MINUTES

Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2011 • 7 p.m.
Room 201, Witherspoon Student Center

Members Present: Henry Allen, Michael Biesecker (via phone), Jamie Lynn Gilbert, Kathryn Glaser, Cordera Guion, Kenneth Hertling, Alanna Howard, Molly Matty, Paul McCauley, Ronilyn Osborne, Paul Ruddle, William Stronach, Chandler Thompson, Katherine Trapp, Laura Wilkinson

Members Absent: Siddharth Gandra (excused), Taylor Hiott, Dean Phillips (excused), Jim Rothschild (excused)

Others Present: Martha Collins, Tyler Dukes, Mike Giancola, Krystal Pittman

Note: As Chair Paul McCauley was not present at the start of the meeting, Vice Chair Henry Allen presided.

CALL TO ORDER at 7:05 p.m.

NEW BUSINESS

1. Approval of minutes from September 2011 board meeting. Minutes were not approved due to lack of quorum for beginning of meeting.
2. Appointment of secretary. Molly Matty agreed to serve as secretary for this meeting.
3. Budget update Jamie Lynn Gilbert reported Student Media paid a total $34,000 administrative service fee for the year, which represents 4 percent of the prior year’s expenditures. Our 2010-2011 rate was 2 percent. There is no specific breakdown as to where these fees go, other than “for general administrative costs incurred
   by the university to support central operations such as payroll, accounting, budget, personnel, purchasing, public safety, etc.” Krystal Pittman reported the credit card machine has been inoperable since moving to her new office on Sept. 9, so has been unable to process any credit card payments since that time.
4. Request to amend the 2011-2012 Student Media budget to allow no more than $1500 in lapsed salary from general administration be used for Wolf TV personnel. Michael Biesecker was reached via telephone to establish quorum for this agenda item. The Board unanimously approved the budget amendment after a motion by Laura Wilkinson, seconded by Paul McCauley.
5. A second request to amend the 2011-2012 Student Media budget to allow for no more than $1500 in lapsed salary from general administration be used to fund a student employee in another campus department came from Center for Student Leadership, Ethics and Public Service Director Mike Giancola. The student would work 7-8 hours per week at a rate of $9 per hour to cover for Fred Eaker, Technology Support Analyst for Student Affairs Technology Services, during hours Fred was addressing Student Media systems administration concerns. This will be used as a temporary solution while the Student Media Systems Administrator position remains vacant. The Board voted 5-0 with one abstaining to approve the budget amendment after a motion by Paul Ruddle, seconded by Henry Allen.

Advisory board meetings:

• Broadcast Media Advisory Board: Henry Allen, Kenny Hertling, Molly Matty, Dean Phillips, Jim Rothschild (Jamie Lynn Gilbert, facilitator) (201 Witherspoon)
• Business Office Advisory Board: Taylor Hiott, Ronilyn Obsorne, Katherine Trapp (Krystal Pittman, facilitator) (356 Witherspoon)
• Newspaper Advisory Board: Michael Biesecker, Siddharth Gandra, C.J. Guion, Paul Ruddle, Laura Wilkinson (Tyler Dukes, facilitator) (323 Witherspoon)

Annual Publications Advisory Board: Kathryn Glaser, Alanna Howard, Paul McCauley, Will Stronach (Martha Collins, facilitator) (will meet in November 2011 instead of Oct. 11.)

REPORTS

Agromeck (CLICK HERE)
Business Office (CLICK HERE)
Nubian Message (CLICK HERE)
Society for Collegiate Journalists (CLICK HERE)
Technician (CLICK HERE)
Windhover (CLICK HERE)
WKNC (CLICK HERE)
Wolf TV (CLICK HERE)

REPORT UPDATES

Agromeck – Kathryn reported 2010-2011 editor Susannah Brinkley will be coming in to conduct a design and planning training session. She talked with the provost about planning a spread on the budget cuts and how to best present the cuts to students. Kathryn has also hired two new writers.

