RTV Department
Broadcast to add new faculty line

By JACOB LIVINGSTON
J-School Web Reporter

photo by Sarah Galbraith

Professors Ray Ekness, back center, and Denise Dowling supervise the news brief that RTV students prepare for Montana PBS Mondays through Fridays. Ekness and Dowling also teach four additional classes.

While the workload for a student at the University of Montana can seem overwhelming, a professor’s workload is often overlooked.

The Department of Radio-Television at UM hopes to alleviate some of the weight on current faculty members with the addition of a new full-time position starting in the fall of 2007.

“Over the past number of years the number of students has gone up, and we needed another person to help out with it,” said professor Ray Ekness, chair of UM’s radio-television department. “What we are looking for is kind of new for the school, and the professor will be teaching some new classes as well.”

In addition to the three current full-time faculty members, six adjunct professors work for the department — teaching classes in broadcast and production throughout the year.

“It’s a really small department as far as teachers go,” said Heidi Hayward, a UM senior in RTV and the student representative on the committee creating the job description. “I really admire them for having done such a great job. Especially with the workload they have had.”

The full-time professors handle four classes apiece per semester, a heavy workload that keeps them all busy, Ekness said. The RTV program has 40 slots available per year for students: 20 in broadcast production and another 20 in broadcast news. About 70 sophomore students vie for those slots, Ekness said, and the school needs to expand to meet those demands.

“I think that growth is something the school is going to have to look at,” he said.

The job description is still in development, but the committee in charge of hiring the new professor is considering the requirements for future applicants.

“The faculty member will have to be capable of multimedia instruction in broadcast news and editorial, Internet, and flexible enough to deal with changes as delivery systems and types of content evolve,” said Jerry Brown, dean of UM’s School of Journalism.

The department would keep the current adjuncts and hopes to expand the existing curriculum based on a new professor’s experience.

“I’m looking for someone that has been in the newsroom and made the jump into station Web sites,” Ekness said. “And, is sort of a techie person.”

Also, the committee wants to find someone who can teach across journalism options to work with all of the students within the journalism school. That will be easier for professors once the new journalism building is completed late next year, since the building will house all the journalism departments under one roof. Any student in the journalism program would have the option of taking the new classes taught by the new professor, Ekness said.

“We need someone who can take what the students are doing, and present what they are doing, in new ways,” he said. “And, sort of take the professors along as well.”

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