PLANNING FOR GROWTH IN YEARS OF RESTRICTED RESOURCES

oth theory and practical applications. Students take classes in a “core” curriculumemphasizing writing and critical thinking skills. Upon successful completion of this“core” group of classes, students have the opportunity to choose a particular area ofexpertise, called an “option,” to hone his or her skills leading to a degree and a job inthe profession. n addition, the department runs a closed-circuit television station,WCRH-TV. There is a fiber link to another channel that is shown on the local cablesystem within Delaware County, Indiana, home to Ball State University. This fiber linkallows the department’s daily newscast, NewsCenter 43 to be seen by the residents ofthe county. NewsCenter 43 is produced entirely by students with faculty supervision.At this time, there were nine half-hour newscasts per week. Eight of them are on avolunteer basis. A senior-level news option class produces one newscast. The studentsare responsible for managing the station and producing these newscasts. All follow thetenets set forth by the Radio and Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) inclasses and enforced by the faculty. This means following the Code of Ethics establishedRTNDA. Any student may work on the show, but all must be trained in all aspects ofthe production. This means that any student who wants to be on the air must alsoshoot, edit and run many of the studio jobs, such as audio and videotape playback.The purpose of this is to make certain that all students leaving with a bachelor’s degreefrom the Department of Telecommunications will be able to enter an entry-level newsoperation grounded in the basic skills required by a news organization. With companiesbeing acquired and news staffs either merging or being reduced, along with technologyeliminating many manual positions, a graduate in today’s market must be able to workmultiple positions.Many of the classes in this option involve working with professors who have abackground in news gathering. Among the faculty at Ball State University are: SteveBell, former anchor of Good Morning America; Bob Papper, a former news director formany stations and a leading researcher in news; Phil Bremen, a former NBC Newsforeign correspondent and local news anchor; and, Diane Girbert, a former morningproducer at WTHR-TV in Indianapolis. With these faculty leading the way, theDepartment of Telecommunications has established itself as a place where newsoperations in smaller markets come for graduates. Many of the graduates from thisprogram have found entry-level jobs in the Terre Haute market, so the brand name isthere.The professors’ function during the time period when the professionals were at BallState was to take advantage of the situation. In the Telecommunications building werenews pros that could lend a hand and talk to students. The professors let theprofessionals come to class and talk about the business, work with students on classprojects, and answer any questions about the business including how to get entry-leveljobs.The best way to evaluate this type of cooperative agreement is to get feedback fromthe participants who worked on it. Here are some of their comments:Mark Allen, WTHI-TV Anchor. “We set up a mock newsroom. The students servedas news reporters, news producers, news photographers, and news director. We thendecided on a “news story” to be covered. Taking students through this process gavethem the chance to be part of the newsroom setting, and gave me some insights as tohow younger people think regarding news stories and news coverage.”BEA—Educating tomorrow’s electronic media professionals 68