mediocre programming through extra faculty and staff hours is notgood for the program nor the students.At some point the amount of television production that occurs on campus becomestoo large for one R/TV professor. When I went on leave I was somewhat proud of thefact that they hired two people to continue doing what I had done alone. It just sohappened that we had gotten to the point where I desperately needed an assistant toget all the projects done. Consequently we hired a staff position cable station manager.Now that person handles the “outside of class” requests for video production thatinclude projects like the university recruiting video, special summer workshopproductions and professional quality documentation of theatrical and sports events. Mystudents are able to assist him in these productions as an enhancement of the classroomand lab exercises.Interstudent Cohesion or DissensionIn order to get my students working together, I incorporated some team-buildingexercises including initiative games and low-ropes course activities. Bolduc (1998)describes some similar activities that helped to “fast start” his student video productiongroup, helping them to get to know one another and to build trust.From the beginning of the semester I stated that if the students could not worktogether on some relatively simple “games,” they could not produce quality television.The initiative activities forced the students to see that every position, whether directorBEA—Educating tomorrow’s electronic media professionals 9