The International Relations program at Duquesne University incorporates a simulation game called Simulex – created at Tuft’s University Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy- to put students’ problem-solving and crisis management skills to action.
The students – many of whom go on to work in government agencies, law firms, multinational corporations, etc. – break into mock national decision-making teams to test how they respond to certain grave scenarios with limited information. Each team is in a different room, and they hold mock press conferences to communicate with the other “countries.” Those press conferences are live streamed to all the groups via Mediasite.
The exercise wouldn’t be possible without students like Jacob Leya, 22, and David Rajski, 19, behind the cameras. For their hard work, the university awarded them Sonic Foundry’s Laura Stephenson Video in Education Scholarship.
Duquesne won the scholarship – named after the late Laura Stephenson, longtime Mediasite friend and advocate — at Sonic Foundry’s Enterprise Video Awards at the Mediasite User Conference, Unleash, earlier this summer.
Jacob, a journalism major, and David, a music technology and composition major, are two of the students working in the Office of Classroom Technologies. They use Mediasite to live stream projects like Simulex, as well as other campus events, guest speakers and conferences.
“It is pretty cool to be there for these campus events and be the one running the camera. It’s something I normally wouldn’t get to do,” Jacob said. “I was floored. I didn’t even know a scholarship was an option. I knew about the contest (Enterprise Video Awards) and the video we entered. I thought it was so cool that I won. The university kept it a secret from us.”
These Mediasite experiences will serve them well in their future careers. Jacob wants to combine his love for music (he plays drums and keyboard in a couple bands) with his journalism degree and described his dream job as “a Rolling Stone-type gig.”
“I think it’s going to help me a lot as a journalism major. Having any sort of behind-the-camera work is important,” he said. “We’re capturing real events. It feels like we’re doing documentary-type work.”
After college, David wants to write music for TV or film.
“With me having a music technology major, understanding how to run video equipment is another thing to add to the resume,” David said.
Congrats to these two very deserving students for the scholarships.
Learn more about the Simulex project and Duquesne’s Enterprise Video Award in this blog post, Overall Awesomeness Award: Practicing Crisis-Management at Duquesne University with Live Video.
Also, see how the university is using Mediasite inside the classrooms and why students say it’s essential to their success.