Some W&M staff are hip (but not me)

I must have caught blog fever because I feel compelled to write yet another entry, this time about the amazing people and facilities at the Swem Library Media Center. We’re only beginning to exploit what Troy Davis, Kevin Heraldo and their assistants at the Center (the “hip” folks referenced above in my post title) can add to classes at W&M.

This past spring, for instance, I assigned the students in my Congress course to four-person groups based on their partisan leanings, had each group pick a candidate currently running for the U.S. House and Senate, asked that they develop a campaign message or strategy for that candidate, and then required that they design and produce a thirty-second campaign commercial using Swem Media Center staff and equipment. The Swem staff did a great job working with the students and the commercials that they produced really impressed me (actually, I’m also a little concerned about contributing to the next generation of James Carvilles and Karl Roves, but am willing to take the risk).

If you are interested, a video about the assignment and the commercials that the students produced was put together by our public relations staff. Take a quick look and you’ll see why I would like to include an assignment like this in all of my classes.