Virtual Information Session - Communication

Good afternoon and welcome to this virtual open house for Buffalo state's communication Department my name is doctor Debra Silverman and I'm the Department chair and I'd like to welcome you to this virtual edition of our usual open house in the spring semester I'd like to start out by talking a little bit about the communication Department is the fourth largest academic Department at the college behind business in criminal justice in psychology and on the screen you can see a picture there of our building in buckham Hall were located.

On the first floor where the largest Department in the school of arts and humanities and currently we have just under 500 students in our 5 degree programs we offer bachelors degrees in media production public relations advertising journalism communication studies and we also have a Master of Science degree in public relations as well so off a little bit more about our Department first thing is that we have small class sizes most of our lecture classes have fewer than 30 students in.

That may be a change you know if you've been visiting other colleges and looking at how they are organized and larger universities you might be finding yourself in a class that has 100 students are more I used to teach at the University where there are many more students in my classes I had sometimes as many as 120 students and to be honest you don't get to know the professor you don't get to know the other students as well so we have smaller class sizes we have a number of skills classes such as media writing on some of our media production courses.

And those are capped with a maximum of 16 students so you're really going to get that individual attention from our professors we are we have an emphasis on service learning in our classes and what that means is that you learn about communication by serving the community for example if you're taking a public relations class you're going to be working with a real public relations client maybe it's a nonprofit organization in the Buffalo area so we have that an that's true across most of our degree programs certainly in the journalism program there are service learning courses where they also go out into the community.

Archon 4 or 5 classes are online newsroom for example that definitely does a lot of reporting in the city of Buffalo and there are other classes across our curriculum as well that are tide into the community like that we also have strong ties to the local media community through a number of different ways you can see on the screen there's a picture of our meet the professionals night where we bring in local journalists and public relations professionals and others who come in on an evening in October to meet with our students and the students can bring the resumes and ask questions about careers in their fields so we do that.

We also have media professionals as guest speakers in our classes on a regular basis were always inviting people in whether they're alumni of our programs or other local media professionals and we also have a fairly new alumni Advisory Board for the communication Department many of those are as it sounds like alumni of our programs we also have some not alums who are on the board and they also work in the media here in the Buffalo area.

We also have a strong emphasis on internships and if you're wondering how that works when you're a junior or senior if you've taken the prerequisite courses you can go out and do an internship at a TV station or maybe a public relations agency or work for one of the maybe radio station or television news Department so forth and gain a lot of practical experience and we believe very strongly and internships because internships will help you get jobs and we believe that that's important for you we also have a number of student media organizations we have a student newspaper.

A radio station a television station and our chapter of the public relations student Society of America and all of those normally have activities that are on campus course right now we're working remotely so that's not the case but even tonight Barb TV has an event tonight that's going to be doing on on line In addition to the student media organizations we have our chapter of the communication Honor Society which is Lambda Pi ETA.

Besides all that we have research opportunities for you are undergraduate students can take part in our student research and creativity conference which is held in may or the communication department's fall form in November graduate students there can also take part in the graduate student research fair which is in may and a lot of independent study opportunities for you where you can work one on one with a particular professor on a research project or a creative project and that's 1 of my students there Madeleine whose was at the student research and creativity conference.

Another point for you is that our program has to programs have to meet very high standards accreditation is what I'm talking about here 3 of our degree programs all of the 3 that are professional sequence programs have accreditation from the accrediting console on education in journalism and mass communications is very prestigious only 117 schools across the United States had this kind of accreditation there are 9 in New York state including us and you can see a couple others on the screen but we're very proud of that.

And what it means is that our standards for our students are very high the programs have gone through a very rigorous review process by outsiders who who come in and last November we went through this review process and we had a site team that came to campus in November met with our students met with the faculty looked at our programs and we are being recommended for reaccreditation for 6 more years with the next review on 2025 tomorrow there's another vote the final vote but we're it's looking very good so we are going up for reaccreditation.

Again we're really proud of that it makes us stand out.

