Carpet, tile, glass panels, writable walls. Dr. Carol Pardun and I met again this past week with the architects and project manager for the journalism school building. When we are talking about the finishings, the color palette — a little more blue, a little less gray — and even the design for the donor wall, the progress is palpable.

Our architects at The Boudreaux Group are putting together the massive collection of construction documents. Project manager Ann Derrick tells us the project will go out for bid in September, which means we should have a contractor by the end of November and start construction in January. That's just six months to go, and though we've waited
years — decades — for this, it's feeling very real.

Each meeting pushes the project forward. There have been plenty and there are many more ahead as we get down to the furnishings, technologies and decorations. We especially keep tweaking our direction on anything technological — media lab computers, studio cameras and the multi-screen centerpiece in the atrium that will reflect what's happening in our academic world and the world beyond. The challenge is to design in 2013 what we will turn on in 2015 and use for years. We want it to look like tomorrow, not yesterday.

Carol and I also saw a concept for a donor wall that will honor those who are contributing to making this building a reality after the long years of anticipation. Consider having your name etched on that important recognition of our supporters.

The Greenhouse Studio that will be adjacent to the journalism school building has received Budget and Control Board approval for its construction phase. The two projects are on a timeline that will converge by our completion date.

You can keep up with our progress at http://uofscjournalismbuilding.com/ where we are chronicling the development of the new home for the School of Journalism and Mass Communications.

Meanwhile, our School of Library and Information Science is enjoying its first full summer in air conditioned comfort at Davis College. Dr. Sam Hastings says the HVAC project completed last summer is cool in every sense of the word.

Summer is a time when we tend to scatter to recharge, but also to research and expand our scholarly efforts. Students do internships, study abroad and often work to pay for next year's classes. Our scholarship lunch is a fall feature that brings donors and recipients together.

Cocky's Reading Express™ is on the road this summer. It's collaborating with the Arnold School of Public Health in "Get Ready to Read with Cocky!" This is an important pilot project in Calhoun County that will provide a year-long assessment of student reading progress. CRE is also leading a summer reading program funded through a grant from BP. And Camp-Read-A-Rama, led by Dr. Michelle Martin, Augusta Baker Chair in Childhood Literacy, is in full swing at several locations in Columbia. Both programs are designed to fight the "summer slide" in children's reading skills.

Have a great summer. Read, especially with kids and grandkids. But don't write on the walls, unless they are writable walls.

Charles Bierbauer

Follow @cjbsc

This service learning class put students on the frontlines of nonprofit work in Africa. With Ministry of Hope, a non-governmental organization, students worked at a crisis nursery for orphans and set up a mobile medical clinic, documenting every step of the way.

With only five minutes of internet access each day, the students created posts for the organization's Facebook page and produced stories and photographs for Ministry of Hope's newsletter and website.

The students' multimedia stories focus on a broken water pump that caused villagers to walk miles for clean water; a five-year old boy with stage three malaria, which is often fatal; a recent Ithaca College graduate spending her summer volunteering in Malawi; and an orphan in a crisis nursery who is too old to receive care much longer.

Video by USC students Daniel Shelly and Jessica Gorman

"Some of the videos produced by the students have already appeared on the nonprofit's website and Facebook page, and people are responding to that. They did a story about a pump on a well being broken at one of the villages, and people are already asking how they can donate to get it fixed," said Van Kornegay, one of the two professors who led the class to Africa.

Between volunteering, educational work and once-in-a-lifetime adventures, these students experienced and learned a lot in the short time they were abroad. But the impact was not strictly educational. Before their departure, the students were posed a question by the Dobson Fund, who provided a grant to the program.

"They asked, what will the spiritual impact of the trip be to you?" said Kornegay. "We had a contemplative morning where we went off and wrote down what it meant to us. There were some deep, heartfelt expressions that came out. To me, that is more important than what they learned journalistically. It's more personal. The trip touched everyone in a significant way."

"You hear about third world countries in the news and on television, but being there and experiencing it for yourself is an amazing thing," said Lauren Laubach, a senior broadcast journalism student. "It gives you an entirely different perspective on life."