Future journalism students at Central Michigan University can strengthen their media skills just by walking into a new lab in Moore Hall.

Construction of Moore’s fourth floor has been underway since June 24 Journalism Department Chair Maria Marron said the multimedia lab is hoped to be completed just days before the start of the fall semester.

“The new lab will have 18 lab stations,” she said. “It will include video conferencing and virtual media classroom capabilities.”

Marron said this lab is the department’s response to the convergence of technology types for tomorrow’s working journalist.

Named the Caponigro Multimedia Lab, it is funded by the donations of CMU Board of Trustees Chair Jeffrey Caponigro.

The funds are set up as an endowment so that the lab’s technological equipment may be updated in the future. This will provide continuous opportunities for students to ready themselves for their respective careers, Caponigro said.

“No major university can have a journalism program that truly prepares its students for the world without a multimedia program,” he said. “I wanted (the lab) to be the best of really any journalism program in the country . one of CMU’s marquee facilities.”

Caponigro is the president and CEO of Caponigro Public Relations, Inc., and a 1979 graduate of CMU’s journalism department.

He said journalism has really evolved since that time.

“Back then, we barely had computers. It was focused on the print medium,” Caponigro said. “Now, they will learn what they’d need to know in a real world job.”

Journalism instructor Mark Ranzenberger will instruct three classes in the new lab, and said he will be teaching in a somewhat different, but relevant way.

“I think it’ll be a good place to learn,” he said. “When you tell a story, you tell it with many aspects of media. You just can’t write . it’s important for you to master all these different aspects.”

Planning of the update has been underway for 18 to 24 months, Marron said.

Funding amounts for the project were set not to exceed $473,000 at a Board of Trustees meeting in December 2007.

Because it is an endowment, Caponigro said he does not expect that amount to have increased or decreased since.

In addition, he said though he did look at a few artists’ renderings for the lab’s design, his involvement did not enter into the physical construction.

“We had been talking about the funds I donated to the university . and we had looked at other options (to spend those funds),” Caponigro said. “But there seemed to be this gaping hole in the journalism department.”

With the multimedia lab comes its equivalent multimedia major. Marron said the curriculum will be reviewed and approved by the Academic Senate in the fall, and available for the 2009 spring semester.

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