About our facilities and this is something you'll see more of when you get on campus but as I mentioned earlier buckham Hall is where our Department offices are located we also have computer labs there each of those with approximately 17 to 20 computers stations in them we also have a one button studio and audio lab for our students in our faculty and the buncombe labs are primarily for the for the writing in the editing classes then over across campus in the Savage building we have our television studio and editing suites there and 2 computer labs there.

And the Sabbath lab labs are designed mostly for our media production students and also the students who are in the colleges television film arts program.

We do have some plans in place to move the television studio in the control room in the editing suites over to buckham Hall because again as I said there off camp there across the campus right now we'd love to have everybody in one building and if we can do that in the future we would like to add a sound stage in a viewing room.

If you're interested in the scholarships there are a number of those available through the college or through our Department you're eligible for those you could see those on the screen there I can provide more information offline for you if you're interested in any of those but just so you're where we do have some scholarships?

Now let's talk a little bit about our academic programs because that's probably what you're most concerned about and have some questions about as I mentioned earlier we have 5 degree programs the journalism and the public relations and advertising media production communication studies and those are all bachelors degrees and then after you complete the bachelors degree in may want to go on to get a master's degree in public relations and that program is already on line and there's a link on the web page there to our website but you can see that in more detail but I'll go through some of the basics with you now.

So all of our students in all of our undergraduate degrees the for bachelors programs have to take these courses that you see on the screen we ask him to take media literacy intro to oral communication intro to media writing an intro to visual communications so again all the students in the bachelors programs take those then beyond that each major has 14 courses required for the major including those 4 courses I just talked to you about we call those are core courses and then there are the required major courses.

And then there are electives in the major so that's how that all totals up so you have the major courses and you have the core courses and then you have some non communication courses and this is the thinking here we love to have you take communication courses but our accrediting body tells us and this is a good thing that you want to take a number of non communication courses so maybe it would be art history or music or a science course and the reasoning there the rationale is that we want our graduates to be well rounded in the liberal arts.

So as you sit down with the faculty advisor you'll be checking the degree we called degree work to make sure that the student is taking those non communication courses and again english and music in history I remember a few years ago when I was advising one of my undergraduates in public relations and she told me that she wanted to go and start a career in Nashville working for in country music public relations and I said Ashley that's just like the coolest thing but you know what have you taken any any music courses here at Buffalo state and I looked at her degree works and she said Oh.

No said Ashley go over and take a music or so she signed up for American Music and she told me was a really good course and today she is down now working in Nashville by the way.

So that's just one story but again there are a lot of others but it is a good idea to take the non communication courses.

Now more specifically about our degree programs we have a bachelors degree in journalism and it prepares students for careers in print journalism broadcasting on line and you can see on the screen there there are a number of different job opportunities you can be a Reporter you could work is it right around a website or have a writing a blog or writing for a magazine so job titles really vary a lot and we have a number of our graduates working in Buffalo across the country reporters anchors news directors and so forth for radio and television stations and.

And all of that so a lot we're very proud and that's 1 of our older programs by the way journalism we've had in place probably will probably close to 40 years.

Public relations and advertising this program used to be called public communication we renamed it recently this degree prepare students for careers in public relations advertising and social media so again if you're interested in working in social media this would be a really good degree for you to think about because every public relations person these days has some kind of social media responsibilities or works in a Department with someone who has that kind of responsibility and in fact I myself I'm teaching a graduate course in social media this summer.

Graduates here work is public relations specialist or social media specialists and advertising maybe there copywriters they might be researchers writers even in fund raising and so there's a lot of job opportunities in this field in agencies and nonprofit organizations by the way not profit is a big area where you can use your degree in this field schools and colleges I worked in college public relations for a long time before I became a professor corporations small businesses the healthcare field.

And the technology sector and many more opportunities for you then there is media production this degree prepares you to work behind the Camera maybe you were thinking about a career and audio or radio or maybe video or television production or post production and as you can see on the slide here the graduates in that field can work in a wide variety of job titles producers and directors technicians for films and radio and television stations or cable networks or production companies and in a number of independent organizations that produce content for the Internet.

