Recently, I had a chance to return to my alma mater, the University of Missouri, for a 100th aniversary celebration of the School of Journalism. All classes were invited to return and about 3,000 of us swarmed the J-School complex and spent a few days literally walking down memory lane.

The campus has changed a lot since I last stepped foot there in the 80s. Three new buildings added to the J-School campus, and tons of new classrooms and dorms built where there used to be open space. The entire dorm complex I had lived in as a freshman was gone, being replaced with a massive structure filled with the latest electronic wiring for gadgets and equipment that had not been invented when I was on campus.

The most fun, though, was exploring the new J-School buildings. We were invited to sit in on lectures, visit labs and mingle with students and faculty. My old J-School news room was now quiet and filled with offices and storage rooms. Across the street stood the new newsroom with sections for photography, circulation, advertising and the newsroom itself. I immediately noticed the quiet. As a journalism student in the 60s, the newsroom was filled with shouting editors, the jangle of ringing phones, the noise of reporters pounding manual typewriters and the constant clicking of wire machines bringing news from all over the world.

I had plenty of opportunity to talk to faculty about the technological changes. But I had the most fun with the very young budding journalists. The most-often asked question: What was my first job out of journalism school. My answer: I worked for the government. Most of the men in my class of 1966 were drafted immediately after graduation. What was my most vivid memory of J-School? was another question. My answer: The day JFK was assasinated and they actually stopped the presses.

I talked about my career after J-School, and what I was doing today (a marketing moment for mediation). I'm still using my J-School training, I told one student, who had asked if those skills had evaporated, now that I was was out of the business. In J-School, we were told to asked open-ended questions. The who, where, when, what, why and how. In mediation, I still ask those kinds of questions and for the same reason--to get people to open up and tell their stories. Never ask a yes or no question, I reminded this student. You'll get a yes or no answer. But you won't get any information. This also applies to mediation. Maybe J-School was preparing me to be a mediator.

Chuck Hardwick