School of Communication, Art & Media

The School of Communication, Art & Media is comprised of the Department of Communication, Journalism, and Public Relations, the Department of Art and Design, and the Department of Cinema and Media Arts.  Its foundation together with a strong liberal arts curriculum pursues the methodology through which thoughts, ideas and imagination are placed into a spoken or visual context. Students pursue academic courses that emphasize and strengthening their ability to organize and refine communication.  While each discipline is unique they share commonality with a regard to historical purpose, intentional expression, redemptive storytelling and elevating transformational experiences that impact generations.

Internships in Communication, Media, Public Relations, and Sports Broadcasting

The School of Communication, Art and Media encourages students in our major areas of study to consider undertaking a professional internship as part of their course of studies. The majors in Journalism, Sports Broadcasting, and Public Relations require an internship. Students must be enrolled in the internship course concurrently with the job site experience. Integral to the course is a classroom component that requires 1.5 in-class contact hours per week with the instructor or the equivalent in an online version of the course. Students who fail to complete the academic portion of the course will not receive academic credit for the site work segment of the class. Students must match the appropriate professional experience with their major and with the course number. The appropriate internship courses are COMV 4711 -COMV 4714 for Communication majors, PRLV 4733 for Public Relations majors, SPBV 4723 for Sports Broadcasting majors, DMPV 4713 for Journalism and Cinema Arts majors, or THEV 4713 -THEV 4716 for Theatre majors.

Before a student makes arrangements for an internship position at an organization, he or she must first seek the approval of the instructor of the appropriate internship course. To do this, the student should complete an Internship Prospectus Form, which may be obtained from the Office of the Dean. Once the instructor grants that permission, and only then, the student may conclude arrangements with the proposed organization. While the School of Communication and Media will assist where and when appropriate, it is primarily the student’s responsibility to arrange for the industry position.

An internship requires at least 30 hours of site work over the course of the semester for each credit hour granted. For example, a student registered for the COMV 4713 must perform 90 hours of supervised work at the job site spread out over the course of the semester.

Media Productions

Students and faculty in the Cinema Arts, Sports Broadcasting and Journalism programs collaborate in the creation of television programs, music videos, short narrative motion pictures, documentaries, commercials, broadcast news reports, sports broadcasting, and writing for student publications. The faculty desire to engage students in mentoring relationships in which students apprentice with faculty to learn production skills and techniques. Faculty design these experiences to mirror as much as possible the standards, practices and procedures employed on professional productions and publications. Students who show themselves faithful and skilled in carrying out responsibilities in lower-level production positions can expect, as they matriculate through the program, promotion to higher-level opportunities. Productions that the faculty judge of sufficient quality are regularly submitted to various film and video festivals and contests, which in the past have resulted in numerous awards. The School of Communication and Media is also responsible for the publication of the student newspaper, The Beacon.

Equipment and Facilities

The School of Communication, Art, and Media uses state-of-the-art media production equipment. Students in lower-division broadcast journalism, sports broadcasting, television, and film courses learn basic camera skills on professional formats. Depending upon their track, upper-division students perfect their technique on broadcast quality, high definition video and/or film cameras. Production experiences include instruction in the use of professional lighting and grip equipment. Students use Avid systems for editing video before moving to a ProTools suite for sound postproduction. A television studio of approximately 2,300 square feet with a state-of-the-art control room serves as a home for classroom exercises, as well as for the production of ongoing news and entertainment television shows. Students can capture images on professional-grade, digital still cameras and edit their images on industry-standard software in a recently upgraded Mac Computer Lab.