On television film this is a growing field just like the PR advertising and social media field is because you have so many more opportunities in video production today for example you might work in a PR agency but doing just the videos for that agency and so that's a growing area of interest and again one of our bigger majors.

Then there is communication studies this is all more liberal arts based program and so here you may think about a career in research or organizational communication or speech writing or media analysis or lobbying and many of the students in this degree program will go on to Graduate School maybe they're going to law school many times we do see students go from the communication studies bachelors after they get that degree will go on to law school and I put this in red on the screen if you are thinking about going into journalism or public relations or media production you shouldn't be in this major because you need that specialize.

Training that the other 3 degree programs do provide so those are the bachelors programs I want to quickly talk about a few others for you again after you get your bachelors degree you may want to think about the Masters in public relations degree this one is 100% online I am the director of it this program was established several years ago and it prepares students for more advanced careers in the public relations field we've had students in this major from a wide variety of majors undergraduate majors.

And I'm an I'm asking I'm seeing a question here from Paris and I'll answer that one right now if you wanted to be on a radio show like a podcast would you recommend media production yes I would definitely recommend that there are in fact a couple of our courses do kind of teach students how to work and develop a podcast so yes you're absolutely right the media production major would be something you'd be interested in.

So keep asking questions and I'll look over here and answer them as I go up the minor is speech is something that uh students from other majors may want to think about a little bit enable students to develop their public speaking skills and presentation skills more so again if you're thinking about going on into a career and political science or law or education or social work anywhere where you're going to be doing persuasive speaking this might be a really good minor for you to think about adding.

As your student at Buffalo state and then another one I might want to mention here is our certificate and sports communication and this one you take a series in this 18 credit hours of sports related communication courses we actually do have for example a sports PR course but there are others and these courses will prepare students for careers as sports broadcasters or reporters TV sports producers sports PR specialists working with a professional sports team.

Bloggers and so forth college sports information directors even the front office jobs in sports oriented Association so if you're thinking about sports com you can do that as well and if you do the certificate in sports com you would be majoring maybe in media production or journalism would be in one of our bachelors programs bachelors degree programs but she would also take these these courses so that you could earn the certificate as well.

And then the last thing I'll briefly mention here is that we do take part in interdisciplinary majors in other majors across the college and you can see those on the screen and that's something kind of specialized I'll be happy to talk to you offline about that but it is something that you can think about if you're more interested in something interdisciplinary so that takes me and I'm looking now at the questions if you wanted to start your own film company yes media production would be good we do have some some of our graduates who are.

Interested in that very same thing and our alumni have gone and started their own film companies. The Television Film Arts program is more of a narative type of thing that there's more of an emphasis on the storytelling and you'll be taking courses in English and theater if you're interested in the television and film arts program, so it's more of the story writing and acting and all of that sort of thing. The media production again, is more of the behind the behind the cameras type of thing. I hope that answers that question. That's a really good one too.

Please ask more questions now I'm here to answer them as best I can for you and I don't know which majors you're thinking about. But again, the four bachelors degree programs so.

Do you have some more questions for me?

OK this is good if my majors in communication and I want to be in PR advertising do I just take those classes now you actually would major in public relations and advertising I've had a number of students that started out in communication studies but as they got into their sophomore and junior year of college they began to realize that what they really wanted to do when they graduate.

Is to work in public relations. And again, there's so many jobs. If you think about a number of different types of organizations that need communication people, but to do the PR, there are so many different opportunities there, so you could. You could just simply come to the communication Department office if you started out in communication studies, you could switch into the PR advertising program. In fact, that's what a lot of students do, because when they come in and their freshman year, they think initially that all communication studies is where I should be. And then they think about it a little more and they realize after they've taken.

A couple of courses at Oh. I'm thinking more about PR and advertising, but again, that's a very good question there and you could certainly switch.

