The start of a new year is here and 2012 presents us with the gift of 366 days as it is a leap year. Leap years probably remind most people of pending presidential elections in the United States. My personal interest in leap years is because my maternal grandfather was born on February 29, 1880, making him either 132 or 33 years old this year.

If you do the math, we have 8,784 hours this year. That translates into 527,040 minutes or 31,622,400 seconds during 2012 and this is exactly 86,400 more seconds than we had in 2011.

While leap years are interesting, the start of a new year causes most people to think about new beginning.

New beginnings are common in academia. We get to start fresh every term. That means we have three new beginnings every year on the Troy campus and five fresh starts every year on the eTROY campus.

Before talking about the fresh start being given to us this year, let’s take a look back at 2011.

2011 was a tremendous year for the Hall School. Our programs continue to grow and our faculty members worked hard to improve the value of Troy University’s Hall School of Journalism and Communication degrees. We added new courses and refocused many existing classes in order to make sure our programs remain relevant and cutting-edge.

The concepts of APJ/MMC (All Platform Journalism/Multi-media Communication) became the focus of our programs during 2011. You will see that APJ/MMC will continue being a driving force during 2012.

2012 is filled with great possibilities for the Hall School and our students. I hope that everyone will try harder to do the most with his or her time this year.

One of the realities of time is that what we do with our time matters. Make the most of your opportunities this year. Get involved with Troy’s student media. Attend meetings of our Hall School’s student organizations. Make sure that you understand the concepts and technologies we use in class instead of simply trying to slip by with a minimal effort.

I can promise you this for the 2012:

• The impact on your time in the Hall School will be positive if you learn how to thrive and not simply survive.
• Technology is here to stay. Embrace it.
• The Hall School’s standards will continue to be high.
• Get involved and be a student leader as this will help you set the course for your career.

I hope that you invest your time this year in things that matter and that you don’t waste your bonus day or the new year.

It takes fewer than 1,000 steps to move from Wallace Hall to Sartain Hall, current home of Troy University’s graduation ceremonies. Most students invest at least four years to make it into Sartain for commencement. For the majority, getting into the graduation ceremony is a challenging and emotional journey.

One of the emotional components of this journey is the feeling that you are moving away from a school and faculty that have been major elements in your academic career. While the Hall School of Journalism and Communication will always remain your “academic home,” challenges of the workplace replace concerns about Media Law exams.

Graduation forces a change in our student/faculty relationships. It also opens new doors and creates alumni/faculty friendships. It gives you a new role in helping shape the Hall School of Journalism and Communication’s future.

Dean Emeritus Merrill Bankester often said that our present success is not a guarantee for the future. His point was that we must always work to make sure that the Hall School of Journalism and Communication is the best program in the region. He showed us the importance of alumni support as he spearheaded the Journalism Alumni Association’s creation.

Increasing numbers of our graduates are discovering that joining the Journalism Alumni Association is a natural way to nurture the ties with their alma mater. It is a way for you to help build the school’s future and at the same time enhance the value of your degree.

Our school is brimming with talent and confidence. Its reputation, pride and alumni are its strongest recruiting tools. Our adoption of the APJ (All Platform Journalism) and MMC (Multi-Media Communication) models are making sure our graduates for prepared for the future. This coupled with the help and guidance given to the School by the Journalism and Communication Alumni Association continues to motivate and move the program to new heights.

If you have not joined the Journalism Alumni Association, please accept my invitation to become a member. I am sure that you will find it to be an honor to be involved with this vital group. Plus, your energy and dedication will help set the course as we move into a society where the roles between the media and audience are always changing.

The distance between Wallace and Sartain Halls is small. What is learned along the way prepares our graduates for careers in journalism. With your help and guidance and the JAA’s support, I am confident that the Hall School of Journalism and Communication will continue to celebrate the success to which we remain committed.

(Dr. Padgett published an earlier version of this posting in the Fall 1997 Hall Monitor.)

There is an old Vaudeville skit about George Washington’s ax. The basic premise is that the comedian holds up an ax and proudly states it is the very one used by George Washington when he chopped down the cherry tree. At that point, the comedian adds that the head of the ax has been changed six times over the years and the handle was changed ten times, but this is the actual ax held by Washington when he was a child.

