Story: By Terriana Richardson

The Strong Hall building is home to Montevallo’s mass communication program, where students learn skills of media professionals by doing that work first-hand. This often involves experiential learning and use of professional equipment. However, program officials say there has been a big adjustment to maintain industry standards, while emphasizing safety by following COVID precautions.

“We are a hands-on program, very experiential-based, so we’ve had to get creative in ways to try to maintain that and keep that going,” mass communications professor and program coordinator, Dr. Jay Cofield, said. 

ValloVision News & Falcon Athletics are just some of the few newscasts run by students and professors. This means extra COVID precautions have to be taken in order to continue these newscasts.

Some of those changes include only having the anchor in the studio during the show to promote social distancing, wearing masks, and cleaning equipment with special solutions more regularly.

“Like everybody else we are looking forward to the end of this, but we’re making the best of it right now,” Cofield said. 

Additionally, many classes are being taught remotely, including the ValloVision News newscast. Instructor Danielle Deavours adapted her classes to remote learning due to having to quarantine for her medical condition.

“It’s a unique situation where my students need to be in-person to get the industry-level experience we require at Montevallo and to use the professional-level equipment we have. However, I’m teaching them from home. It has required using technology like Zoom and Canvas to communicate more regularly, as well as a lot of patience between students and staff,” Deavours said.

Deavours said despite the challenges, the program is seeing success.

“Thankfully, we have an excellent team in the communication department that is working together to ensure our students are getting the experience they need. We are producing great content, both for ValloVision News and our sports programming. Our top priority, though, is always the safety of our students and faculty,” Deavours said.

ValloVision newscasts begin in mid-February. You can view ValloVision News on their YouTube channel.

For more information about the mass communication program, visit their website.