NCSU Student Media Summary, 2008-2009

I.    Programs:

• The new Constitution and Board of Directors provided a stabilizing influence on the organization. The student body approved removal of Americana from the Constitution. The student body also approved some level of fee increase to support the Agromeck.
• 231 individual students, including volunteers, produced 155 editions of the Technician, 23 editions of the Nubian Message, a Career Center Job & Internship Guide, a spring-delivery yearbook, an annual literary and arts magazine and kept a 25,000-watt radio station on the air.

II.    Compact Plan:

• Recruitment & Retention — 382 students expressed interest in at least one medium at various recruitment events. Retention was about 10 percent, down from 14 percent in previous years
• The number of sources used per Technician article increased to 3.26, well above 3.00.
• The Technician met 1 a.m. deadline 72 percent of the time in the fall semester and the midnight deadline 55 percent of the time in the spring semester.
• Technician income was as projected, (budgeted $380,000 to $381,004 actually billed as of May). WKNC income was up as was Agromeck income. We pre-sold 164 copies of the book.

III.    Diversity:

• Bradley presented the Time Out for Diversity study at a national conference. The Technician’s efforts in covering this diverse campus are on track in terms of race and gender, but not college.

IV.    Staff:

• The 2008 Agromeck received a CSPA Gold Crown and the 2007 edition received an ACP Pacemaker. The 2008 Windhover received a Gold Crown from CSPA.

08-09 Annual Report

I. PROGRAMS
Producing leaders for the state, nation and the world

Our student staff members produced 155 editions of the Technician and 23 editions of the Nubian Message, kept a 25,000-watt radio station on the air 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, produced a spring-delivery yearbook and a literary and arts magazine. The skills needed to maintain this $850,000 operation help produce leaders in print, online and on-air media. The skills they learn in managing people, budgets and customers will help them in any profession and will help them be educated mass media consumers.

Led by a Board of Directors with outside professionals, members of the academic community and interested students, the NCSU Student Media received much national acclaim for the yearbook and the literary magazine specifically. The Board spent significant time holding editors accountable this year, dealing with a Technician editor who failed to meet the minimum requirements for the job at the end of the fall semester and candidates for Technician editor who, in the spring semester, turned in unacceptable position papers, finally asking the top candidate to rewrite his position paper. This, inevitably, was a learning experience for both groups. In particular, kudos go to Phil Zachary who is leaving the Board after two years. He and the other professionals have really brought a new sense of professionalism to the organization.

The Agromeck staff also took a leadership role in the spring election by asking a non-binding question about whether or not the student body supported raising fees by up to $1 to fund giving some graduating seniors a yearbook. More than half of the students said they supported the fee at some level.

The Board also took a leadership role in removing Americana from the Student Media Constitution and putting that up for a vote by the student body. It passed overwhelmingly. Given that Americana has not published since 2006 and that its roles have been absorbed into Windhover, WKNC and the Technician, we can put this publication, a leader in online media, to rest. This is a good example of how one student can keep a publication alive, but when that one student leaves and there is no plan to keep the publication viable, it dies.

In the first substantial change for the organization since the creation of Americana, the Student Media agreed, first with the approval of the student staff, then the Board of Directors, University administrators and the vice chancellor for Student Affairs, to bring Wolf TV on as a division of the Technician. We agree that the focus would be producing video packages to supplement the Technician, the Nubian Message and the Agromeck much as our student photography staff does now. While the video packages would continue to be broadcast on the campus cable network, the focus would be on story-telling packages, not a “television station.” We don’t have the resources, the student staff or the professional staff to support the endeavor any other way.

Student Media Board of Directors
At-large: Crystal Clark, Melissa Patzwaldt (Board chair), Ryland Clark
Appointed students: Scott Richardson, Laura Laurene

Professional members

• Bob Ashley, editor of the Durham Herald-Sun
• Dean Phillips, lecturer in the NCSU Department of Communications and president of deanWORKS
• John Clark general manager of WRAL.com at Capitol Broadcasting Company
• Denise Gonzales Crisp, associate professor in the NCSU College of Design
• Phil Zachary, president and chief operating officer of Raleigh-based Curtis Media Group, owners of more than 24 radio stations across North Carolina

Other: Jay Dawkins, student body president

Student leaders

• Technician editor — Saja Hindi
• Nubian Message editor — Keisha Phillips
• Agromeck editor — John Cooper Elias
• WKNC general manager — Kyle Robb
• Windhover editor — Joe Wright
• Business manager — David Mason

