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SWEPCO
$40,000 grant to fund digital TV studio/lab
LSUS
broadcast journalism students will soon have their “hands
on” a new state-of-the-art television studio/lab.
Digital equipment, such as cameras, microphones and
non-linear editors, will be purchased thanks to a three-year
$40,000 grant from AEP SWEPCO.
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Gregg
Trusty/LSUS News
KTBS-TV News videographer Rod White
(left) listens along with LSUS and SWEPCO representatives
to a question from a student in the audience
following a mock TV interview announcing a three-year
$40,000 AEP SWEPCO grant to equip a new television
studio/lab in Bronson Hall. Participants are
(from left) Dr. Jack Nolan, professor and chair
of the Department of Communications; Dr. Johnette
McCrery, assistant professor of communications;
Tristan Gilley, junior communications major;
Dr. Vince Marsala, LSUS chancellor; Kimberly
Jacks, junior communications major, and Brian
Bond, Louisiana/Arkansas president of SWEPCO.
Bond is a 1981 LSUS graduate with a degree in
natural and applied sciences.
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The
LSUS Department of Communi- cations announced the grant
and plans for a new lab in February at a mock “broadcast”
from the distance learning class room that will be converted
into the lab. LSUS broadcast journalism students Tristan
Gilley and Kimberly Jacks interviewed Brian Bond, president
of SWEPCO in Arkansas and Louisiana. Bond graduated
from LSUS in 1981 with a degree in natural and applied
sciences.
In response to questions from the LSUS students during
the “on-air” interview that simulated what
is seen regularly on television news broadcasts, Bond
said SWEPCO is committed to helping educational institutions
in a wide range of disciplines, especially those that
will have a direct and immediate effect on the community.
LSUS Chancellor Vince Marsala commended Bond and SWEPCO
for their on-going commitment to higher education and
for taking a leadership role in helping make the LSUS
broadcast journalism program competitive with the large
universities.
“SWEPCO’s support of this and several other
outstanding programs,” Marsala said, “is
helping LSUS build a reputation and be recognized for
our academic excellence locally, regionally and nationally.”
McCrery,
sons to join
husband, dad in D.C.
Dr. Johnette McCrery and her two sons will move
to Washington,  D.C.,
perma-nently this summer to join their husband
and dad, U.S. Rep. Jim McCrery (R-La.-4th).
The move is part of a “package decision”
the family made for the congressman to run for
re-election to the seat he’s held since
spring 1988.
Dr.
McCrery will join Ketchum Public Relations,
the seventh largest public relations firm in
the world. She will serve as a Vice President
of Public Affairs in the firm’s Washington
office.
Dr. McCrery has been part of the LSUS faculty
since fall 2000.
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Dr.
Johnette McCrery, an assistant professor of communications
who teaches broadcast journalism, said the department
intends to have the new TV studio/lab in operation by
the beginning of the fall semester in August. Formerly
Johnette Hawkins, she worked professionally as a broadcast
journalist in Texarkana and Shreveport for KTAL-TV and
KTBS-TV.
“The equipment we are buying with the SWEPCO grant
is similar to the equipment used by our local television
station news departments,” McCrery said. “We
are educating and training our students for the high-paying,
professional jobs in broadcasting – reporters,
anchors and news directors.”
Dr. Jack Nolan, chair of the Department of Communications,
said the lab will provide accurate and up-to-date simulations
of a real-world work place, making students more marketable
to local media.
“This lets us offer a more complete education,”
Nolan said. “The only thing that’s really
holding us back is the lack of equipment. We’ve
taught them the theory, but now we can give them the
practice.”
The students who conducted the interview with Bond are
both juniors in communications concentrating in broadcast.
Jacks said she enrolled in a bachelor’s degree
program at LSUS to receive a liberal arts education
and learn the professional skills needed to be a successful
broadcast journalist. She wants some day to be a television
sports anchor. Gilley aspires to be a movie maker and
said he believes his professional education in broadcast
journalism will help him toward his goal.
The grant will produce opportunities for LSUS students
to get training with professional equipment before other
students in their field. LSUS also expects more students
to enroll in the communications program, and plans to
offer an advertising curriculum are being developed.
“We’re working on an advertising program,”
said Jorji Jarzabek, an instructor of communications
who teaches speech, theater and television production,
“and this lab will definitely help with that.
With the new equipment, advertising majors may be able
to make their own commercials sometime farther down
the road.”
The parent company of Southwestern Electric Power Company,
American Electric Power owns and operates more than
42,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the United
States and select international markets and is the largest
electricity generator in the U.S. AEP is also one of
the largest electricity utilities in the United States,
with almost five million customers linked to its 11-state
electricity transmission and distribution grid. The
company is based in Columbus, Ohio.
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