The State Department’s Study of the United States Branch recently awarded its first grant for international journalism and media faculty education to the College of Journalism and Communications.
The College is using the $275,000 grant to fund the newly created Study of the U.S. Institute on Journalism and Media, a six-week program beginning June 10 entitled “New Freedoms in Media: Teaching the Digital Journalism of Tomorrow.”
“The excitement and passion the University of Florida has shown in designing and planning this program is very evident,” said Adam Van Loon, a program officer in the State Department’s Study of the United States Branch. “We’re delighted to be working with the College of Journalism and Communications.”
Eighteen journalism educators from around the world will spend four weeks in Gainesville, a week in South Florida and a week in Washington, D.C., and New York. Among other topics, they’ll examine the media’s role in America, journalism’s potential in their countries and online communications’ influence on the international community.
The countries represented are the Democratic Republic of Congo, Argentina, China, Rwanda, Turkey, Russia, Czech Republic, the Ukraine, Macedonia, Zimbabwe, Vietnam, Cameroon, Pakistan, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Croatia and the Slovak Republic.
The participants – some of whom will be visiting the United States for the first time – bring a great deal of experience teaching and practicing journalism. Besides educating and training students, some of them have conducted research, edited publications, written books, created curricula and coordinated projects, among other professional endeavors.
The participants will benefit from the “skills and knowledge [they’ll] acquire and be able to disseminate,” said Prof. Sylvia Chan-Olmsted, principal investigator and associate dean for research. “The U.S. will also benefit, as better-informed audiences in the participants’ countries lead to more productive relationships.”
The institute goes beyond providing new tools. It aims to inspire such actions as the promotion of a global free press and engendering interaction among members of the media, said Prof. Emeritus Kurt Kent, the institute’s co-director.
The participants will produce news and multimedia blogs and take a close look at diversity in the United States. They will visit a Habitat for Humanity project and African-American, Haitian and Hispanic media operations.
To help them prepare for the program, the institute has set up a Web site.
They are among the 30,000 people who participate annually in State Department exchanges, which include the Fulbright program.
The experience is about more than exchanging knowledge and sharing viewpoints – it’s about establishing long-term, two-way relationships, Kent said. “Our faculty members will learn from them while they’re here, and afterwards.”
It’s also about the future, he said. The participants will have an impact on their countries’ next generations of journalists and media professionals.
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