I found myself thinking about this routine at Troy University’s Homecoming last weekend. There is a desire to reassure our program’s graduates that the Hall School of Journalism and Communication continues to stay-the-course and that we continue to balance academic content with our practical hands-on approach. While this remains true, the emphasis of our hands-on approach has switched to a digital model.

Yes, we remain the J-School and we are focused on being a relevant and cutting-edge program. That means we have adopted the All Platform Journalism (APJ)/Multi-Media Communication (MMC) models for our classes. While this may not be the “secret sauce” newspapers are currently searching for, it will help our students be prepared for the changing landscape facing today’s mass media.

A recent article in the New York Times talked about John Patton, the leader of the nation’s second largest newspaper chain. He met with his publishers, who were probably looking for a silver bullet to turn their corporate fortunes around. That didn’t happen. Instead, Patton talked about community involvement, cutting costs and going digital. That is a partial definition of APJ/MMC journalism.

Patton’s NewMedia properties are giving their reporters small video cameras and expecting them to create Web pages and to blog about their stories. While reading the report in the New York Times, I found it interesting how this major chain is paralleling our current direction in the Hall School. All students are involved in creating Web content and video is no longer the exclusive domain of broadcast students. We are APJ/MMC.

The founder of a well-known recreational vehicle company once said, “Let’s not make any changes – let’s only make improvements.” While talking with our graduates at homecoming, I was reminded that we haven’t changed our program, we have improved it. While some people may see it as nothing more than George Washington’s ax with a new handle, we are positioned so that our graduates are ready for the industry’s new APJ/MMC digital directions.

The Hall School of Journalism and Communication will mark its 40th anniversary on Dec. 16. It is interesting that our old school is turning out to be a new school. If you are able to look around today’s Hall School, you will see that the evidence supports my conclusion.

Old school J-School was full of electric typewriters, which were used in the early 1970s through the early 1990s. The new school J-School replaced the typewriters with computers that are more powerful than the ones used by NASA to reach the moon.

Old school J-School had the distinctive smell of assignments printed on blue ditto sheets is gone. New school J-School has most assignments delivered in electronic form to students over the World Wide Web.

Old school J-School was full of analog video cameras, editors and studio equipment. New school J-School is nonlinear, digital and HD. If you haven’t walked back to the TV studio, you will be amazed at recent upgrades benefiting the Hall School and Troy University.

Old school J-School drew defined lines between print and broadcast students. New school J-School is erasing these lines. In fact, you would notice that all journalism majors now must know how to shoot and edit video, create Web pages and use emerging technologies.

Old school J-School was home to three or four faculty members and 65 students. New school J-School is home to nine full-time faculty members and 350 students.

Old school J-School taught only print and broadcast journalism. New school J-School adds communication studies, public relations, advertising and sports information.

Old school J-School taught courses only in Wallace Hall on the Troy campus. New school J-School is teaching classes online through eTroy to students all over the world, including soldiers serving in Afghanistan.

Even the Tropolitan, our most traditional form of mass communication, cannot escape the growing role of technology in our society and the march to the new school J-School. Hundreds of people from all around the world read the Trop every day from the Web. It’s a different world and none of our programs can linger in the light of old school technologies.

While technology has forced many changes in how we teach journalism and communication during the Hall School’s 40-year history, the old school emphasis on teaching real-world skills by a dedicated and strong faculty remains intact. New school J-School remains strongly committed to providing the best possible education and hands-on opportunities for our students.

What is going to happen during the J-School’s next 40 years? Computer programmer Alan Kay said that the best way to predict the future is to invent it. While we may leave inventing the future to the computer engineers, new school J-School is immersed in technology and is leading the way in teaching all platform and multimedia journalism and communications. Because of this, I am confident to predict that your old school will continue to produce the best new school graduates in the region, the state and the nation.

My wife and I have a family tradition of reading aloud to each other while on trips. The book we recently completed was A Dog’s Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron. If you love dogs, you will enjoy this book.

I was reminded of that book when a young lady sat in my office searching for a major. She had eliminated nursing, education, social work and criminal justice and was thinking about sampling journalism or communication studies as her next major. It appeared to me that she is a young woman searching for a career purpose in her life.

