New classroom offers multimedia opportunities

Students in UW–Madison’s School of Journalism & Mass Communication now have a classroom that will keep pace with their multimedia training.

The James L. Hoyt Multimedia Classroom lives up to its name, offering a state-of-the-art multimedia system that allows instructors to use the latest communication technologies while teaching students about them.

It’s also one of the first on campus to include a system for recording audio and video from lectures given in the room, which can then be shared online.

The classroom is named for Hoyt, an emeritus professor of journalism and mass communication with a focus in broadcast journalism, who served as director of the school from 1981 to 1991. He had a wide-ranging effect on his students through the years.

UW-Madison graduate Jill Geisler, a former news director who now works for the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, recalls first meeting Hoyt in 1967, when she was a high school student attending a summer journalism workshop and responding to what she calls his “infectious enthusiasm.”

Hoyt, then a graduate student, gave Geisler a 16mm silent film camera to shoot a story on campus, teaching her to marry words with pictures and igniting her interest and passion for broadcast journalism.

“There are legions of working journalists who are probably doing better than they dreamed they could because Jim Hoyt believed in them,” she says. The multimedia classroom “represents Jim’s enduring journalism values and his interest in journalism’s future.”

One of the primary classes taught in the room is Journalism 202, the introductory course for all journalism majors that exposes them to a wide range of media. The school was a national leader in curriculum reform, launching the unprecedented converged multimedia course in 2000. Before the room renovation, students had difficulty seeing presentations and participating in class, says faculty associate Katy Culver, who teaches the course.

“We had this groundbreaking new class but a room that was the equivalent of a manual typewriter,” she says. “Now the space fits the goals of the course, forward-thinking, adaptable and fully digital.”

The remodeling was funded by grants from a commitment by Learfield Communications to fund scholarships and technology on campus. Continuing support for improvements will come from the new James L. Hoyt Excellence in Journalism Education fund, administered through the UW Foundation.

“Jim supported innovative and inspiring teaching throughout his time in the school,” Culver said. “He was an outstanding mentor, so I’m proud his name is on this room and this fund, which will help us continue to evolve and thrive.”

The school will dedicate the classroom on Friday, Sept. 24, with an opening reception for alumni from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in 2195 Vilas Hall, 821 University Ave.