Graduation rate of media production program. That's a good one. I don't have the statistics in front of me. I can tell you that our media production students are employed all over the country. We have alumni working in Hollywood. We have them working in New York City so I can tell you that much. I would have to check on the on the graduation rate about that music production. We do some of that. We have audio production courses and there is information in the music Department. They have their own music production courses so.

You might want to look at the music Department as well as the media production program, but certainly the media production program could could fit the bill for you.

And of course, is that you would be taking if you go into media production. We have that information on the website, but there are there are courses such as basic media production and then intermediate audio, intermediate video, advanced production studio work, field production. So those are those are some of the different courses you might take if you go into media production.

And then the interest and OK. Now, Joan, I'm reading. Here's my main interest is in documentary filmmaking. However, I would like to have broadcasting experience as a Plan B. That's a great idea. That is a great mix, and the media production would teach that which you could do I would do if I were you would be to major in the media production program because you get that documentary filmmaking background. And there are also broadcasting courses, and some of those are in the journalism area, but you could certainly take those journalism courses so.

Definitely, that's that's very doable. Very, very doable, and I think the broadcasting background is a great Plan B.

If my major is journalism, what minor classes would I take? Like psychology? Yeah, that would be something you'd sit down if your major is journalism. You would definitely take some minor classes. Psych psychology 101 comes to my sociology 101 comes to mind. You would sit down with your faculty advisor to decide what other courses you would need to take in those courses like psychology or sociology would be once you take to fulfill your what we call general education requirements or intellectual foundation requirements. So that would definitely come in there and.

Those would count in that category I mentioned called non communication courses that would fall into that category. Two is equipment provided. Yes you can check that out. You know we have an equipment room and so if you're taking our media production courses like you know, maybe it's one of our advanced production courses. You would check out the appropriate equipment in our equipment room.

And what immediate production major prepare you for a job in radio? Yes, we have so many of our students that have gone into Radio One of my former students is now working here in Buffalo for Entercom Radio, which is WGGR and that group. So yes, that would prepare you for a job in the radio business and we actually have a course called talk radio talk television, which is a really cool course. And again, that would prepare you really well. As part of that major.

And as it Keasbey, that's, uh, not. Probably not a strange question. 'cause I agree with you, we've been talking a lot about castles. Question here. Strange question. But if covert becomes a recurring issue, will classes be on line? Yes, that's a possibility. Like every other college across the country right now, I tell you, I spend every day watching the governor's news conference to see the latest information about how cold it is impacting New York State. And of course, across the country.

And so right now, most of the colleges in America are in a holding pattern for wondering what's going to happen in September and October. I can tell you that our Department is already preparing for a couple of different scenarios, right? Because we might be 100% on line, or we might have a partial option of some classes being offered on campus. We might have all camp all classes back on campus is normal, by the way. We do have a couple of courses that are always on line, but the Masters Degree program, for example, is always online.

But there are a handful of undergraduate classes that are already on line, but classes would be on line. We're all hoping to be honest. We love teaching in person. We are all hoping that we can go back to campus in the fall, but realizing that we're all going to have to do the social distancing. And if we do go back on campus, that's going to be the reality for all of us.

And let's see what else can I ask the right of work placement in the media production? Again, I don't have that statistic. I'd have to look for that, but I can tell you that our our media production graduates are doing very well if you know if you want to email me after that, I can try to get that information for you from our media production faculty. Albert, you're asking. A good question. Will someone be able to help me choose courses from for music production? Yes, if you major in media production and you're interested in that music aspect of it, yes, then that faculty member, your faculty advisor would be able to help you to choose the courses from music.

But these are great great questions, so please if you have some more questions, I have us more time if you'd like to ask more questions.

As you're thinking about more questions, thanks Jonah. Would you consider music media production major to be more do-it-yourself course or a guided course?

I'd say it's guided, uhm, the media production faculty. We are so fortunate to have the faculty that we have all of our majors, and I would say that it's very much guided like there is a curriculum with required courses. And as you meet with your faculty advisor.