Nubian Message – C.J. reported a change in his personnel budget. He is budgeted for a circulation manager to be paid $15 per issue and that position is not being filled. He will instead pay for a second copy editor at a rate of $20 per issue. The difference will be covered by the weeks already without a circulation manager and with the number of volunteer (non-paid) writers on his staff.

Technician – Laura reported that now in addition to Justin Rose, deputy features editor Joanne Wu has resigned and will need to reimburse Student Media for the Manteo retreat.

WKNC – Molly clarified the radio station will not be broadcasting live from Morning Times, but would instead be airing Raleigh Public Record’s live coverage of the municipal election results.

Mike Giancola updated the Board on the hiring of the Director of Student Media Advising, noting three candidates were being interviewed on campus this week.

Student Media production assistant Tyler Dukes announced his resignation, with his last work day to be Friday, Nov. 4. Tyler has accepted a position with the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media & Democracy at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University.

EXECUTIVE SESSION

The Student Media Board of Directors may adjourn into executive session to discuss matters of litigation, potential litigation or personnel.

ADJOURN at 7:52 p.m. for advisory board meetings.

TEXT OF REPORTS

Agromeck
submitted by Kathryn Glaser, editor

Personnel — The staff consists of around 10 people: one returning designer, six new designers and around three writers who have already written for us or have attended meetings. The designers this year have been great for deadlines, they are very helpful and have positive attitudes. Our writers are causing problems though, they do not understand the importance of getting stories in. I have had people drop the ball several times now, I’m going to have to start implementing a new procedure for writers.

Training — We have not had any new scheduling with the past month being so busy, I plan on having something soon.

Coverage — As well as I feel that we have covered events going around campus, I want to be able to cover groups and interesting people more.

Deadlines — The second deadline was September 30 . There were 40 pages sent to the plant. They consisted of August and September coverage. This deadline was much smoother and we were able to have a lot of help from staff. I was able to have Martha and Tyler look over stories and spreads ahead of time which cut down on mistakes.

Marketing — During Parents and Families Weekend we had a booth at their tailgate. They were able to take pictures with Mr. and Ms. Wuf and received fliers from us. I still plan on doing fliers at tailgates for the remaining games.

Business Office
submitted by Ronilyn Osborne, business office manager

Revenue – We know revenue is down and we are monitoring it very closely. We are, and have been, thinking up new ways to compensate for this decline and trying to come up with new approaches to reach to advertisers.

Technician - Campus sales are still in decline so as of now we are down for the year. We are trying to hit up local advertisers to make up for the lack of campus sales. We have the Fall Living Guide and Expo and the Basketball Preview coming up soon that we hope will boost the fall slump. We normally have a slump in sales in the fall, but we are still thinking of ideas to battle this.

Agromeck - We hope to meet with Katherine next week to start talking about marketing ideas that they have in place and other ideas or strategies that may be efficient.

Nubian Message – We decided it would be a good idea to plan a Happy Birthday theme page for the Nubian’s 19th birthday to run on November 30th. This idea is in the works and Melinda, our new Nubian Message sales rep, and Chelsea, our campus sales rep, are taking the lead on this special project. I believe that the two of them will do an excellent job.

Wolf TV – We have recently updated our sales staff on Wolf TV and what they have to offer. We are still trying to make an effort here.

WKNC – WKNC sales continue to increase and we are trying to reach out to some new clients, especially related to the season – things like haunted houses, corn mazes, and other Halloween activities.

Personnel – Due to lack of performance, we let Paul O’Leary go. He was supposed to be a WKNC-focused sales rep. We do have an interested candidate to replace him, we just need to conduct the interview and see if this candidate is a good match for the team.

Last week, we hired Melinda Brewer to act as our sales rep for the Nubian Message. She is very enthusiastic about joining the sales team and so we are all looking forward to having her work with us.

Training – Our last training was for on Friday, September 16. At this training we covered new media which included the websites for Wolf TV, the Nubian Message, and WKNC. I felt that focusing on other media would be beneficial for the sales team so that they could update their knowledge on rates and specials and our goals for these particular media.

Our next training will take place in mid-October. Our special guest will be a student who is interested in selling for the Nubian Message. She will be attending the training to get a good feel for our employees and the work place.

