Educator receives award, recruits students

Friday, April 11, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

SUN STAFF REPORTS

To recruit the brightest and the best students for an elite international broadcast academy, where better to go than the National Association of Broadcasters show?

Dr. George Waters, president of the International Academy of Broadcasting and director of the European Broadcasting Union's Technical Department, took advantage of his trip to Las Vegas to accept an achievement award from NAB this week to recruit for the International Academy of Broadcasting, based in Montreux, Switzerland.

The unique broadcast school, currently in its third academic year, draws students from all over the world and has primarily a visiting faculty of experts that commit two or more weeks out of their year to teach their fields of expertise in short stints.

This year, the school has 17 students concentrating their studies on the arts and sciences of broadcasting at a post-graduate level.

Waters, who was formerly director general of Radio Telefis Eireann, Irish Radio and Television, made numerous contacts at NAB, which had a record attendance of 100,245, up 8.6 percent over last year's total. Of the delegates, more than 22 percent, 22,272, were international attendees, up 7.6 percent from 1996.

Waters is attempting to have the IAB accredited in the United States and has proposals before the University of Oklahoma, the University of Southern California and UCLA.

Students attend for a nine-month school year and pay tuition of about 24,000 Swiss francs -- about $16,500 U.S. The school is establishing a shorter summer program to coincide with the many cultural festivals that use Montreux as a headquarters.

The IAB also is financed by the broadcast industry, which provides equipment, scholarships and corporate donations. Patrons for the school include broadcast journalist Walter Cronkite, entertainers Quincy Jones and Peter Ustinov and Japanese industrialist Akio Morita.

Waters