Shiny new students and instructors

I’m looking forward to the new Creative Communications semester, which begins on Aug. 29 with a bunch of shiny new instructors.

Joanne Kelly will be my new colleague in the Journalism part of the program. One of our innovations will be an e-textbook for first-year students, consisting of five chapters of The New Journalist: Roles, Skills and Critical Thinking from Edmond Montgomery Publications. Yes, it’s Canadian.

The projected price is under $30, less than half the price of the entire dead-tree text – which we would not use completely, anyway.

In late September students will watch Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times, at Cinematheque.

I’ve seen it, and it’s well worth watching.

A bit of journalistic history, a bit of social media, and the beautiful new Times building, all seen though the eyes of a former crack addict, now a Times reporter.

Afterward, students will be able to discuss how Watergate and the Pentagon Papers relate to WikiLeaks and Twitter.

Also this year, the Manitoba election on Oct. 4 will generate a couple of assignments and will give me an opportunity to rail against the lack of civics lessons in Manitoba’s public schools and universities.

No worries, though: the CreComm curriculum will make up for it.

Other highlights include the city council and Remembrance Day assignments, back by popular demand.

And that’s just Journalism, one of seven required courses.

In co-operation with Advertising, Public Relations and Creative Writing instructors, some of them shiny and some slightly shopworn (but we’re all good friends; really!), the J instructors will work with the first-year students on their weekly blogs.

Students and instructors will also use Twitter and LinkedIn social media.

It will be a busy year – two years actually, for the whole program.

Abandon your lives, all ye who enter here!