Professional staff

• Bradley Wilson — coordinator of Student Media advising
• Jamie Lynn Gilbert — WKNC adviser, assistant coordinator
• Krystal Pittman — business office manager
• Martha Collins — SCJ adviser, office manager
• Fred Eaker — systems administrator
• Heath Gardner —graduate student/writing coach

Academic progress

• At the end of the fall semester, we had 231 individuals in our student records, including volunteers. It took Jamie about eight hours to check grades using the online Student Information System. There were 240 students remaining in our records at the end of the spring semester, which took Jamie nine hours to analyze.
• In the fall, there were 76 people (34%) with greater than a 3.500 GPA for the semester, compared to 81 people (29%) the previous fall. In the spring, there were 75 people with a 3.500 or greater (32%), up from 29% the previous spring.
• In the fall, there were 17 people with a 4.000 GPA for the semester (down from 22 last fall, but by less than a half percent) and seven had an overall GPA of 4.000. In the spring, 16 people had a 4.000 semester GPA and 10 have a 4.000 cumulative.
• In the fall, there were 141 people (61%) with greater than a 3.000 cumulative GPA fulfilling one of the requirements for membership in the Society for Collegiate Journalists (62% last year). In the spring, there were 149 people with greater than a 3.000 cumulative GPA.
• In October 2008, the Student Media board amended its policy to apply a semester GPA requirement only to student leaders. There were 20 people (9 percent) with below a 2.000 for the semester (26 last fall, also 9 percent), in the fall, but only one student leader was impacted. In the spring, there were 21 people with below a 2.000 for the semester, including five student leaders. Non-leaders with a semester GPA of below a 2.000 no longer require a work plan.
• In the fall, there were seven people with below a 2.000 cumulative GPA (also seven last fall, but down from 14 two years ago). In the spring, there were four people with below a 2.000 GPA. All of these will require work plans in accordance with Student Media policy.
• Of the student leaders who are targeted by the campus-wide policy (any students in leadership (non-entry level) positions) in the fall, four student leaders had below a 2.500 semester GPA. All student leaders had the required 2.500 cumulative GPA. In the spring, six student leaders had below a 2.500 semester GPA and five of them were below 2.000. Two student leaders had below a 2.500 cumulative. Four of our student leaders had a 4.000 for the fall semester and two had a 4.000 for the spring semester. One student leader has a 4.00 cumulative.

Fall 2008	Cumulative	Semester	Unique people
Average	3.092	3.029	231
Low	0.000	0.000	231
High	4.000	4.000	231
Agromeck	3.231	3.415	12
Business Office	2.931	3.081	16
Nubian Message	2.772	2.629	15
Technician	3.131	2.990	87
WKNC	3.100	3.047	97

Spring 2009	Cumulative	Semester	Unique people
Average	3.134	3.072	240
Low	1.347	0.000	240
High	4.000	4.000	240
Agromeck	3.189	3.095	12
Business Office	3.012	3.021	15
Nubian Message	2.883	2.751	18
Technician	3.153	3.122	95
WKNC	3.163	3.076	96

Finances

CLICK HERE for detailed budget report in PDF format.

• Due to a declining economy, we revised Technician income downward. We projected Technician income of about $380,000 and should meet that expectation. At the end of the spring semester, we billed $376,607.44. In this economy, and given the state of newspapers in the United States, this is a significant achievement. We are collecting the vast majority of the income statements we billed. We expect to collect 93 percent of the advertising income billed. The Technician realized $423,551.07 at the end of the fiscal year.
• WKNC continues to move toward its goal of going student fee independent. The initial budget for non-fee income was $48,350, up from $29,000 in non-fee income in 2007-2008 and $26,000 in 2006-2007. WKNC should reach its non-fee income goal by the end of May 2009. WKNC realized $54,567.25 at the end of the fiscal year.
• Agromeck’s income also exceeded expectations because of increased book sales. We pre-sold 164 copies of the book and sold about 40 others in the NCSU Bookstore. An analysis of the relationship between marketing efforts and sales showed a direct correlation specifically between the postcard “You’re In the Book” and e-mails to students and sales. We sold more books in the spring semester than in the fall. The Agromeck realized $33,269.66 at the end of the fiscal year.
• The Nubian Message did not meet its income projections for non-fee income, $1,000. The Nubian Message realized $949.20 at the end of the fiscal year.
• Overall, the NCSU Student Media will end the year with income exceeding expenses by about $60,000.
• The surplus is somewhat due to Technician lack of expenditure in payroll. As of mid-May, Technician had approximately $136,000 budgeted for payroll but had only spent approximately $76,000 (56%). Last year, the Student Media deficit was due to overexpenditure in Technician income. This year the surplus was due to lack of expenditure of Technician payroll. Clearly, more oversight needs to be made in this area. Lack of hiring of staff resulted in stress on the other members of the staff, burnout and lack of qualified staff members for subsequent years.
• Overall, the NCSU Student Media had income exceeding expenditures of $82,382.08 at the end of the fiscal year.

