Day offers view of Communications
Campus Times
February 21, 1997
Today, the University of La Verne Communications Department presents
its sixth annual Communications Day. This is the day for high school and
community college students who are interested in the communications field
to see the campus, and experience how everything works in the field.
Students will have the opportunity to ask keynote speaker Beverly White,
field reporter for NBC-4 in Burbank, questions. White's address is titled
"The Best and the Worst of Times."
More than 480 invitations were sent out to schools within a 50 mile
radius, although each school can only bring up to five students plus one
adviser. Reservations were required since ULV could only accommodate 175
people.
The Communications Department showcases its work through seven workshops
and the students choose the two they wish to attend. All workshops, 45 minutes
long, are offered twice. Included are ethical decisions, graphic designing,
journalism, photography, radio, speech and television.
"It's an open house," said Dr. George Keeler, associate professor
of journalism and chair of the Communications Department. "We've been
working on this since September of last year. We are showing the students
why they should attend ULV through workshops."
Professor Michael Laponis will work with those students who are interested
in radio. "The students learn how to be on the air and do commercial
production," said Laponis.
They do hands-on learning and work the audio console. "We hope
that they (students) learn all the aspects of communications through this,"
said Laponis.
The students will learn everything in KULV studios A and B and will
get a chance to do a live production on-air which can be heard over 550-AM,
KULV.
For those students who are interested in television productions, they
will learn all about the world of television from Don Pollock, associate
professor of communications, and his crew workers of intermediate and advanced
broadcasting students.
"The LVTV truck will come out and the students will get a chance
to do mini productions and perform as a crew," Pollock said. "We
do a news show where the students read off the teleprompter doing current
news, weather and sports."
"Although doing the news is not as much fun as doing talk shows
as have been done in the past years, it helps them to focus," Pollock
said. All of this happens in the Dailey Theatre.
After lunch, the students go in the TV Lab and watch their own work.
Assistant Professor of Journalism Eric Bishop takes the students through
'Tough Decisions,' an ethical decision making process on the media. He leads
a situational ethic discussion and poses ethical questions to the students.
The debate team will have the chance to show what it has learned from
ULV. In this session, the debate team splits in to two and is given a statement
that is argued passionately about what they believe in. It is a stand-up
argument on both sides and then they rebut. A decision is made on who wins
the debate. Bob Rivera, assistant professor of speech, will conduct this
session and give the students watching a chance to ask the debate team questions.
Dr. Keeler is in charge of the Newswriting session.
"We show what we do that can be helpful to students who's interested
in newswriting," he said.
The students are taught how to improve leads and writing stories. They
will experience it all by writing leads using fairy tales. "I will
make a skit and they [students] will write a story," said Dr. Keeler.
The Graphic Design session is a crash course in introducing the elements
of graphic designs. "We talk about the basics of design and lay-out
and access things on the computer," said Rebecca Hamm, instructor of
graphic arts, who is the conductor of this session.
They will make a lay-out program on the computer and build their own
design.
"This is good for any student who plans to go in to communications
because we communicate not only verbally but visually," said Hamm.
Gary Colby, associate professor of photography, will direct those students
interested in photography.
"You really can't teach the students anything in 45 minutes,"
said Colby.
But they will get a taste of it by going through a compositional exercise
on the Polaroid camera. They will also be given a tour of the photo labs
and use a digital camera.
After the workshops a catered lunch buffet is provided in Davenport
Dining Hall for all participating students and advisers.
Informal tours are also available for anyone interested in seeing the
communications facilities.
Eric Borer, communications assistant, coordinated the programs and helped
with the 12 month organization process of getting the workshop to perform
well.
"We have as many students coming today as before and it is exciting
and extremely successful to see this many people interested in our department,"
said Laponis.
"This benefits the University as a whole because the students are
able to see the campus and integrate with current ULV students," said
Michelle Vergara, associate director of admissions, who helped plan the
day.
She plays the role as liaison between the Office of Admissions and the
Communications Department. Planning the meals, the financial support, providing
names of the students and schools, and making sure all of this is provided
to the students for free is part of what she does to ensure a successful
day.