NEW DIRECTOR
Thor Wasbotten, the new JMC director, meets with former director Jeff Fruit, assistant professor Danielle Coombs, associate director Greg Blase and senior secretary Sharon Marquis. Wasbotten assumed duties as director July 1.
“I’m pleased to see Thor’s interest in strengthening our graduate programs and ensuring that they all receive the resources they need to maintain the highest quality,” he said. “That will be a great benefit to our online master’s degree program for journalism educators, which is the only one of its kind in the country.”
“I’m not one to say that things are going to be difficult; they are what they are. You have a focus, you have a vision and you build consensus, and I think that things will happen the way they need to happen,” Wasbotten said.
Wasbotten believes in focusing on the student experience in three areas — academics, extracurriculars and professional opportunities. “Student media gives students an incredible opportunity to understand their professions prior to their graduation,” he said. “We’ll try to maintain that experience for them. There are other opportunities within classes where you can identify opportunities to help students still grow professionally and still grow academically. “If we’re really focused on the student experience, that will allow us to help the faculty to be as strong as they can be, help us to offer the right curriculum and give us the opportunity to build a lasting education for the students who are coming here.” Wasbotten is definitely confident in the talent at Kent State, and he wants to let the world know.
“Everything from letting people know all the incredible things that our faculty has accomplished, what our students have done and incorporating that with our Web efforts, our mobile efforts, our social media efforts — we need to do a better job with that,” he said.” We need to go from an institution that is well known in Northeast Ohio and spread that out. Our message needs to be heard in California and Oregon and Florida and Spain and Italy and China and every place else.” These first few months at Kent State were a learning curve for Wasbotten. He wants to be a comfortable fixture in Franklin Hall, but he also wants to push the School to the next level.
“I’m excited,” he said. “I think there are certain things that will work really well and certain things that we will need to reassess and address differently,” he said.
Jargon | Fall 2012 | Issue 1
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