Convergence project prepares students

AMANDA FINNEGAN STAFFWRITER

AJF724@CABRINI EDU

English and communication students are blowing away the competition thanks to Cabrini’s newly refocused convergence practicum. With Cathy Yungmann, the associate professor of communications, taking the reins, students are making tremendous advances in the world of communications.

The convergence practicum is comprised of eight seniors and juniors who act as liaisons to the five advanced communication courses in the department. The liaisons serve as managers who strategize and organize as a group to bring together all the forms of media to tell the story of this year’s topic, immigration and globalization.

The advanced classes include journalism, writing for publication (fiction and non-fiction), photography, radio and video. The task of the five advanced classes is to provide creative works on the topic. The goal of the group is to then combine all of the different media features onto a DVD and website during the spring semester

The program is just another example of the English and com- munication department’s philosophy of letting their students experience all of the aspects of the department, not just one.

“Myconcentrationincommunicationsis radio and video. SofarIhavelearneddifferent t hingsaboutjournalism,photographyandgraphicdesign,” Bobby Maro, a senior English and communication major, said.

In many larger universities, students are put on a set track within their department and are kept on that track until graduation.

Cabrini’s English and communication department is the first in the nation to do a convergence program this advanced. Although the program is a recent addition to the English and communication department, the idea is not a new one. “We’ve been doing this for over thirty years. Big schools are just starting to catch up with us,” Yungmann said.

In the past two years, the course ran just one semester but Yungmann found it was too much work in such a short time. This year, the practicum is being run in two parts; one in the fall and one in the spring, to divide up the work load.

One of the purposes of the practicum is to provide a useful marketing tool to grasp the attention of potential students and their parents. The end result gives just a mere glance of what the English and communication department is capable of achieving.

The other objective of the practicum serves as more of a long term purpose some of the students. “Ourgoalis to put together an attractive project that can be used for portfolio samples for those students who contributed to the project,” senior and English and communication major, Shawn Rice, said.

Yungmann knows that many employers expect college graduates to be well- rounded in their field and to be experienced in all mediums. Through the convergence practicum, Yungmann is helping her students achieve this goal. Yungmann said, “This is really cutting edge stuff. Very few schools are this advanced. We’re riding the wave of the future.”

Loquitur welcomes your comments on this story. Please send your comments to: Loquitur@yahoogroups.com . The editors will review your points each week and make corrections if warranted.