Jon Morris provides overview to current media situation and how that impacts us as faculty

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Jon Morris, chair of the College Faculty Senate, is the leader and moderator of today’s discussion of the media’s future and curriculum.

He’s providing a context for our discussion with statistics and developments.

Here’s what he says we are up against:

Jon Morris used the Sunday Gainesville Sun to illustrate the traditional model of financing newspapers, where advertising (all the brochures on the floor) provide the majority of funding for the newspaper production.

* Advertising – Loss of audience and sources
* Journalism – Loss of circulation, weak online use
* Public relations – The impact of blogs and Twitter
* Telecommunications – TV rating issues, Internet radio, TV online

Traditional Media – Outward Focused

The Internet – Inward Focused

“We need a strategy for moving forward,” Morris says.

He challenges us to think about what we stand for as a college and then what can we do in our departments and how we can work together as departments.

UF colleges must develop Student Learning Outcomes and assess those

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Dr. Mike Weigold, the college’s dean of undergraduate affairs, reminded us that our college, along with all of UF’s colleges, must establish Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) for their undergraduate education. This is a critical part of the university’s re-accreditation process.

Each college must establish SLOs and develop a process to assess each SLO. Ultimately, the college must have three years of data on students.

Last year, the four departments in the college — Advertising, Journalism, Public Relations and Telecommunications — developed the SLOs and began the discussion of assessment. This year we will begin assessment and maintaining that data.

Faculty in College of Journalism and Communications spends day hearing from media professionals and discussing how our curriculum can help prepare our students

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I have my iPad and bluetooth keyboard for typing and my iPhone for taking photos during today’s faculty kick-off. The CMIR is wireless, so I’ll be able to post as the meeting progresses. Photo by Debbie Treise

The faculty in the College of Journalism and Communications is having its fall kick-off today. We’re meeting in the Center for Media Innovation & Research (CMIR. This morning we are discussing trends in the media industry and are having media professionals share with us. Then in the afternoon the departments will be meeting to discuss our curriculum and preparing our students for the changing media industry.

I’ll be blogging as the day progresses. I thought you’d be interested in hearing this discussion.

Getting ready for a new school year to start at the University of Florida

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The University of Florida Orientation for New Graduate Teaching Assistants takes place in the Reitz Union Grand Ballroom. Here’s the iPhone panorama I shot from the back of the auditorium before I made my presentation at the 2011 orientation.

I know a new school year is about to start when it’s time to work on the presentation that I’ll be making as part of the University of Florida’s Orientation for New Graduate Teaching Assistants.

Dr. Ken Gerhardt, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs in the Graduate School, and Dr. Winifred Cooke, Teaching Center Director in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, coordinate the program, and have invited me to be one of the presenters.

I’m delighted to be part of the program. My topic is “Your Syllabus and the First Week of Class.” As part of being a presenter, each of us is asked to develop a handout to be part of the packet of information the teaching assistants receive. I wanted to be able to include the URL to this teaching blog, so I’m launching the blog today.

You can see from the number of grad students in the photo that UF counts on teaching assistants to be an important part of university instruction. This was the group who attended the orientation last year. Typically UF has about 350 to 400 new teaching assistants each year. I’m glad to help them have a good start to their UF teaching.