Training
Highlights

• WKNC training included a fall, spring and summer class required of all new staff members. WKNC had no regular training for returning staff members.
• The Nubian Message and Technician both had advisory boards this year that met once per semester with outside professionals, other faculty/staff and students giving the publications feedback.
• Technician staff members coordinated only a few training exercises this academic year. For a staff that was as young and inexperienced as this one was, training was sadly lacking. The writing coach, in lieu of an adviser that can spend significant time with the staff, needs to take a leadership role in organizing the training.
• Other than what training occurred at their weekly staff meetings and at the advisory board meetings, the Nubian Message and the Agromeck did not have any training this academic year.

Conclusions/Recommendations

• Training must be instituted as part of the routine and supported by the senior student management. We need to find ways to motivate people to attend training.
• Training should involve a specific publication including evaluation of recent work. When we instituted daily copy editing quizzes in April for the Technician leadership, the number of errors in the paper seemed to drop. These mini learning opportunities instituted on a daily basis should become routine.
• Training was sadly lacking this year mostly because of lack of student staff leadership. To combat the inevitable timing problems, basic training for the print media staffs should include an online series of modules that can be completed at a time of the student’s choosing.
• Just as some other student leaders are required to attend an academic credit class as part of their job, we need to move forward with creating an editorial leadership class required of all students who move beyond an entry-level position. This class could be part of the Communication department, English or some other department on campus. It would be taught by professional staff already existing with in the Student Media and would require no additional staff or monies.

II. COMPACT PLAN
Recruitment and Retention Highlights

• While individuals who expressed interest increased, the percentage of those students who joined and remained on staff was down slightly.
• 382 individual students expressed interest in at least one medium during the recruitment period (up from 273 in 2007 and 230 in 2006)
• Recruited 187 freshman during Orientation and Convocation
• Recruited 22 new transfer students during transfer Orientation
• Recruited 39 new graduate students during graduate Orientation
• Recruited 134 students of indeterminate class status at Cates Crawl, Open House, Back to School Jam and Brickyard Organization Fair
• Overall, 709 unique contacts were made with 382 students (up from 481 contacts in 2007 and 304 contacts in 2006)
• Students continue to express interest in multiple media
• Average media selected per person = 1.85 (up from 1.76 in 2007 and 1.32 in 2006)
• Two individuals joined two media and one individual joined three media
• 42 of the 81 individuals who attended the Open House expressed interest at a prior recruitment effort
• 21 of the 44 individuals who attended the first Technician training class expressed interest at one of our recruitment efforts, with 13 attending the Open House
• 22 of the 30 individuals enrolled in the WKNC training class expressed interest at one of our recruitment efforts, with 10 attending the Open House
• 52 of those individuals who expressed an interest joined the staff (14 percent, down from 16 percent in 2007 and 2006)
• 40 of those individuals who expressed an interest were retained (10 percent, down from 14 percent in 2007 and 2006)
• The number of students contacted by an editor/manager within 24 hours during the orientation sessions was 85 percent, consistent with the 86 percent contact rate from 2007.
• The number of students contacted by an editor/manager within 24 hours during post-orientation recruitment was only 49 percent, bringing the overall total to 66 percent.
• The easiest way to let those us know an editor has contacted his or her list is to copy orientation@sma.ncsu.edu on the email. Despite this, only one editor regularly did so.

