When Journalism and Mass Communication Professor Barbara Hipsman asks her students if they have been on the Web today, about 75 percent of them say they have. That tells her something.

"In the 18-25 age group, they easily have become consumers of news online and they may not even know it," she says.

Hipsman is preparing her students to deliver information through this new medium while incorporating traditional reporting standards.

She spent her 2003 sabbatical visiting the Chicago Tribune, St. Louis Dispatch and the Arizona Daily Republic observing how three ownership models

treated convergence. She studied how three very different newspapers were combining print, video and graphics into multiplatform reporting.

She finished her sabbatical at the Poynter Institute in an online leadership conference. Discussions with people throughout the media industry gave her insights into the difficulties and possibilities of converged media.

"Mostly, we figured out that convergence is a state of mind," says Hipsman. New media allow for a constant flow of information. She says that reporters need to think in terms of a 24 hour clock.

"You need to consider your audience. When I finish my story where should it go immediately?"

Hipsman refers to early adopters of new ideas as black hole jumpers. She wants her students to leave Kent State with an open mind and maybe the willingness to jump a few black holes.