As we celebrate the Hall School of Journalism and Communication’s 40th anniversary, I cannot help but reexamine our School’s purpose.

It is easy to say the J-School’s purpose is to train journalists and communicators and I am sure that point is in our mission statement. But the J-School’s purpose goes beyond simply training the skills needed for today’s communication and journalism models.

Even casual observers know that the worlds of journalists and communicators are changing. As technology is becoming a key element in our fields, we could say that journalism is rebooting to Version 2.0.

Some of the changes are amazing! Former Trop editor Tony Harris recently visited Troy and it was fun reminiscing about the labor-intensive techniques we taught about newspaper design when he was a student. Both the Apple Macintosh computer and Adobe’s InDesign products have made it easier to build strong pages. The production map that existed just a few years ago when Tony was a student no longer exists and the Hall School was a pioneer in teaching full pre-press pagination.

Not all of the changes in our communication fields have been positive. The consolidation of media ownership created a myopic focus on the bottom-line that often ignores the long-term concern for communities served by the media. Maybe I am showing my age or I’m naive, but I think communicators need help people prepare for tomorrow by connecting the past to today. And while showing people today’s news in context serves the community, it doesn’t always maximize short-term profits.

While profits are a purpose for all businesses and the mass media are businesses, the long-term dividends earned serving and being a part of the community should be considered when building a business plan. The purpose for journalists and communicators has to include serving the community by explaining, clarifying and connecting the audience.

The purpose of the Hall School is to train the journalists and communicators with the ability to synthesize information then to present it in a practical, understandable and ethical way to the audience via multiple platforms. While this is a rigorous process, it is critical to the future of our profession. As we know, journalism and communication matters.

That begs the question, “What is your purpose?”

Nineteenth century mathematician William Shanks thought that his purpose was to calculate the exact value of pi. He spent 15 years calculating pi via hand division to 707 digits. Unfortunately, he made an error at decimal place 528 and that made his calculation wrong. Whoops!

The J-Lab iMacs can calculate the value of pi to 707 digits in a quick moment.

What we know now and what Shanks didn’t know then is that pi to 11 digits is accurate enough to calculate Earth’s circumference to a millimeter. I would hate to think that William Shanks purpose turned out to be to provide comic relief to amateur mathematicians everywhere.

While we cannot predict the future by waving our hands over a crystal ball, we know that journalists and communicators must be smart, connected, online and capable of telling the story via multiple and digital platforms.

Instead of spending years working from an incorrect model, journalists and communicators must be able to apply the core values and skills of the industry to the communication tools used by the audience. We cannot afford to make a mistake, as did Shanks, at some decimal point in our new communication model, which is being forged as we speak.

I hope that the purpose of students today is to connect with their communities and to help make the citizens better people. I hope that our students are curious and have a burning desire to uncover “truth” then have the skills to bring this message to the public through multiple tools and platforms.

I hope that your purpose is to be a journalists and a communicator because there is a strong and growing need in these areas.

I talked with three Hall School graduates last week. Two dropped by my office and the other conversation was via Facebook. While talking with all three, I kept thinking about the special honor and privilege I have to work with so many students at Troy University.

Two of our former students were talking to me because they are in positions of responsibility in their careers and were looking for talent to hire. The third was discouraged because he hasn’t found the “right” job since he earned his undergraduate degree.

It was while talking to the third alumnus that these three visits came together in my mind. There has been a subtle change in how people are hired in the communication and journalism industries. Companies are no longer hiring people for positions, they are hiring talent then using that talent to solve problems.

That brings us to this question: What is your talent? What do you bring to a job interview that will help you stand out from the multitude? How will you help your potential employer solve the company’s problems?

During the years I worked in radio and television, on-air personalities were called “talent.” I discovered that the people who appeared to be absolute naturals on-air worked harder at being “natural” than the second-rate types that never found their niche in the industry.

While there are probably a few rare individuals who were blessed at birth with multiple talents, most talented people earned their talents through hard work and practice.

This line of thought ties in with our College of Communication and Fine Arts (CCFA) Reading Initiative for this academic year. Our book is Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin and it details that talent isn’t a DNA thing as much as it about work and practice. If you haven’t read this book yet, you need to move it to a higher priority. It will help you realize that your talents are earned by working on skills and this translates into hard work.