The first question, your advisor is probably going to ask you what do you want to do after you graduate from college? Is one of my favorite questions to ask my student Advisee's. And so if you tell your faculty advisor would like to go into music production, then your faculty advisor can help you to guide you through to choose some electives to help supplement those required courses. So I would say it's more guided. Isn't are there often help with the course? We mainly now we don't. We don't want to leave it to figure things out.

Has that we want to make sure that you're you're getting the guidance that you need from all of us were there to help you. I were so lucky to have the faculty that we do and they spend the time with each student.

See who do I contact about switching my major PR advertising? You can email me Elena and I can certainly make sure that that will happen and I can make sure that we get you the paperwork and we can do it all online because we're doing everything on line at the moment. So we can certainly do that to make sure you switch your major into and this by the way, it goes for any of you. If you want to change majors after hearing do this presentation, I can certainly help you with that.

The success rate for music production of Buffalo State.

That that, again that's more of an interdisciplinary program. But it's something that again I can. I can ask our media production faculty to see and they can give you examples of some students have gone into it. If you are interested in talking to any specific faculty in any of our majors, I can connect you with them, and they can either do a telephone call with you, or maybe they can zoom and do something on video chat like zoom. I've been living on zoom lately, so we'd be happy to talk to you individually.

Ask questions of those faculty.

And can you do a minor this not related to your major? Oh yes, absolutely. I mentioned the speech minor, but there are a number of other minors of Buffalo state that are kind of might be of interest to you. For example, the writing minor that's run out of the English Department. But you know, if you're thinking about going into a field like journalism or public relations or advertising, you might want to have a writing minor. So that's a really good question. Again, this is something that your faculty advisor, Ken.

Give me some guidance about and when do we decide classes with our advisor. We have orientation during the summer and that's when you will get advice from the faculty and will do this again on line this summer I believe, but again, you'll be doing that over the summer.

And then you'll be assigned to an advisor in the fall.

And so if you're enrolled in media production in the Honors Program, John, I think that you would probably have two advisors. I think that's how that works. You will certainly have one on the media production side, and then the two advisers would coordinate. The honors advisor would coordinate regarding the honors requirements. The media production faculty advisor would assist you with that part of it, but we would sit down both advisors, the media production and the honors advisor would all be. We'd all be looking at the same.

Program on the computer is called degree works and we will be looking at your information to see what courses you're required to take to fulfill all of those requirements. But that's a really good question.

More questions.

And let me just advance this to the last one. I am available and I'd love to.

To talk to any of you with more information and the sign up for classes, you know the registration did begin earlier this month, so I would believe and I'm going to leave this to Shannon to answer that last question, I believe that you can start signing up for classes fairly soon. We'd love to have you sign up. We'd love to have you join us. My email address is on the screen there and of course, our admissions office has a 2 an. Again, we'd love to talk to any of you individually if you want to talk to any of our faculty in our majors.

They can give you more specifics about their degree programs, but we look forward to hopefully seeing you on campus this fall and let's Cross our fingers about that right because we would love to be back on campus in the fall, but we will certainly be ready to do and be prepared to do anything.

What is the S80 averages for applicants? That's a college wide question Shannon. I'm going to ask you to answer.

That one for the student evanesce. Good question there, but us 80 averages. I don't have that information, but I'm hoping admissions can provide that one.

Hey can everyone hear Maine?

Yeah.

Hi Don

OK hey dad.

This is Tom Kranes from admissions. Uhm, I just wanted to come in and help out with a couple of the admissions related questions that everyone had. The first one about classes. If you are a first year student, you will actually be contacted by an advisor within the next couple of months, hopefully as they just sort through everything going on with covad, but they're going to get in touch with you to make your class schedule.

What historically happened is they just made the class schedule for you, but at this point they're actually going to reach out to you, so you can make the class together with them so that you're all set for the future. So that's what's happening with classes.

