Kent State University - School of Journalism and Mass Communication

WHAT DO OUR STUDENTS NEED TO KNOW?

The Media are in a state of flux. Old forms are struggling. New ones are thriving. Social media are booming. Credibility is wavering. Traditional news platforms daily are losing money -- and players. Professionals in all media are hustling to learn new mindsets and skill sets.

While experts scramble to find innovative and profitable business models for the industry, media educators across the country are debating equally perplexing questions. Chief among them: What exactly do our students need to know to survive in this evolving, and sometimes hostile, media environment?

The issues certainly are hot topics at Kent State. JMC faculty and administrators have been debating what should be taught, how the curriculum should be changed, or, if it should be changed. The basics of what Kent JMC has emphasized for 80 years, of course, will never change: honesty, fairness, accuracy, responsibility.

On the other hand, new technologies and new delivery

systems across our professions have all of us thinking and working hard. Here's a package of stories produced by The Co-Lab class of Kent JMC. In the first section, faculty and administrators weigh in -- in videos and narrative -- with their views on that critical question: What do are students need to know today and for the future? We examine the issue for all JMC majors: news, public relations, advertising, electronic media production.

The second section asks what's being done with the curriculum right now and explains why changes sometimes can take longer than we'd like.

And, in the third section, we wondered how prepared for the new, digital environment some recent grads felt. So, we asked them. Here's what they had to say.

The links below will guide you. Or, you can get started by clicking here.

--Danielle Wiggins