Chelsea Perry, Matt Keller, Alex Edwards, myself and Krystal all attended the Southern University Newspapers (SUN) Conference in Chapel Hill September 26-27. At the conference there were many activities that focused on momentum, focus, and how to expand our web presence, along with how to offer news to our audience in a different way. Overall, it was a great conference. We got to meet other sales reps from other schools and see what ideas they were implementing.

Updates – Since the office move on September 9, the office has still been trying to settle in. Although the office staff has so far transitioned well, there are still some office issues such as the credit card machine not working. We are working to restore this problem as quickly as possible.

Nubian Message
submitted by C.J. Guion, editor

Revenue – The revenue projections for the year were met prior to the first board meeting. However, no ads have been sold since the initial meeting. The Business Office has recently hired someone who will focus primarily on acquiring ads for the Nubian Message, in addition to helping out in other areas as well.

Expenditures – There have no been any expenditures out of the ordinary this month, and we have been keeping in line with the budget as far as I know.

Personnel – We have received a couple of inquiries of students interested in writing for the Nubian Message. Out of about seven interested students, three of them have started writing since the last meeting.

Training – Several staff members have been learning the process of doing layout on a weekly basis using Adobe InDesign. The training has been led by myself.

Also, other staff members have been learning how to navigate the website, which will soon become the primary source of submitting stories in the future so that the website have more up to date stories, and the print edition will feature our “best” content.

Technology – There have been a couple of issues with the CSS layout of our website, which we are working to fix. The font shows up in a different color at times than it is supposed to. We have been utilizing our Facebook fan page and Twitter page well to release breaking news and deliver our top stories. One of our most popular stories which was a letter to the editor regarding the Technician/Nubian Message coverage of the Obama is our highest viewed story thanks in part to Facebook referrals.

Also, since we started uploading our issues to Issuu on a regular basis, I have noticed that a lot of our readers are clicking on this as well.

Coverage – The staff has been delivering many news stories this semester, which have a primary focus on issues occurring on the N.C. State campus, as well as news which has a campus focus. I believe that the majority of our content is pertinent to our target audience, because even if it doesn’t focus on N.C. State specifically, it is focused on what our readers are talking about socially and globally.

Deadlines – One of the challenges that we have had with deadlines is getting in stories on time for issues that happen days prior to layout. Being that we are a weekly publication, we try to get in a couple of stories that occur on Monday or Tuesday to make sure that we have stories that are fresh rather than a publication full of outdated news.

Ethics/Legal issues – The only ethical, and potentially legal issue that I can think of regarding the Nubian Message is outside businesses that constantly put inserts in our newspaper boxes. When businesses put inserts in other newspapers they have to pay for it, but somehow they don’t believe the same rules apply with this publication. It has seemed to decrease since the Business Office has been contacting them asking them to stop.

Society for Collegiate Journalists
submitted by Sarah Tudor, president

NO REPORT

Technician
submitted by Laura Wilkinson, editor

Personnel – Our staff numbers seem to be leveling off at a steady number now that the peak recruitment period is over. I will put a new focus this month on recruiting through organizations and colleges to find more news writers.

Andrew Branch, a senior staff writer for Features, has signed on as a Deputy News Editor to fill the position left vacant by Justin Rose. I have still not heard from Justin Rose in regards to an official resignation. He still owes us money for fall retreat attendance.

Three Technician staff members were selected to attend the ACP/CMA National College Media Convention in Orlando, Florida – Joshua Hyatt (Sports Editor), Alex Sanchez (Photo Editor), and Taylor Cashdan (Managing Editor). All three are great employees with a fantastic work ethic and the desire to take on leadership positions as available.

Training – The training calendar has still not been updated with a wide variety of training opportunities, so training was not required again this month. I did have two people complete the training anyway and I plan to reward them with candy or something.

Technology – Nothing new to report. We use it.

Coverage – News continues to have good and bad days. A lot of stories have been dropping or have just been unassigned, which I find unacceptable. They do not have as large a staff as the other sections, which is why I’ll be focusing on recruitment for their section. Mark Herring, the Features Editor, has offered to help out with News as much as possible. Sports has started to branch out a little with coverage outside of football and soccer, but those are still the dominant sports. Viewpoint has been solid, though I’d like to see a little more fire from some of the new columnists.