And then there was another admissions question I believe essay T GPA averages for applicants the average student who's accepted to Buffalo State has about an 85 GPA in a 1080 on the essay T that is just the average profile we obviously accept well above that and below that as well. But that's just the average. We take a holistic approach to reviewing applications, so we're going to look at not just your GPA in your essay T or AC T scores.

But we're also going to look at your letters or recommendation your college essay how you've done on your Regents exams, all of those types of items as well.

Tom looks like there's another question about who the two advisers would be. This is regarding the honors program and and the media production I guess.

So for the Honors Program, it's going to be doctor McMillan. Doctor Amy McMillan will be there to help you with any everything, honors and then specifically what was the other program.

The other would be the media production program.

Yeah.

For media production you would be assigned, you know, as far as your academic advising you be assigned. Someone with a faculty member within that program to help you guide you throughout your four years or Buffalo State a man that's coming from Joanne I believe so. Joanna, you would be assigned a faculty member within that Department. The reason we do that is because obviously they're the most up-to-date with the curriculum. Through spending any changes, and so we assign you a faculty member within your major to make sure that your.

In all of the correct classes that you need to be to get you graduated on time.

And then what about transfer students, will they? Will they contact me?

So I'm assuming this is uhm Elena is this in relation to making your class schedule. I believe that's what you're asking about and if it is transfer students need to actually go online and complete the pre registration. Tutorial Shannon can actually get you that link while I'm talking right now and put that in the chat for you, if you haven't already paid your tuition deposit. You do need to do that.

I'm Joanna, an. I'm not sure if you have I can look up your file after here, but if you haven't that would be the first step. After you paid your tuition deposit, you have access to complete the pre registration tutorial which is just an on line tutorial. Takes about half an hour. That shows you how to register for classes after you complete that successfully, you'll be emailed a pin number and then you'll be able to log into banner. I'm going to actually register for classes and you know specifically about who your advisor is. All you need to do is log into your degree works.

And you're assigned advisor will be in the top right hand corner with links and contact information with the email address and the phone number for your advisor.

I think Albert you had a question do when you pre recs for music production and is it a two or four year degree? If you're looking at media production that's a four year degree program. Now I'm not sure if you're looking at something within the music Department. In addition to that and then again, that's not my area so you have to check with the music Department on that and any prereqs that would be in the music department for the music piece of it. In our Department I mentioned before.

Communication core courses that those are kind of function is like pre recs for getting into our 300 and 400 level courses in media production. I hope that answered the question. Is there another's questions?

If you have any other questions for me, Please send me an email. You can see it on the slide there and the missions can send your questions to me as well. And like I said earlier, if you would like to meet with a specific faculty member or someone in one of our degree programs, you know maybe a phone call or some kind of video chat on zoom or whatever. We can arrange for that as well, but we're all happy to talk to you so we're all working from home.

That's a great point dub in just a sort of reiterate and follow up and add a couple of more details with that, about an hour after this presentation concludes you all are going to receive an email from the admissions office. Obviously, thank you for attending today's presentation. But we're also going to put several useful links in that email, the contact information for the admissions office is going to be there, so we're currently taking phone calls emails, we actually have a texting line as well.

And then the contact information for the communication Department and.

Doctor Silverman as well will be in there. So if you have context specifically or questions rather specifically about your program or next steps in the admissions process, you can certainly utilize those links. If you have questions about you've been accepted but you want to formally enroll, submit your tuition deposit, move forward with any of your next steps, were able to help you with that.

Anymore questions this has been fun. I'd like to do this again.

To offer for agreeing to meet with me virtually, and I hope to see you on campus very soon.

And since it doesn't seem to be any other questions, we're going to conclude today's presentation again. Thank you so much for attending. Will look to hold something again soon. You'll also in the email that you get after this, they there will be a link with all the virtual options we have. So whether you want to speak directly to an admissions advisor you want to set up a one on one video appointment, anything like that. Just feel free to utilize any of those links. Reply to the email and we're certainly here for you. More flexible, more supportive during.

These times, so we hope everyone enjoyed it and have a great day.