The new Stan and Madeline Stauffer Multimedia Newsroom in the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas is a tangible example of the School’s commitment to providing students with cutting-edge skills for real-world media. The newsroom allows journalism students in campus media to create news for different media outlets, all in one room.

“We teach our students to practice in today’s converged media workplace, so we thought, why not let them learn it in a hands-on environment like the Stauffer Multimedia Newsroom,” said Interim Dean Ann Brill. “We are focused on teaching the traditional values of journalism here, but we also are becoming increasingly known for preparing our students for the changing trends in media.”

The symbol of the new media landscape in the Stauffer Multimedia Newsroom is the convergence table (also called the “amoeba table” for its unusual shape), which contains workstations for the University Daily Kansan, KUJH-TV, and KJHK radio news. Here, students from the different campus media outlets work together. The amoeba table also features workstations for students in the Online Journalism class, who help other students in various journalism courses get their stories from class published in the Kansan or aired on KUJH or KJHK.

Professor Rick Musser is manager of the Stauffer Multimedia Newsroom. He works with Dick Nelson, KUJH-TV newsroom coordinator, and Staci Wolfe, multimedia newsroom coordinator, to run the newsroom.

“The goal is not only to enhance the news-gathering capabilities of the campus media, but also to improve the educational opportunities for students,” Musser said. “This is a learning laboratory. The real test is how much and how well people are learning.”

The newsroom also features a training lab with 12 eMac computers, as well as broadcast and editing facilities for KUJH and KJHK. The Kansan newsroom remains in Stauffer-Flint Hall, but at least one Kansan staffer works at the amoeba table.

Construction on the newsroom began in May 2004 and was completed in September. In the future, the School of Journalism hopes to further enhance the technological and educational offerings in the newsroom.

For more information about the Stauffer Multimedia Newsroom, visit the School’s Web site at www.journalism.ku.edu, or contact Jennifer Kinnard, Communications Coordinator, at 785-864-7644 or jkinnard@ku.edu.