Department News
Department Happenings and Announcements
Cal Poly’s Mustang Daily Student Newspaper Wins Two Top Awards at Statewide Media Contest
The Mustang Daily, Cal Poly’s student-run daily newspaper, won two first-place awards in the recent annual California College Media Association contest.
The newspaper’s coverage of the crop house incident and the following protests on campus won first place for daily newspapers in the Best News Series category. The writers were Bridget Veltri, Omar Sanchez and Joshua Ayers (click their names to view their stories).
Marlize van Romburgh serves as editor of the Mustang Daily.
“Besides giving us the news of the day, one of the primary functions of a newspaper should be to shine a light on issues of concern within its community,” said John Ellis, an editor with the Fresno Bee and a contest judge. “This series of stories [about the crop house incident] does just that, spinning off an incident that involved a noose, Confederate flag and a racist and homophobic sign on camps that led to a protest,”
In advertising, the Mustang Daily also took first place for best Black and White Advertising Design. Several former Mustang Daily designers created the ad for Bikram Yoga with assistance from Advertising Account Executive Jessica Schroeder.
“Good use of dominant visual image that conveyed the message of the ad,” noted judge Marc Calvanico, director of sales training for the San Jose Mercury News. “The layout of the ad used the image to draw the reader's attention to the main copy points. The ‘It's Hot’ had a double meaning that provided the ‘what's in it for me’ for the reader.”
The Mustang Daily also took second and third awards in the Best Group Promotion category and third for both Best Color Ad and Best Sales Promotion Materials.
The winners were recognized at a reception in conjunction with the Associated Collegiate Press National College Journalism Convention in San Diego.
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Department Searches for Visiting Multimedia Professor
The journalism department has begun a national search for a visiting professor to help cover the additional multimedia classes that will be part of the 2009-2010 Cal Poly catalog.
The changes, which were completed by the faculty in the spring of 2008, create two new courses, JOUR 285, Introduction to Web-Based Journalism, and JOUR 303, Multimedia Reporting and Production. The courses join JOUR 390, Visual Communication/Mass Media, and JOUR 410 Applied Multimedia Reporting.
These courses will help to ensure that journalism students leave with the skills they need to support both traditional media outlets as well as the online forms that dominate mass communication.
The JOUR 285 class will cover concepts related to Web communication and also focus on newsgathering in formats that translate to online presentation as written words, static photographs and images as well as streaming video and audio. JOUR 285 will be required of all journalism students.
JOUR 303, 390 and 410 are offered as journalism electives and students will be required to take two of the classes.
JOUR 303 takes a more in-depth approach to Web communication. Students will examine social as well as technical issues in Web delivery. A significant part of the class will focus on learning to use the most effective tools for telling stories. Not every news event is a nail so students will learn to use more than just a hammer.
The search for a visiting professor will supplement the contributions of Assistant Professor Brady Teufel who has been the primary faculty member dealing with multimedia instruction.
With the upheaval in communications, it is likely that a number of experienced professionals with appropriate academic credentials will apply for the post.
The department is advertising in the Chronicle of Higher Education as well as a number of online sites.
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New Senior Project Guidelines
Journalism students that are planning to register for senior project (JOUR 460) will have some changes in store for them beginning spring quarter 2009. With more detailed guidelines and required class meetings, it is hoped that students will have a more valuable senior project experience.
Currently, students have no required class meetings, but this will change to meeting once a week for the first five weeks of the quarter. During these weekly meetings, students will learn valuable resources for researching on campus. The reference librarian will speak to the classes about different databases and books available in the library. These class meetings will promote students staying on task and provide an open discussion to aid with their projects. Along with class sessions, students are required to meet regularly with their faculty advisor who will mentor them throughout the process.
All senior projects require 90 hours of scholarly work outside the classroom. The work can be demonstrated as a research paper or a practical project. The newer guidelines describe a required scholarly component to every practical senior project. If a student decides to base their project on creating a Web site for a local organization, a detailed research component is required. This research might include targeted demographics and successful layout examples from outside references.
Bill Loving, Journalism Department Chair, says these new guidelines provide, “learning skills that can be applied to any situation…students will know fundamentals from the research they preformed.” Whether working for a large corporation or a small non-profit, students will know what does and does not work through their compiled research.
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New Procedures for Internship Program
Internships are an important part of the journalism curriculum because students gain hands-on experience in the field that they hope to join upon graduation. Students also have the opportunity to take what they’ve learned in an academic setting and apply it in a practical and professional setting. The department has recently put new procedures in place for the internship program in an effort to give students the best practical and academic experience possible.
Students wishing to enroll in JOUR 444 must be of junior status, complete at least one quarter in their capstone class, and obtain approval from the department the quarter before the student wishes to enroll.
Students must submit an internship proposal well before the beginning of the quarter in which they seek academic credit for an internship, which means that students are no longer able to participate in an internship during summer and receive credit in the fall.
In addition to the practical experience that internships provide, the program also requires that there be a strong educational component as well, in which students learn from their internship providers.
Alumni often make excellent providers for student internships because both the provider and the student share a set of similar experiences, and the student is able to see the possibilities that may come from having a journalism degree from Cal Poly.
