Knight Chair Lecture series gets a successful start

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The first “Fall Knight Chair Lecture,” launched this semester at the School of Communication’s Common Ground patio, generated wide interest at the University of Miami, from the English Department to the School of Education.

Rich Beckman, Knight Chair in Visual Journalism and a faculty member of the visual journalism program at SoC, started the series with his lecture, “Staying Relevant: The Challenges of Teaching in the Digital Age.”

Beckman emphasized the importance of collaboration and team effort in this new age and said multimedia storytelling should be seen as the means to create high quality of journalism. “I don’t teach software. I teach them [students] how to use them [software] to tell stories,” he said. “Our job is to help our sources better tell their own stories.”

Beckman said openness to learning is also a key element in teaching effectively in the digital age. “We have no choice but to retrain people to teach in this new environment,” he said. “Be willing to learn from your students.”

Knight Chair Lectures are sponsored by the Knight Center for International Media. Joseph B. Treaster, Knight Chair for Cross-Cultural Communication and a faculty member in the journalism program at the School of Communication, will present the next lecture some time during the spring semester.

© 2008 University of Miami School of Communication