As mentioned on this site earlier there have been big changes to Plattsburgh's communications program. The communications and journalism programs have been merged to create the Center for Communication and Journalism.

You can read all the nitty gritty details in a recent Press Republican article. Here's an excerpt:

Up until last year, students in communication either majored in mass media or speech communications. But now they can choose from four majors and seven concentrations, including communication studies, public relations and advertising, organizational communication, television-video production, broadcast journalism, and audio-radio and digital-media production.

The majors cater toward individual career goals, making graduates more marketable.

SUNY approved the new majors and curricular changes last year, and last week, the Executive Council approved creation of the Center for Communication and Journalism.

This is a great move. In this day and age, anyone looking to pursue a career in the field of journalism should have a decent understanding of both print and broadcast.

I also hope the new curriculum at PSU involves some attention for the Internet and other new media.

Another interesting nugget...WQKE is moving out of Yokum Hall to make way for office space for the journalism folks. The radio station will be relocated in the Angell Center in what was once the bar portion of the Point. I like the idea of the station being "out among the people" instead of hidden away in Yokum (or Macdonough Hall for that matter). It will certainly elevate the station's visibility.

SIDE NOTE: When you google Plattsburgh Center for Communication and Journalism, the Press Republican and PSTVAlumni.com comes up before the actual college site.

Big changes this week for PSTValumni.com. Most are good changes and one very bad change.

Starting with the positives, after a full week offline the new PSTV Alumni website has finally launched. Everything is not completed yet but enough was accomplished to let it go live. The most obvious change is that we are no longer using the old style/theme. Nothing was wrong with the design but after several years it was time for a change. Not to mention there were many behind-the-scene coding problems which needed to be addressed anyway. Other than a new style, here's more infomation on some of the additional new features:

• News Blog with RSS Feed - We've replaced the simple little news script we used to have with a News Blog powered by Blogger.com. You're reading it right now! This move has many advantages, including more features, team collaboration, and the ability to list the latest headlines on the homepage using feedburner. Plus with
  an RSS Feed (technically it's actually an Atom Feed) you can now add the PSTVA News Blog to your favorite news reader, or Google/Yahoo homepage.
  
• Style Switcher - Forget about one redesign, we've got four and counting. If you haven't found it yet, click on the tiny colored squares below the menu and you'll instantly switch to a new style. Choose which ever design you like most. (The "Web 2.0" style still needs some bugs worked out but it demonstrates how we're not limited to any particular structure.) More styles will be coming, as will a special page to list them.
  
• PSTVA Gmail - A few of you already have special Gmail accounts with pstvalumni.com addresses. Soon this will be expanded to make it easier to sign up and to sign in easily.
  

Now the bad news... very bad news. At the same time that the website was undergoing the changes mentioned above, a trojan horse virus was unleashed on the PSTVA Forums. To prevent further damage to website visitors or to our servers the safest thing to do was to destroy them. Luckily the forums were all backed up just days before the virus attack occurred so very little if any data will be lost. I will reinstall a message board but it will only be temporary. The reason is because phpBB, the type of forum we use, is scheduled to release a major upgrade of their software sometime in the next few months. I've seen the demos for phpBB3 and whenever we end up upgrading to it, it's going to kick ass!