What would you do if you were given a three-and-a-half million dollar gift for your birthday?  The UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication, celebrating its 100th anniversary, will create an experimental student news project and audience research initiative with the gift from the estate of alumnus Reese Felts.

Jean Folkerts, dean of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at UNC, says Felts was a 30 year veteran of journalism.

The school will transform one of the classrooms into a 24-hour newsroom.  Students will work with faculty to produce and distribute news for a variety of audiences.  The classroom will allow students from every specialization, from reporting to multimedia, to participate.

Folkerts says this program will be different from a daily print publication like The Daily Tar Heel.

The school will also host a meeting this weekend where deans from top journalism programs participating in the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education will visit the campus.