WMOT’s Philosophy on Student Centeredness

The Institutional Effectiveness Plan for Middle Tennessee State University clearly indicates there is a multiplicity of strategies open to each unit in meeting its goals in support of the overall plan for the University. WMOT is clearly tasked with both public service and academic support goals, as mandated by its University-provided Mission Statement.

WMOT, like the stations at East Tennessee State University, UT Knoxville, and Western Kentucky, is a portal through which MTSU passes into the community and by which community support comes back in the form of private support of its programming.

• Those other campuses do not task their stations with academic support roles.

WMOT, by virtue of its ties to Mass Communication College, makes an effort to add value to the University’s resources expended on it by providing a capstone experience for selected students.

• Our goal is to provide professional practice and mentoring within a work-a-day setting that sets professional expectations for those students.

• “The staff’s mortgage payments depend on how well they perform on the job,” is the first thing students are told when they apply for a position.

The College does not ask commercial stations to take huge numbers of interns.

• This is especially true of a small radio station like WMOT-FM.

• Given the limited radio station staff, the number of students served in a particular semester will not be large.

• This does not negate the value of the experience in terms of the students’ professional growth.

Summary:

Student-centered goals and methods at WMOT are different from those of other public service units on campus. So, too, will they be different from those of the faculty on the academic side of the University’s organizational chart.