Starting in the fall of 2017, the Department of Mass Media at Southeast Missouri State University will be requiring students at the 300-level or higher to have a MacBook Pro laptop.

The "Pro on the Go" device initiative is designed to engage the students with their teachers, who also will be using MacBook Pros.

"It allows us to workshop in the classroom environment or bring hands-on experiential learning into the classroom," Dr. Karie Hollerbach, chairperson and professor in the Department of Mass Media, said.

By using the same technology, professors can instantly give students interactive assignments that can be completed during class.

"It just allows us to do things that we could have never done without everybody having a common device and common software and common resources," Hollerbach said.

The faculty began working with the technology back in May. Even though the computers are considered easy to use, the faculty will have 15 months of practice and training by the time the initiative actually begins.

"It's really easy to use, now you can raise the level of the discussion to where it needs to be in this media-savvy day and age," senior instructional designer in the Office of Instructional Technology Mary Harriet Talbut said.

The MacBook Pro was chosen because the department found it was the device capable of performing all of the tasks needed to create multimedia projects not just now, but moving forward.

"The tools that are free, the iLife and iWork tool suite, with those six programs that come with it, you don't need a whole lot else," Talbut said. "You could video, you could create music, you could create your own publicity, with everything that comes loaded on that computer."

The addition of the Pro on the Go initiative is not the only major change coming to the Department of Mass Media. The Rust Center for Media recently opened at 325 Broadway and Grauel Building, the current home of the Department of Mass Media, is set to undergo $3.5 to $4 million in renovations starting in January. With improvements coming, Hollerbach said she wanted to ensure the new layouts and capabilities would be laptop-friendly.

"Not only is this the right thing to do for our students and teaching and learning in our discipline, but the stars have all aligned in terms of the physical and capital inputs because we are going to be renovating [Grauel] Building," Hollerbach said. "So if we were going to change to a device initiative, this is the time to do it."

The College of Education is the only other department at Southeast with a similar device initiative, which requires students to have an iPad. Hollerbach spoke with the department chairs at nearby accredited programs such as Middle Tennessee State University and Murray State, neither of which have a device initiative like the one that will be at Southeast.

"We're on the leading edge, we're at the forefront; we're not following this time, we're leading," Hollerbach said. "Just here in our geographic area, we're going to be the first."