 "Photo: Zayil Cuaya")
It didn't take long for the tables to turn. Students who came to meet new School of Communication Dean Don Heider, Ph.D., and ask questions about the school were soon answering Heider's questions. The event, hosted by Beta Rho, Loyola's communication honors society, was a chance for students to learn about the new School of Communication, but nearly half of the time Heider asked the students questions.
"I appreciated the fact that the new dean wanted to hear back from the students and have them share and talk to him," freshman advertising and public relations major Lizzy Mack said.
Before the event, the Phoenix had a chance to ask Heider a few questions.
Phoenix: You've taught at multiple universities all over the country. What, from your experiences at those schools, would you like to bring to Loyola's new School of Communication?
Don Heider: I mean, what's funny is there's no model I would try to take and impose on Loyola. I think what you try to do, having taught at American, Ole Miss, University of Colorado, University of Texas and Maryland is you sort of draw good ideas from all of them. Then you try to bring those good ideas to bear on what's good here. So what I'm trying to do is bring some ideas, but also, sort of harness the faculty that's here.
There's been a Department of Communication here for a long time, and it's sort of grown and added people. I mean, that was the other thing that appealed to me about launching a new school. It seems to me the perfect time to be launching a School of Communication because the industry, all the industries - are going through a revolution.
I mean there hasn't been a bigger change in communication in … probably since Guttenberg, honestly, because when we introduced television there was a change. But it wasn't this big of a change.
It's changed everything. It's the way you talk to your friends. IM and e-mail has completely changed the way we communicate interpersonally. It's completely changed journalism and how we're getting information through the Internet. It's changed advertising.
So it's a perfect time to be rethinking how we're teaching these things, and are we still pertinent? Just doing everything the way we've done it for the last 50 or 100 years probably isn't the best approach.
There are great things in those approaches. There are great ideas that we have to carry forward. How can you teach a journalism class and not talk about the impact of the Internet and the impact of instant communication, 24-hour news cycle [and] new business models for media?
I guess part of what I bring to the table is this idea of pushing on traditional structures to get myself and others to think a little bit outside of the way we've always done things.
P: The School of Communication is moving [to the Clare building on the Water Tower campus]. What changes or opportunities do you think this will bring for students?
DH: I think it's great. I think it's going to be great to have the school downtown because we're going to be a lot closer to most of the media industries, whether students are interested in working in corporate communications, public relations, advertising [or] journalism; most of what happens, happens downtown in Chicago. Very little happens in Rogers Park.
So I think just being closer, to get better guest speakers, to get more adjuncts and to get students opportunities to intern and also new part-time jobs. I think it opens up all that, just us being downtown.
I think our new space will also give us some labs we control. There's going to be a new convergence space that we're going to build out. So I think the physical space in the new building is also going to give students a better learning atmosphere.
Faculty will control that space a bit more, even what software's on the computers and what access students have to some of those computers. So I think all that's going to positively affect students.
P: You mentioned the convergence space. What exactly is going to be there?
DH: What we're hoping is, right now, the vision is to have a little TV set so we can do newscasts that probably we would stream on the Web. We would have a little radio interview set for WLUW so that if you were interviewing somebody famous, let's say, and you didn't want to hide them away in a studio some place, but you wanted to be able to be seen from the street, you could do it.
One of my goals for the school is I want us to, maybe as early as next fall, launch a Web publication that would be staffed by students.
It wouldn't be a student publication like the Phoenix because the Phoenix is owned, operated by students.
This would be operated by students, but faculty would sort of help manage it because what I want to do is have classes funnel their stories. Just like if you took a basic reporting class, some of those stories would get on the Web.
We would send all our reporters out from some of our basic reporting classes with recorders and cameras so they could also publish pictures and sound bites.
The Phoenix also has an interactive element, but I want this to be for freshmen [and] sophomores funneling content in through course work, basically. That center for doing that would be all those computers; monitors and TV monitors would be in that space as well.
So my idea is it's a dynamic teaching space and lab space so that when anybody walks by on the street, they look through those windows and something interesting is going on; students are there working.
P: How do you think Loyola's School of Communication ranks in comparison with other Chicago schools?
DH: I think it's a hidden treasure. I think people have known about it, especially the Department of Communication, for a long time, but Northwestern's sort of built a real powerhouse. Not just in communication studies, but in journalism and in integrated marketing communication.
Then I think there are other great programs in Chicago. There's Roosevelt, there's Columbia, University of Illinois in Chicago, University of Illinois in Champaign.
I think there are a lot of good programs around here. I think we are considered to be one of the good programs. What I would like us to do is become even more distinct and be known as one of the leaders in Chicago.
On Jan. 21, 2009, Loyola's School of Communication will hold its grand opening for students and their families.
In March there will be another opening for the public. Faculty members hope the events will be an opportunity for students to present individual projects to the public while introducing the new school.
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