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Course Focus — "World Issues Journalism"
A course with two classrooms: One in the U.S., the other in Norway
College and university courses that focus on global issues are usually structured like this: Students meet in one classroom and the instructor brings the resources – readings, videos, guest speakers – to the classroom. One MATC journalism course will, however, soon break that traditional mold.
 When the four-credit World Issues Journalism is offered in January of 2009, the course’s 25 students will be located in two different parts of the world: One group of students will be in Madison, Wisconsin, while the other group will be in the bucolic fjord region just south of Oslo, Norway (see photo).
“World Issues Journalism will be like no class I know of, certainly no class I have ever taught,” said Larry D. Hansen, journalism instructor and developer of the course. “Thirteen students will be MATC students, and these students will meet in a Downtown classroom. At the very same time, there will be 12 students of the same course sitting in a classroom at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. So half of the students will be from MATC and half will be from the Norwegian university. Of course, this can only be done with video conferencing technology.”
Students of the course will engage in investigative reporting assignments that relate to world issues, such as water, energy, and war. Students will write investigative and interpretive news stories; and they will produce blogs, video logs (vlogs), and multimedia news stories. The students’ final products will be showcased in an online magazine.
In addition to the reporting assignments, students will also study free press issues worldwide, and the journalism practices and traditions that emerge from different parts of the world.
The World Issues Journalism course will be listed in two timetables: the MATC timetable and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences timetable. Hansen will be listed as the course’s instructor in both timetables. Furthermore, Norwegian University of Life Sciences will reimburse MATC tuition costs for its students who take the course.
Many students from the Norwegian university are eager to sign up for the course, according to Kjell Esser, head of education for the International Institute for Development and Environment, which is part of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. The course is geared for bachelor’s-level students at the international institute, where all courses are taught in English, though any university student who is fluent in English and has strong communication skills can sign up for the course.
Esser said, “I sent out an email to our bachelor-level students just to see how many students might be interested in taking a course such as this. Between 30 and 40 students expressed an interest.”
 The “two-country” course is a result of relationships Hansen (see photo) formed while on sabbatical in Norway. For a half year in 2007, the journalism instructor (whose wife is Norwegian) was housed as a guest researcher at the Norwegian University of Life Science's International Institute of Development and Environment. There, Hansen was given an office where he worked on his sabbatical project, which was to develop MATC’s new Journalism Certificate. He also was a guest lecturer at the Norwegian university, and gave workshops on hybrid learning and web development. In addition, the MATC journalism instructor became the facilitator of a master’s-level course focusing on media and democracy.
When his sabbatical period there was coming to an end, both Hansen and Norwegian administrators held a meeting to brainstorm ways to keep the connection between the two.
He explained, “From this meeting, we came up with two specific ways to work collaboratively in years to come. First, this course, World Issues Journalism. Second is a foreign exchange for MATC Journalism Certificate students. In this foreign exchange, MATC students would travel to Norway to spend a semester studying democracy and world issues at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Furthermore, the Norwegian government has already agreed to pay the tuition of MATC journalism students.”
Hansen added that the foreign exchange program will also officially begin in January of 2009.
Photo of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences by Evy Joergensen
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