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Laws Hall announces

Roger Sauerhaft

Just two weeks after the announcement that Laws Hall and Associates (LH&A), the popular interdisciplinary capstone that has been offered for 36 years, would cease to exist after fall semester, departments have now declared replacement options for students.

Miami University's department of communication, which had led the LH&A program in conjunction with the departments of marketing and graphic design, will now be offering its majors three new capstone course options to offset the loss of LH&A.

"The new capstone options are designed to appeal to students who may have enrolled in Laws Hall for different reasons and therefore have slightly different emphases," said Gary Shulman, chair of the department of communication. "They should also appeal to other students who never contemplated enrolling in Laws Hall."

The first, and the most similar to the old program, will be COM 414A. According to associate communication professor David Sholle, the course will be a mass/strategic communication production class that will have students working on a public relations case for a nonprofit organization in Cincinnati or Collinsville, Ohio.

This could include a public service announcement, instructional videos, programming designed for PBS, among other components.

"(We) put together a capstone that would be similar to the Laws Hall experience that mass (communication) students could get," Sholle said. "This class is going to work together with COM 459A, which is strategic communication, and it takes on a public relations case with a client. It's similar to Laws Hall as it combines two units: mass communication and speech communication. The class will be divided into teams, also like Laws Hall."

Another new capstone course, COM 414B, which will be taught by Sholle himself, will focus on professional documentary production.

"All people in the university can apply (to enroll in this class)-people from English, history, philosophy, journalism, and mass com, all participated in (getting from the president's office) the grant (for this class)," Sholle said. "The basic idea is that the knowledge and work that comes out of the humanities is important and the concepts can be applied to issues that affect the public."

Sholle added that he will also have students working on a documentary of their own choice during the semester using some of the new equipment purchased through the aforementioned grant, such as cameras, lights and tripods.

The third new option, COM 414C, titled Documentary Production, is new on the list of options, although it has been taught at Miami before.

According to Sholle, the class has been available at least three times now. In the past is has not been offered every year or every semester, however, it has been offered at least once a year for the last three years.

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In 2006 the class, specializing in producing a dramatic video, produced a film called RX, about an ethical pharmacist, and the piece won a regional student Emmy award.

According to a document given to all the communications majors, the process of making this documentary will let students explore all aspects of the making of an independent film such as working with a modest budget, working with actors and media professionals and working as a team to create an original work. It will not be limited to seniors, but seniors can take it as a capstone with instructor permission.

"At this point we have to assume that these are long-term solutions, or that they are a step towards long-term solutions," said Bruce Drushel, associate professor of communication. "A lot of the things we do didn't exist (here) 10 years ago. We will continue to develop things. There are things you can do when you've been deprived of an opportunity to continue with a very successful program like Laws Hall."

One program that is currently being worked on for a long-term option is an Inside London summer program, similar to the Inside Washington program that is currently offered to students, according to Shulman. He also said they are working on programs at other international locations.

According to Howard Kleiman, a communication professor, the majority of communication students are currently in "fine shape" with capstones.

Requirements for any capstone courses can vary, for example, mass communication majors can take any capstone they want, but strategic communications majors are more restricted. The courses themselves also have their own requirements, as do most capstones at Miami.

However, Kleiman did say LH&A had been the sole program in the communication capstones taught abroad.

This summer however, associate communication professor Stephanie Rollie will be traveling to Europe to teach speech communication in Luxembourg.

Kleiman said the department is currently discussing the next step toward developing a program that could be taught on a regular basis overseas.

"We're very disappointed, professionally and personally, not because we can't find other ways to spend our time, but for the students," he said. "The problems that led to Laws Hall being suspended are significant enough that we just don't see it happening in the near future. But we leave the door open-it was a good program. We'd always entertain (the idea) if marketing and graphic design come back to the table, because they left the table, we didn't. The allegation that our students are one-trick ponies about producing traditional television spots is demonstratively wrong. That's what disappointed us."