Students gain field knowledge

 
Leading professionals and government officials amazed students and faculty at the annual Mass Communication Conference in Stewart Hall’s Auditorium yesterday. Mass communication majors and other interested students left conference ready to engage the real work force in the new media age.
Students and faculty all believed they learned a large amount from having professionals in their fields present at this conference.
“Students should have gotten great knowledge in their fields,” said Baton Rouge mass communication graduate student, Dorothy Watkins. She continued on with how she believe it was a success and how she gained a lot of tips from the Keynote Speaker, Mayor-President Kip Holden.
Mayor-President Melvin L. “Kip” Holden was a former student of the mass communication program at Southern University.
Wednesday’s morning conference theme “Operating in A Convergent Media Age” was discussed in Keynote speak  Kip Holden’s speech to the conference.
Most students were happy to have the presence of professionals from their fields, faculty and the chair of the department enjoyed the organization of the event.
“After the morning opening sessions all the three concentrations,  broke up into three separate groups and hear from real professionals in their fields,” said the mass communication chair Mahmoud Braima.
He also discussed how each year the conference is held a different Professor has to organize the event with a different focus of one of the three concentrations as the main focus.
​ “Of course it was a success, Dr. Campbell did a great job in organizing the conference,” said Braima. He went on to mention this year’s program was planned by Professor Yolanda Campbell.
Even though the conference is only held once a school year students in the undergrad and graduate program believe this conference should be held more often.
“It should be something they try to do every year because it gets better each time as well as having more people turnout each time,” said graduate student mass communication major from Natchez, MS Terry Briggs. He added that many non- mass communication students attended from all across the campus as well.
While some students would like to see this conference continue to be held others want to see of it could possibly be held once a semester.
“I think this should happen more than once a year,” said Keidra Myles, a senior mass communications major from Monroe, LA. She also hopes that next time there would have had less separation of speakers so everyone could benefit from their speeches.
Many professionals such as Michelle McCalope, Matt Williams, and Lauren Westbrook of WAFB, were in attendance as well as Professor Jinx Broussard of The Manship School of Communications at Louisiana State University.
Students in attendance were able to meet and network with these professionals in which could lead to future possibilities for experience in their fields.​
Faculty as well as students left with a sense of urgency and will to find more information on their job fields.
“Based on the feedback students were very attentive,” said Watkins. She continued on about how she was impressed with the questions by students.
​For more information on the mass communication department persons can visit their department in Stewart hall or check the Southern University website for additional information.