Yeager Media Center

The Journalism Department has developed a plan for a Media Studio within Yeager Hall that would serve a broader number of students and allow for greater participation by journalism professionals interested in Mid-Career Seminar content. 

 The Yeager Media Center would have a far-reaching effect on the Journalism Department, the SDSU campus and the 350 students now enrolled in programs within the Journalism Department. A Media Center is necessary to further expand the department’s capabilities in training, outreach and education.

Training
The Yeager Media Center will allow production of training and educational videos that will be provided online to mid-career media professionals who wish to learn new skills or hone existing talents. The Yeager Media Center’s “studio-without-walls” concept will allow high-end, high-definition production to originate from any classroom in Yeager Hall as well as from the center’s television studio. Training materials will result from professional class visits, on-campus journalist-in-residence programs like the Lusk and Fillbrandt fellowships and other opportunities. In addition, the faculty and staff of the department will author and produce ongoing training materials suitable for use in classes and online. These training materials will be available when and where media professionals need them. From basic new media skills to enhanced storytelling and design skills, the Yeager Media Center will provide journalists and other media professionals convenient 24/7 access to continuing education and training.

Outreach
SDSU currently lacks an up-to-date high-definition television and new media production center. Upon completion, the Yeager Media Center would immediately become the primary center for SDSU campus television and new media production. Existing programs like “On Call” and new programs featuring on-campus activities and experts would be produced weekly in the Yeager Media Center. The center would produce student newscasts, SDSU promotional videos, athletics features, public health and Native American outreach programming. A major goal for the department is to establish a “Yeager Media Center” brand on campus, in the community, and throughout the region by providing compelling quality programming for both traditional and new media.

Education
The Yeager Media Center will complete the outfitting of Yeager Hall as a comprehensive journalism and mass communication education center unmatched in the region. Journalism and Mass Communication students will learn on the job as on-air talent and behind-the-scenes technical support for the broadcasts and new media content created in the center. Every student in the program will graduate with a comprehensive set of storytelling and media production skills. The academic enhancements made possible by the Yeager Media Center would help the department, through its cutting-edge curriculum, produce graduates who are ready to deal with the changing media industry.

“A Studio-without-walls”
The presence of a state-of-the-art media center within Yeager Hall would allow the Journalism Department to share content that is generated by faculty and visiting professionals who are funded through other programs. Workshops, presentations and classroom lecturers would create the content to be shared with working professionals. Among the sources of the content and professional expertise that could be shared by using the Yeager Media Center;

LUSK FELLOWSHIP: Each year, the department brings in a prominent journalist as an editor-in-residence under the Lusk Fellowship program. These accomplished journalists spend three days on campus, talking to student groups. Their perspectives and skills could easily be tapped as a source of informational and training materials that would benefit working journalists either via an interview in the Yeager Media Center studio, or by capturing a classroom presentation using the Yeager Media Center’s “studio-without-walls” capability.

GRADUATE PROGRAM: The department’s graduate program now includes more than 40 students. Most are mid-career journalists and media professionals who could, as part of their master’s program requirements, be encouraged to produce training materials. The current cohort of graduate students includes the chief designer at the Argus Leader, another veteran South Dakota journalist with both newspaper and radio experience, and a former nationally syndicated talk radio host with decades of news and sports media experience. These professionals represent a tremendous untapped training resource.

FACULTY: The department’s faculty includes experts in Native American media, new media, video storytelling, and media management. Production of professional training materials is recognized in the department’s standards document as tenure- and promotion-worthy activity.

EXISTING TRAINING SEMINARS: Each summer, the department hosts workshops for educators and media professionals as part of the annual South Dakota High School Press Association summer meetings. Those seminars are ready-made for capture and distribution using the facilities of the Yeager Media Center.

DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI: Each year, prominent graduates of the program are honored as distinguished alumni. Over the years, many have chosen to spend a day or two in classes before they are honored at our annual awards event. The studio-without-walls concept of the Yeager Media Center would allow us to capture their presentations in our classes for Internet distribution. In addition, we anticipate creating an archive of interviews during which those distinguished professionals will offer their views on an important topic of interest in their fields.

ONGOING RELATIONSHIPS: The department has strong working relationships with media from across the state and the region. In the past, those journalists have given their time to speak to classes, work with students and meet with the university community. This semester, editors of newspapers in Pierre, Mitchell and Rapid City have visited with students. Again, using the studio-without-walls concept of the Yeager Media Center, those prominent regional professionals could be asked to discuss skills or trends of great importance and those discussions captured and widely distributed.

With those existing sources, within the first two years of operation of the Yeager Media Center, the Journalism Department would plan to create a training series on newspaper design, new media and video production, storytelling, political reporting and media management. The offerings will change as the media landscape changes and in response to demand from working journalists.

The content would remain accessible 24/7 to enable mid-career professionals to train when it is convenient for them, and remove the impediments of time and expense that have led to reduced participation at on-campus training and visits.

For more information about Giving Opportunities for the Yeager Media Center, please contact:

Rina Reynolds
Development Director
Rina.Reynolds@sdsufoundation.org 
Toll-free: (888) 747-SDSU
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