The department encourages publishers, agencies, firms and other professional media outlets to provide internships in a structured and academically rigorous setting. The department also encourages internship providers to pay interns in order to make it possible for students who otherwise would not be able to spend time in an internship without pay, provide for the highest quality pool of applicants and to promote the idea that interns are a valuable resource who are serving in a professional capacity.
Information about the journalism department’s internship program can be found outside the department office (pictured above) or online at http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/jour/courses.htm.
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Potential Journalism Minor
The journalism department is in the process of planning a public relations minor, and might extend it to the other concentrations, news editorial and broadcast. If you are a student interested in a journalism minor or would like more information, you can e-mail the department at jour@calpoly.edu.
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Student & Faculty News
Click here for a list of current faculty and staff.
Cal Poly PRSSA Sends Delegate to National Assembly
Cal Poly’s Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) sent sophomore Kelsey Magnusen, to this year’s PRSSA National Assembly in New Orleans from March 26 – 29. This is the second year that Cal Poly has been able to send a delegate to join the more than 100 universities represented at the convention.
The main function of the assembly is to elect a new national PRSSA committee and vote on bylaws. A major role of the national committee is to serve as a resource for individual chapters and members with special projects or problems. Magnusen’s presence at the assembly gave Cal Poly PRSSA an opportunity to network with current and new committee members, gaining valuable resources for the future.
Before elections were held, there was a day of chapter, leadership, and professional development workshops. Magnusen attended social media discussions, learned about the transitional stages from student to young professional, and acquired leadership techniques to bring back to club officers.
Cal Poly PRSSA president, Elizabeth Poeschl, was last year’s delegate at the National Assembly in San Diego. She says it is important for the relatively young Cal Poly chapter to make its presence known.
“Sending delegates to national and regional events is important because it helps us build our reputation among universities whose reputations have already been built,” Poeschl commented.
The Cal Poly chapter was established in 2002, although PRSSA has been in existence for fifty years.
Magnusen was selected to attend the assembly by faculty advisor, Professor Doug Swanson. She is the Public Relations and Membership Director for PRSSA. Her responsibilities within the club include recruiting new members, keeping in contact with current members, and leading the club’s committee for Open House, where PRSSA will be represented for the first time this year.
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Innovative College Media Group Chooses Poly Student as First Intern
When most Cal Poly students are sleeping, Lauren Rabaino is probably wide-awake. In addition to being the online editor for the Mustang Daily, graphic designer for Cal Poly Housing, and a freelance Web designer, Rabaino has just become the first intern for the Center for Innovation in College Media (CICM).
CICM is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping college-student journalism adapt and flourish in a world of new media. Rabaino started following CICM’s blog last year, but never imagined being part of something she respected so much. She says the opportunity only existed because she had already made a name for herself online. She started a blog over summer and used the social networking site Twitter to promote it.
Through social media, Rabaino connected with college journalists, educators and professionals giving her the credibility and exposure she needed to earn the CICM internship.
Rabaino says it is all about the conversation that social media allows. “I want to be the voice of the students, and this means I have to get to know students. I have to talk to them and find out what problems are facing their newsrooms and how I can help them.”
Rabaino is most excited to launch her project, Nationwide Classroom. Every week a tutorial will be posted on CICM covering a different aspect of creating news content for the Web.
“I know there’s a need in newsrooms everywhere (even outside of college) to learn multimedia and other new media skills,” she stated.
Posts will cover topics including writing for the Web, editing video, and restructuring staff, and will also utilize podcasts, professional guest commentary and slideshows. The hope is that students, educators and professionals take these lessons to the newsroom or the classroom and incorporate it into their daily activities.
As a multimedia journalist, Rabaino is accustomed to change and adaptation. “The industry is going through some crazy times, so my goal is just to keep up and keep innovating. I’m a believer in the industry, and I want to do what I can to get it back on its feet.”
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Mustang Daily Leaves College Publisher Behind
Last fall, Assistant Professor Brady Teufel attended the National College Media Convention in Kansas City. While he was there, Teufel taught two multimedia-training seminars, one covering online mapping, and the other discussing content management systems (CMS).
Teufel covers CMS in the Multimedia Reporting class at Cal Poly and says, “CMS has become integral to media organizations looking for ways to obtain, organize and disseminate content in a user-friendly manner.” Teufel teaches CMS with the hope that after the class, students will transfer their skills to the Mustang Daily and beyond.
The Mustang Daily currently uses College Publisher, a proprietary CMS. This program is the leading platform for disseminating college news on the World Wide Web, but it is not always the best option, and it can restrict newsrooms.
Teufel wrote an article that will be published in the spring edition of the College Media Review, entitled, “CMS or SOS? College Publisher vs. Open Source Content Management.” It considers cost-effective alternatives to using the industry leader, College Publisher.
After lengthy discussions with the editors at the Mustang Daily, Teufel says the Daily has decided to start using CoPress, a non-proprietary CMS. CoPress was recently created by a group of current and former online editors at major college news organizations. Teufel says the new software will provide the Daily with much more freedom and flexibility than they currently have.