In an effort to pretend that Newhouse is keeping up with the rapidly changing media landscape, the former communications school giant announced the third overhaul of its curriculum in the past three years. The changes, announced in a press conference held Tuesday, were described by spokesman Ron Harris as “really we’re just giving all our classes new fancy names again.”
The new curriculum brings in no new classes or perspectives on the media. Ideally, such changes would reflect the rapidly evolving film, television, newspaper, broadcast journalism, and advertising industries. Rather than doing that, faculty and administrators instead elected to give courses and majors new titles again.
“But don’t worry, they sound like…really communication-y,” Harris said in a statement.
Harris used the Newspaper and Online Journalism Major as an example. “We decided to change that one to “Schlabbywonker,” he said.
“Newhouse is on the front lines of the chaos in the newspaper industry. We’re always looking for the next big thing in the field, and we believe renaming the major “Schlabbywonker’ is emblematic of that concept.”
Classes will be retitled and organized, but nothing new will be forthcoming in terms of course materials. In fact, classes will not change at all. “News 305 will still educate students on use of the Teletype machine and how to put little slips of paper in your hat like a real big-time reporter. However, News 305 will hereafter be known as Nadasvarum.”
Nadasvarum is Sanskrit for the pipe of a ceremonial South Indian Piper.
“We thought that made sense,” Harris said when asked why the course would be named after a rare Southeast Asian musician and high priest.
Television/Radio/Film (hereafter known as Herbology) students will still learn their moviemaking craft using film cameras from the late 1940s. According to spokesman Harris, “all talkies will still be required to adhere to the Hayes code, which means in each project at least three actors must be smoking cigarettes at all times, and at least two women must be slapped while hysterical in that way that women can get when their brains are overworked.”
When asked if any new social media education would be added to benefit Newhouse students entering an uncertain media workforce, Harris replied “Social media? What is that?”
Calls to Newhouse faculty for comment went were not returned, as all were still trying to conjure the dark fairy magic they believe allows books to be stored on their iPads.