We’ve had a few incidents with photography this month with photographers getting caption information wrong. On two separate occasions that I know of, a photographer has gotten the name of the individual in the photo wrong. One of my staff members said he has seen photographers looking on Facebook or team rosters to match faces in photos with names, which leads me to believe some photographers are not actively talking to the subjects in the photos themselves. I plan to sit down with Alex, the Photo Editor, to discuss this issue.

Design has been consistent, but they are still happy with doing basic layouts without much creativity to them.

Deadline – We missed deadline once last month. Once it was clear we would miss deadline because of two late sports stories, I told the editor to take his time to fix any errors so the pages weren’t both late and sloppy. We sent around 12:13 a.m.

Ethics/Legal Issues – Thursday, Sept. 29, we published a cross country photo on page 8 of a female runner stretching. The position the woman was in was an inappropriate shot. The cross country coach and Media Relations were very upset about the photo, and for a good reason. The managing editor, a deputy sports editor, and the Agromeck photo editor were involved in the decision to run the photo. I talked to each of them about what happened to allow such a photo that Thursday and Friday, and issued an apology through email to the men and women’s cross country coaches and Media Relations. Since it was after 5 p.m. that day, I told them I would call them Monday to talk to them in person. I have tried to get up with them both Monday and Tuesday but have not been able to. I have not heard back from them by email either.

Other than the inappropriateness of the photo, the photographer got the person’s name wrong. I have tried to find out who the subject of the photo is to run a correction, but have not yet been successful. Also, the person in the photo and the person who we said was in the photo was not who the story was about in the first place.

Expenditures – Production Assistant Tyler Dukes and I have been working on how we would like to distribute “bonus” money. As of yet, there is no definite conclusion.

Windhover
submitted by Alanna Howard, editor

Chelsea and Javan have hired two designers for the rest of the year, and we have added two junior designers as volunteers to help with designing materials for submissions. Ian Thomas is the current director of Fish Market, and will be helping to design the book in the spring, and Katie Hill will be available all year. They are excited about the addition of these two designers, and I think they both bring lots of design experience and interest to the table. I look forward to working with them. Tuesday night we looked over all the past Windhovers and discussed ideas for the item at the First Friday event and for the display case in the library.

Revenue – We have had no changes in revenue since the last report.

Events – The first Open Mic Night was a huge success, with over 150 in attendance throughout the evening. We had lots to eat and the Crafts Center was a great location for the event. We have pictures up on our FB page and I’ve tweeted additional ones. One suggestion I’ve received is to provide a program at the next OMN so the audience knows when to expect certain acts. The next OMN is Friday, November 18 at Caldwell Lounge. We’ve already had two people sign up to perform. In November Windhover will be partnering with the Design Council for a themed First Friday event. We will advertise for submissions, and hold an interactive event where visitors can put their personal touch on an aspect of the book. We recently decided we will provide small patches approximately 3”x3” that can be customizable based on the controlled color scheme of paint we will provide. The designers will laser cut “W” stencils and choose a few colors of paint. They are still working on how the patches will be incorporated into the book, but once all the patches have been made, we’ll sew them into a quilt and hang that at various locations the rest of the semester to generate awareness about Windhover. I will also have the new sponsorship packet ready by that First Friday. Posters with all the bookmarks would be made in the spring to advertise for the release party. Beginning around Oct. 18 through November there will be a display in the library featuring past Windhovers. The display will advertise the deadline for submissions, and past editions will be available in glass cases and on the two seating areas by the main circulation desk with fliers describing what Windhover is and how to submit. The now-complete design team is brainstorming final ideas for the display and is working with the library exhibits coordinator, Molly R., to bring this to fruition. I have created a critique sheet for viewers of past editions to fill out and leave at the main circulation desk, and a Google Form version for them to fill out electronically. We will compile this input and review it when brainstorming about the book. There is also the potential for a spring Open Mic Night at Irregardless Cafe in March, more details on that later.