Recruitment and Retention of Technician senior staffers

Year	Editor	Fall to fall	Fall to spring
2002	Jerry Moore/Matt Pelland	100%	100%
2003	Carie Windham/Thushan Amarasiriwardena	57%	43%
2004	Matt Middleton	100%	88%
2005	Rebecca Heslin	100%	57%
2006	Tyler Dukes	63%	38%
2007	Josh Harrell	81%	56%
2008	Saja Hindi	75%	38%
	Average	82%	60%

Recruitment and Retention Conclusions/Recommendations

• Efforts at the Graduate Student Orientation Fair should continue. We retained four of the 39 who expressed an interest.
• Expand recruitment efforts during Engineering and CALS sessions particularly for Technician recruitment.
• Continue to send out an initial email from orientation@sma.ncsu.edu to ensure each student is contacted at least once by Student Media.
• All editors should copy orientation@sma.ncsu.edu when they send out the initial contact email and forward any responses. This creates an electronic trail that makes tracking much easier.
• Student Media should discontinue its presence at the Organization Fair on the Brickyard, as just one individual recruited during this event joined the staff. Such events might be staffed for awareness, not recruitment.
• Open House was well-timed with Cates Crawl requiring little additional effort and giving incoming students a time to come visit. Keep and expand.
• Continue to hire one student who is charge of all recruitment efforts.

Coverage

• The number of sources used per Technician article remained above 3.00, at 3.26 for the fall of 2008 and 3.05 for the spring of 2009. Problematically, however, the number of Web sites used as sources had increased dramatically. The average number of students used as sources was only 1.23. Non-student sources made up 62.2 percent of sources in the paper in the spring. Web sites used as sources is a new item to track.
• We averaged 0.779 corrections/issue in the spring. This is a new item to track.
• The number of Agromeck sources was up significantly because we had more group shots, more senior portraits and more pages. (2004: 1,491 sources indexed; 2005: 3,307; 2006: 2,907; 2007: 1,379; 2008: 1,487; 2009: 2,408)

Timeliness and planning

• The Technician met deadline 72 percent of the time in the fall semester and 55 percent of the time in the spring semester. Meeting deadline fell to an all-time low early in the spring, however, the deadline was moved from 1 a.m. to midnight to meet News & Observer requirements
• The 320-page Agromeck was delivered to campus and distributed on April 17, 2009.

Distribution
We tracked the number of copies of the Nubian Message returned this year from 12 drop locations across campus. We printed 1,000 copies each week. On average, we had 317 returned (306 median). One issue had  566 copies returned, meaning only 434 were distributed. One issue had only 19 issues returned, but we believe that was a mistake and the issues were discarded. This leads to three possible conclusions.

1. Box distribution is not effective for the Nubian Message. In-person distribution at meetings, events and classes is more effective.
2. We can lower the press run to 800 to save money and paper.
3. With the increasing cost of printing the paper, the Nubian Message could better serve more people by increasing its online presence.

III. DIVERSITY

The complete Time Out for Diversity report is online at: http://ncsu.edu/sma/board/0809/f08timeout.htm.
The sixth Time Out for Diversity study was designed to make Technician staff aware of the diversity (of ages, majors, classifications, gender and race) of the sources used in news/feature, opinion and sports coverage. A profile of the staff obtained from the Time Out pre-analysis completed by each staff member found that the staff is

• 51% male (50% in 2007, 48% in 2006, 64% in 2005)
• 22.2% seniors (19% in 2007, 29% in 2006, 42% in 2005) and about an equal percentage of other classifications.
• 20.6% freshmen
• 74.6% white (86% in 2007, 90% in 2006, 81% in 2005) with 6.3% African-Americans on staff
• 58.5% of the staff described themselves as Democrat compared to 51.4% of the students on campus in a campus-wide survey with a significant number of respondents said they were Democrat. The staff was also more likely to vote for Barack Obama than the campus with a significant difference of 5.8%.

Race

1. Reporters’ use of Caucasian sources largely mirrors the campus population but has increased slightly in the last year.
2. Reporters’ use of African-American sources jumped up a percentage point, and reflects coverage of African-Americans at nearly twice the percentage of the campus population.
3. Use of sources of other races generally mirrors the campus population.
4. In 28 percent of sources, race could not be determined either through a photograph or identifying characteristics in the story. This means that for a significant number of our stories, race plays no factor in the selection of sources.

Recommendations:

• We need to recruit a more racially diverse staff. The percentage of Caucasians on staff has increased.
• Reporters continue to use a wide variety of sources.

Gender

1. Reporters’ use of male sources (62%) exceeds the population (55% male), significantly more than last year. This is a reversal of a trend we’d been seeing over the past four years. By section, the numbers are about the same (+/- 1%) as last year. News stories: 65% male. Opinion: 58% male. Sports: 62% male.