College is a wonderful opportunity for you to earn and hone your talents. The time you spend beyond your classes developing your talents will be important when a potential employer starts sizing up how your talents will help him or her solve problems. It is a cinch that if a potential employer cannot see how you will help solve problems, you will not be hired. Also, don’t be in the situation where you are going to job interviews with nothing more than a resume filled with items you want to do. Instead, show potential employers your talent developed while in the J-School. This means that you need to get involved beyond your classes to build the talents employers need today.

Got talent? If so, it is because you are applying the lessons learned in class to our student media, professional media, online communications, volunteer organizations and you are taking advantage of many other opportunities available to our Hall School students.

Got weak talent? In the words of our CCFA reading initiative, start developing your talent before you find yourself sitting my office discouraged about the finding the right job for your career.

It is no secret that the worlds of journalism and communication are changing. As both journalism and communications are being re-invented, the Hall School’s faculty members have been revising the curriculum to incorporate the digital technologies at the heart of the industries today.

Our journalism programs adopted the APJ (All Platform Journalism) model. This means that we incorporate a strong digital emphasis in our programs. It also means that we recognize the importance of media convergence and cross-train our print and broadcast programs.

Our communication studies students are moving to a MMC (Multi-Media Communication) environment. We will revise the communications program this year to make sure our students are prepared to work in a world that is increasingly digital and online.

The Hall School has a rich tradition of excelling in academics and the hands-on application of communication technology. The adoption of the APJ/MMC foundation means that our programs will continue being the leader in journalism and communication education.

Troy State University’s Department of English began offering journalism as a minor in 1970. The following year, TSU President Dr. Ralph W. Adams sought the advice of the Alabama Press Association about TSU offering a full journalism program. The reaction of the APA was in the form of a grant for the new program’s library development. Using the grant as its foundation, TSU was on its way to creating one of the best journalism programs in the south.

On December 16, 1971, Gov. George Wallace and TSU President Ralph Adams announced the formation of the Hall School of Journalism. The school was named for the Hall family of Alabama journalists. The family is unique in the number of distinguished Alabama journalists it produced.

Speaking of journalism education, Dr. Adams said, “I believe in the importance of journalism and the need for excellent instruction in that area just as I believe in the future of our state — and I believe very strongly in that.

We look upon journalism as more than just another academic discipline. We feel that it is powerful educational force in Alabama and that proper and adequate preparation of some of our best students for a career in journalism is an obligation we can and are willing to accept.”

Dr. Adams sought the services of distinguished author and editor John R. Chamberlain as the school’s founding dean. Chamberlain was named dean in the fall of 1972 and brought with him a wealth of knowledge and experience to the school. Chamberlain had served as editor of Life, Fortune and Barron’s magazines. He was co-founder of the Freeman magazine and a staff writer for the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. In addition to being the author of numerous books, Chamberlain also wrote a nationally syndicated column.

Faculty members who have served the Hall School include: Prof. Chamberlain, Prof. Hamner, Dr. Mayer, Prof. Hall, Prof. Brown, Prof. Wagnon, Prof. Natale, Prof. Cobb, Prof. Buchanan, Prof. Bankester, Prof. Evans, Prof. Campbell, Prof. Maynard, Prof. Joseph, Prof. Arnold, Prof. West, Prof. McKerral, Prof. Adcock, Prof. Fordan, Prof. Clark, Prof. Schubert, Dr. Padgett, Dr. Kenney, Prof. Bozeman, Dr. Spurlock, Prof. Felton, Prof. Giglio, Prof. Warden, Dr. Diggs, Dr. Vickrey, Dr. Dye, Prof. Durko, Prof. Young, Dr. Colaco, Prof. Kirby, Prof. Adams, Dr. Hoppin, Prof. Reif, Prof. Gallagher and Prof. Stewart

The Hall School of Journalism and Communication will celebrate its 40th anniversary on Friday, Oct. 14, starting at 7 p.m. Tickets for this celebration and the JAA Awards Banquet are $25 for alumni and friends and $15 for students.

UPDATE: After discussing the growing number of conflicts associated with the 40th Anniversary Banquet with JAA President Aaron Taylor, we decided to postpone this event. More information will be sent to the JAA membership.