Radio Course Gives Students On-Air Experience
By Amber Dorsey
Lemke Ledger Staff
Prof. Richard Stockdell has expanded the Lemke Journalism Department's broadcast program with a hands-on course called Advanced Radio.
The course is designed to expand the journalistic skills of students interested in advanced forms of mass communication. Students undertake projects related to particular aspects or problems of broadcast journalism, according to the course description.
“The idea of the class came from students,” Stockdell said. “They enjoyed the first radio class and thought it would be nice to have another one.”
Stockdell formerly taught Broadcast News Reporting II and TV Reporting, which made the radio class a little harder to put together.
“Robyn (Starling-Ledbetter) took over some courses and I looked more into the student demand,” he said.
He first taught the class in spring 2008, and has offered it three semesters since.
“I haven’t taught the course the same way each time,” he said. “Each semester I learn something new and come up with a better way to teach the class.”
This summer will be the first semester he hasn’t taught the course.
“It wasn’t supposed to be an every-semester course, but it just kind of happened that way,” Stockdell said.
As its name implies, the course is more advanced than the first radio course, Broadcast I, and includes more in-depth study. Each student is given professional equipment to work with to help them report stories.
Students are to focus on natural sound where appropriate to make stories more interesting for listeners.
“I teach them to focus on sound," Stockdell said. "Unlike television courses, you don’t have pictures to help you bring the story to life, so the students have to focus on the sound to do that and be creative."
The students write stories to be read by the news anchor on KUAF, the UA public radio station and NPR affiliate for all of Northwest Arkansas and the border communities of Missouri and Oklahoma.
Stockdell is the general manager of KUAF.
Even in the short time the course has been offered, it already has made an impact on the life of alumnus Lindsey Fields.
“One semester I taught the course and that following summer she asked to intern at KUAF,” Stockdell said. “Following her internship she then found a job in Kansas working on the radio station.”
Stockdell said that Fields initially was more interested in working in front of a TV camera, but once she worked at the station, she realized how much she loved working in radio.
“I think that it teaches students how fun radio is,” he said