Recommendation:

• Reporters need to continue to use more female sources.

Classification

1. The number of “staff” as sources remained high for the second year, reaching an all-time high and close to one out of every four sources.
2. Juniors topped seniors as the highest percentage of underclassmen quoted for the first time.
3. The class diversity of the staff reflects the campus much better than last year.

Recommendation:

• Reporters need to use more students as sources.
• Reporters need to avoid using CNN.COM, the News & Observer and other media as “sources.”
• Reporters need to use more faculty and less staff as sources. The student body president, Jon Barnwell and Tom Stafford remain over-quoted.

College

1. The College of Humanities and Social Sciences was significantly over-represented for the fourth consecutive year. CHASS students were used as sources at a rate now-quite double their population on campus and at a rate higher than we’ve seen in four years.
2. Students in the College of Engineering were under-represented in the paper as were students in agriculture and life sciences (CALS).
3. Although all sources are supposed to be identified by name, classification and major, the college could be determined for only 50 percent of the sources, significantly lower than in past years.

Recommendation:

• Reporters need to use students in CHASS less as sources.
• Reporters need to use engineering and CALS students more as sources.
• Writers/editors need to include name, classification and major for all sources in all sections.

Sources
The average number of sources per story is increasing slightly, on average, at 3.26 in the fall and 3.05 in the spring and averaging 2.83 over the last four years. However, we’ve become concerned about the lack of student sources and increasing number of Web sites used as sources.

Recommendations:

• Reporters need to strive to use at least three sources per story, preferably campus sources.
• Reporters need to find students with an interest in or expertise in a topic and should interview them.

IV. STAFF
Awards
WKNC 88.1fm — Kyle Robb, general manager

• The Independent Weekly’s Best Radio Station in 2008
• Indies Arts Award from The Independent Weekly for Steve Salevan “DJ Stevo”
• College Broadcasters, Inc. —  finalist for Best DJ for Stephen McCreery and Caitlin Cauley, “Americana, Blues and Company”
• College Broadcasters, Inc. —  finalist for Best Newscast for Tyler Dukes
• Society for Collegiate Journalists — 1st place, 2nd place AND 3rd place for Broadcast News by Tyler Dukes, Kyle Robb and Laura White
• SCJ 3rd place for Commercial, Promotion and Public Announcement for Bobby Earle
• Associated Collegiate Press — 2nd place, Best of Show, 88.1 Seconds of Technician

Windhover — Joe Wright, editor

• Columbia Scholastic Press Association Gold Crown for 2008 edition edited by Joe Wright and Hannah Richardson

Technician — Saja Hindi, editor

• ACP finalist for sports story in national competition for Clark Leonard
• ACP finalist for news page/spread design in national competition by Susannah Brinkley
• SCJ 1st place, 2nd place and 3rd place for Feature Writing by Kassie Gordon and Alison Harman
• SCJ 3rd place for Sports Features by Clark Leonard
• SCJ 1st place, 2nd place and HM for Front Page Layout by Helen Dear and Susannah Brinkley
• SCJ 1st place for Sports Page Layout by Susannah Brinkley
• SCJ 2nd place for overall excellence for the Technician

Agromeck — John Cooper Elias, Bryant Robbins, Michele Chandler

• 2007 ACP Pacemaker (Brandon Wright, editor)
• CSPA Gold Crown for 2008 book
• Best of Show by ACP in Kansas City for 2008 book
• Recognized in Taylor Publishing’s Yearbook Yearbook for 2008 book
• CMA 2nd place yearbook student life spread in Best of Collegiate Design, John Cooper Elias
• CMA 5th place feature page in Best of Collegiate Design, Tyler Dukes and William Alligood
• SCJ 2nd place concept
• SCJ 1st place coverage of the year
• SCJ 1st place photography
• SCJ 1st place layout, design and graphics
• SCJ 1st place overall excellence
• 15 CSPA Gold Circle Awards from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association

