The Wayne State College Communication Arts Department created a new focus in sports media to adhere to the growing interest from new students and the need for education in the professional field.

With the dramatic growth in the film industry, a film concentration at WSC will offer current and prospective students another relevant major for career and/or graduate school.

Sean Ahern, an assistant professor in the media program, said he was very excited to see what the new focus can do for WSC students. “Sports are how some people look at the world,” Ahern said, “it’s a great way to take passions and hone it into a career.”

The sports media concentration at WSC uses existing resources to diversify student media and formalize a growing interest among electronic media students to produce live sports broadcasts. This concentration will add a brand new workshop dedicated to sports media and will focus solely on broadcasting sports and sports news.

“WSC students are already good at sports we are just taking what we already had and are adding to it,” Ahren said.

This will add more understanding for the many jobs in the midwest related to sports broadcasting and ultimately help students in the field to find a job after college.

The electronic media concentration has grown over the past four years, with 13 new freshman majors in fall 2020, and 34 overall. With many of the new students choosing to focus on digital film or the journalism side of the media department, there are still many students that wish to go into sports broadcasting. Finding sport broadcasting opportunities is challenging for students especially with the growing class sizes creating more competition for all parties.

To help with this problem, the WSC electronic media department proposed a new concentration in sports media in July. The concentration was approved by the Board of Trustees almost immediately due to the position’s organization and evidence that the program was needed.

The concentration was approved by the Board of Trustees in the July 16-17 session. With the addition of sports media, the electronic media major now offers four concentrations for this continually growing department.

A concentration starts out in the Dean’s office and then is filed with the Academics Affairs Office. Then the concentration is submitted to the Nebraska State College system to be reviewed by the system office and then is passed onto the Board of Trustees to be approved.