“It’s based on promoting your own concert from the basics to finding a venue and bands,” said communication junior Brittney Franks, a member of the class. “We start from square one of doing the budget and working our way up to the actual show.”

As a course project, Franks and classmate Jessica Varner, a communication senior, pieced together and promoted “Rock for a Cause,” a concert that occurred Wednesday at Michigan Center’s Motorheads Bar & Grill.

The bill for the event included bands Paragon, a past winner of MSU’s Battle of the Bands competition, and Lansing-based rock group Know Lyfe. Given the charitable cause associated with the concert, both bands played either for free or at a reduced rate.

Franks and Varner donated the proceeds they raised to several high school music programs in the Jackson school district.

“We figured that could possibly draw a crowd if we promoted that the proceeds would go to (high schools) in Jackson,” Varner said. “Since the venue was five minutes outside of the city, that was one thing that helped us market the show.”

School of Rock

COM 399 instructor Nick Bowman is no stranger to MSU classrooms. A fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in MSU’s communication department, Bowman has taught at MSU in several capacities since his arrival in 2005.

“I enjoy it,” he said. “The students, for the most part, seem to be driven and really do seem to take charge of their own education.”

John Sherry, one of Bowman’s advisers in the department, came up with the idea for the course.

“The department has been trying to find more service learning and applied classes, so to John it seemed like a natural fit,” Bowman said.

Having worked with a couple of bands since landing in East Lansing, Bowman helped with a charity show at Harper’s Restaurant & Brewpub, 131 Albert Ave., in 2007. The show elicited a positive response, leaving many wondering what the formula for success was.

“So many people seemed interested in how we got the show planned,” he said. “We figured, ‘Why not formalize the lesson as a class?’”

Bowman describes the course as a hybrid lecture and workshop format. He has prepared lectures related to different elements of both the rock industry and public relations, while also focusing on an array of other issues.

Specialized courses like COM 399 have become a novelty of sorts since they deviate from the required classes necessary for a degree. Despite that, Bowman sees the course as an addition rather than a fad.

“I wouldn’t say so much an upward trend,” he said. “I think that it is important that students, especially underclassmen, first learn the theories and principles of communication before they move into these more specialized, applied courses.”

Bowman feels his course helps students who are ready for such specialization.

“I feel sometimes students expect to get that experience from internships, only to find themselves in a ‘coffee and doughnut’ (role) where they never actually get to do anything substantive,” he said.

“Classes like mine, in my opinion, fill that void and truly prepare students for life after East Lansing.”