These pages take a great deal of time and you will need to provide your librarian with several weeks advance notice. Additional Course Start-Ups can be found on our Course Related Web Pages or our Course Related Bibliographies pages. This is a required course for journalism majors designed to provide students with instruction and experience in reporting and writing about governmental affairs. The class is typically comprised of juniors and seniors and enrollment is approximately 20 students. The class produces a Centre County Fact Book for the web that provides a variety of data on Centre County.
Students divide into seven groups of two or three members.
Throughout the first half of the semester, they become acquainted with other group members and receive instruction and practice in locating materials. Groups spend the second half of the semester researching and compiling data for individual chapters in the Fact Book , such as population, government, education, courts and law enforcement, business and commerce, or health and social affairs. The Fact Book is published and made available in the University Libraries. All of these components are part of strategic management. The HRIM 490 assignment requires students to collect individual bits of data, piece them together, and analyze the results in order to discern important patterns or trends.