Department of Communication; Courtesy: Avry Zow
By: Avry Zow
Beginning next fall, students at Montevallo in the mass communication program, incoming students and those that will be transferring in, will be seeing updates to the degree plan.
Dr. Bruce Finklea, Corporate Coordinator of Mass Communication at Montevallo, says the new changes for classes are about “creating the strongest program that we can.That will prepare students for not only entering the industry as it is right now, but kinda future proofing our knowledge and skills to the best of our ability.”
In an effort to expand content for M.C. majors, the program has adopted new names associated with certain core classes that reflect the new potential content for its students.
- M.C. 265 will go from Broadcast News Writing to Broadcast News Writing and Reporting.
- M.C. 300 will no longer be Advanced Journalism and will change to Feature Writing.
- M.C. 305 will turn from Media Writing into Digital Writing & Content Management.
- M.C. 455 will change from just Media Law into Media Law & Ethics.
However, some classes will now require a pre-requisite with a C or higher to go further in the program:
- M.C. 200 will satisfy the needs to take M.C. 300 and 305.
- Students looking to take classes in M.C. 265 will need to have taken M.C. 200 and 210 prior.
- M.C. 327 will require M.C. 265 to enter the class.
The new degree plan also issued a rotation of certain classes only being available in the fall semester, spring semester, or every other year as well.
“ As far as the change with the course rotation, it was really driven by looking at enrollment numbers…and it gives our curriculum more flexibility in places to try new classes and do new things,” said Dr. Finklea.
This fall will introduce the newest addition to the M.C. curriculum in M.C. 405: Emerging Media, that will take the place of M.C. 460.
Dr. Danielle Deavours, one of the professors teaching this course in the fall, said the class “is meant to give students a broad understanding of new technology that is changing the way that we tell stories through innovation.”
“We were finding was that most students don’t go into media management until their second, fourth, fifth career. We felt that having the emerging media class will open up more opportunities earlier for our students once they graduate,” said Dr.Deavours.
For the current degree plan that is active for this spring semester, visit the Montevallo page.
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