Valdosta State hosts Russian media students

Valdosta State University's Mass Media program sponsored eight Russian students from St. Petersburg University for Humanities and Social Sciences (UHSS), from November 28 through December 7.

The short 10-day study tour included tours of professional media facilities, class presentations and cultural excursions. The Russian students visited the media facilities at VSU, RTG Media and WALB in Albany. They attended several Mass Media classes and participated in a couple productions by VSU students. Cultural studies included trips to St. Augustine, the Valdosta Symphony Orchestra and to a ceramics class.

For the past three years, VSU has enjoyed a reciprocal agreement with the Russian institution to exchange faculty and students. The agreement spans a variety of disciplines in the social sciences and humanities, but the connection for the recent visit was with the media program.

Mike Savoie, associate professor in Communication Arts, said the multimedia program at UHSS is similar in scope and compatible to the Mass Media program at VSU. In fact, Savoie and another VSU instructor took a group of media students to visit St. Petersburg three years ago to tour the Russian facilities and study the similarities and differences of the two programs. The recent visit by Russian university students was to reciprocate the hospitality shown to the VSU group years ago.