Presentations by staff
Bradley Wilson

• North Carolina State University hosted the North Carolina College Media Association, the second annual convention of that organization. Bradley serves as the chair of the steering committee getting that group organized and active. Because of “travel” restrictions, our initial request to have our students attend the convention hosted on our campus was denied because the registration fee included lunch. However, that was worked out with Dr. Stafford and our students were able to attend this one-day conference. Bradley and Heath presented their findings of their “Profile of North Carolina Collegiate Media” and survey conducted this year.
• Bradley was named co-chair of the national College Media Advisers photography committee, making him responsible for getting speakers for all national conventions.
• Bradley presented at the College Media Advisers/Associated Collegiate Press national convention, Kansas City, Mo., Oct. 29-Nov. 2, taught day-long, hand-on class on Adobe Photoshop and Soundslides, coordinated on-site photography competition and judging and taught four classes, including two research sessions, “How Do You Measure Success,” “The Yearbook Spread: A Photo Story,” “From Playboy to Fashion Friday,” and “We Regret the Error.”
• Bradley taught advanced design at one of the two national summer workshops for college media students for the fifth year. The convention was in New Orleans.
• Bradley continued in his role as the editor for the national publications of the Journalism Education Association, producing four magazine issues per academic year and maintaining the Web site jea.org. As a member of the board of directors of that organization for more than 10 years, now, he continued to present at both national conventions this year, the fall convention in St. Louis and the spring convention in Phoenix.
• At the East Carolina University High School Media Workshop, Oct. 28, Bradley taught general session to some 300 students on “The Impact of Powerful Photography” and breakout sessions “Yearbook Design Trends” and “Yearbook Coverage” He also taught at Central Carolina Journalism Day, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill High School, and at the NCCMA regional workshop at Appalachian State University Oct. 2.
• Bradley served as a consultant to the United States Naval Academy yearbook, the Lucky Bag.
• Bradley was the keynote speaker, Virginia High School League Championship Journalism Workshop, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Va., Oct. 18-19 where he presented keynote opening session on “Future Shock” and three breakout sessions, “Storytelling with Soundslides,” “Times Sucks and Helvetica is Boring,” and “Digital Ethics.”
• Bradley taught classes in photography at the Southern Interscholastic Press Association, University of South Carolina, Columbia, S.C., March 6-8.
• Bradley helped to run the Association of Texas Photography Instructors, Feb. 14-17, convention in  Arlington, Texas. No students from NCSU attended this year.
• Bradley taught summer workshops at Pam Beach Atlantic University, the University of Minnesota, Ball State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Jamie Lynn Gilbert

• Department of Communication, North Carolina State University., Sept. 24 —  guest lecture on Adobe Audition 3.0 for COM 307 Digital Audio Production.
• College Broadcasters, Inc./Associated Collegiate Press/College Media Advisers national convention in Kansas City, Mo., Nov. 1 — presented “Surveying College Radio.”
• Graduate Student Research Symposium, North Carolina State University, March 18 — poster presentation “Interactivity And The Content Conundrum: An Analysis of College Radio Web Sites.”
• Broadcast Education Association national convention in Las Vegas, April 24 — moderated panel “Papers in Order: Exploring Issues in FCC License Renewal” with Christine M. Stover of Oakland University and Adrienne Abbott of the Nevada Broadcasters Association
• Broadcast Education Association national convention in Las Vegas, April 24 — presented “Responsive Programming in College Radio: Developing and Maintaining the Quarterly Issues and Programs List.”

V.    RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCERNS FOR THE FUTURE

1. Hire a production assistant for the Technician than can be around during production hours. This is planned based on job descriptions from UNC-Chapel Hill, Kansas State University and the University of Texas to be an SPA employee that will work from about 3-11 p.m.
2. Over the past almost seven years, recruitment and retention has moved from being one of our primary goals to being our top goal. Now, we’ve recognized how best we can do recruitment and have been successful at that over the past couple years. Now, we need to focus on retention. We’ve had a meeting with alumni and need to create an alumni database to better use their interests, skills, expertise and talent. We need to prepare information for staff members on the value of working for Student Media. As indicated in our Compact Plan, need to focus on the Mentor Program, which was a failure this year with the Technician and only marginally successful for other media.
3. Few of our staff members have prior experience in journalism and continue to site lack of training as a frustrating for them. We hope to create a three-hour, for-credit class focusing on editorial leadership. As a special projects class, it would serve as an elective. The focus would be leadership skills and knowledge required of senior staff members, including media law and ethics as well as teamwork and time-management skills. It would be required of all non-entry-level student staff members in all media. Ideally, this will be housed in CHASS under the Department of Communication.
4. The NCSU Student Media was recognized as having the lowest paid daily newspaper adviser in the state in an academic study presented at the North Carolina College Media Association convention this spring. The pay for the Student Media staff needs to be brought in line with peer institutions. In addition, the title of the senior-most official should be changed to director as indicated in a national study of college media.