Big week for Goshen College media department

GOSHEN — Last week was big for The Globe, Goshen College’s radio station, as well as the newspaper The Record and Globe TV.

Friday was College Radio Day, prompting 24 hours of live on-air announcing at the radio station that has a frequency of 91.1 FM. The 61st birthday of the station was Wednesday.

The biggest news though was the announcement of a new Goshen College Center for Media Arts and Journalism on Thursday. The liberal arts Mennonite college outlined how the massively successful communications department is coming together in new ways by August 2020. A $1.18 million building project will convert Newcomer Center on the south side of campus into joint space for students to edit, write, layout and broadcast.

The radio station is in the newly renovated Union Building, the first major building renovation since President Rebecca Stoltzfus started in late 2017. Finding a home for the communications program was also a priority for her.

This second major project will bring together students who are working at media convergence. Aside from the journalism coming out of the new center, the college’s chapter of Public Relations Student Society of America will manage events and social media.

Tying together the journalism and communications work of GC students so that radio, video, writing and photography are published or broadcast in multiple channels has been underway for the past several years, but the Record staff worked in one space on the north side of campus, the radio station is at the top of a narrow set of stairs in the Union and the video production is now in the basement of the Good Library.

Meanwhile, professors’ offices are in Newcomer. (In full disclosure, I worked for The Globe when I was in high school and am an adjunct journalism professor in GC’s communications department, teaching about a class a year.)

Over the past decade, GC has become a bit of a juggernaut when it comes to radio, television and newspaper awards. It’s not like those resulted in the new building the way a new stadium sometimes results from a team’s success, but the great new facility certainly won’t hurt students’ efforts to tell stories and makes GC even more attractive to potential students.

The Globe has won three national titles as the best college radio station in the country. Aside from the wins in 2011, 2013 and 2017, it has been a national finalist nine years in a row from the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System and has nearly won more times. In addition it’s won six Indiana titles for being the best college station and students have won hundreds of individual awards.

“They care an unusual amount about the radio station and their work,” said station manager and professor Jason Samuel. “They can work well together, but they can also do their own work at a high level.”

The Record, advised by professor and department chairman Duane Stoltzfus, has been named the best college newspaper in Indiana two of the last three years. Globe TV won state titles five times starting in 2004.

What is central to all the classes, all the work and the awards is storytelling.

“We’re training students to be storytellers,” said Samuel, “and use whatever medium is at their disposal.”

A year after Samuel became professor and station manager in 2003, The Globe shifted from a classical-music format to one that he dubs “culturally progressive.” That can mean folk, rock and Americana-style music. That change was a big one and has propelled the station and college into the community in key ways.

The Globe has helped secure excellent performers at the college’s Music Center and downtown’s Ignition Garage and Goshen Theater in recent years.

Students feel ownership of the station and the work they do, said Samuel. I’ve seen the same of students in my classes and in work for The Record and video production for FiveCore Media and Globe TV. Stoltzfus said in the news release announcing the center that “we hope joy and learning will meet up on the way toward educational excellence.”

At its best, that’s what any education does and higher education should excel at that as its students do the same.