Expenditures – There are no recent expenditures. I wrote thank you notes and Krystal placed thank you ads in Technician for Sushi Nine and Irregardless Cafe for donations for the OMN, and I have copies of the paper, the book, and the thank you notes to take to these restaurants this week.

Personnel – Josh and Syanne have continued to be great additions to staff. The designers are confident and excited to work with Katie and Ian.

Training – The editorial advisory board consists of Dorianne Laux, John Balaban, Dick Reavis, Jill McCorkle, Shelia Smith McKoy, Jon Thompson, Carmine Prioli, Gene Melton, and Sylvia Adcock. I am currently working with them to arrange a first meeting and to discuss expectations and involvement with the ed board.

Technology – THE WEBSITE HAS A NEW LOOK, GO CHECK IT OUT! Thanks Tim O’Brien. I also have an office and a computer, yay. The computer is running Tiger, and is limited and slow, but it works.

Coverage – The designers are currently designing all the fall submission posters. The library display and the First Friday event will both help generate awareness, and we have a schedule to hang new posters every three weeks across main and Centennial campus to continually encourage students to submit. As I receive submissions I ask where they learned about submitting so we can track where advertising works the best.

Deadlines – No new updates here.

Submissions – As of Monday, Oct 3 we had the following submissions:

• Literary: 51
• Audio: 4
• Visual: 8

WKNC
submitted by Molly Matty, general manager

Revenue – Non-fee income as of October 1, 2011 is $9,209.60, from Tir Na nOg, donor announcements, benefit concerts, Live Nation, merchandise sales, and other various donations. Recently, the “various donations” has been increasing with our involvement with Hopscotch Music Festival and Shakori Hills Music Festival. We are almost completely out of T-shirts and cozies!

Expenditures – Still awaiting quotes from our engineers, we are soon to buy something to make our turn table work as well as a new power amplifier for our transmitter. We have recently raised extra money from festivals and can spend it on that. We will be ordering more cozies and I’m looking into getting more T-shirts. We need to buy a new printer.

Personnel – For the first time since I’ve worked at WKNC, every position on staff is filled! Recent hires include:

• Blog Editor: Caitlin Zanga
• Creative Services Manager: Jeff Kochuk
• Librarian: Mike Miller
• Assistant Music Director: John Mitchell
• Assistant Local Music Director: Grant Golden
• Operations Manager: Michael D’Argenio
• Assistant Promotions Director: Nate Myers
• On-Campus Promotions: Cameren Dolecheck

All WKNC staff are required to complete one volunteer activity per month. These have been completed fairly well with only 1/6th of staff not completing them on time. In addition, non-staff members can become “WKNC volunteers” after completing two volunteer activities and continuing to complete one per month.

Training – We have just completed a training session for the fall. One-third of the class failed the written exam initially. Because of these striking numbers, I will soon be sending out an evaluation to determine any changes that need to be made to the training class. I am pleased with the involvement of the new staff.
Monthly trainings have not been enforced recently; however, I would like to ensure that our monthly trainings are applicable to our media. Script writing, music reviewing, and how to shoot live music photos are all sessions I would like to have this year.

Technology – Our webmaster is still working on new designs for the website, but I am excited to have a cohesive website. Currently, most of our website is in an old PHP format, while the newer aspects like the blog are in WordPress. Biko will be transferring the whole website to WordPress to allow for easy updates for years to come. Our printer is broken. We need a new one.

Coervage – Last month, we broadcast President Obama’s speech live on-air, preceded and followed by a student and professor discussion of the importance of the American Jobs Act. We received positive feedback for our involvement. Our public affairs department will be broadcasting live from the Morning Times for the election. They have been interviewing candidates and covering the election overall. Over fall break, we had five DJs represent the station at a non-profit music festival in Pittsboro, N.C. The attendees greatly enjoyed WKNC’s presence at the event.

WKNC will be providing an emcee for the homecoming parade in November. This will help get our name out across the student body.

WKNC will be celebrating 45 years of being 88.1 FM on Friday, October 14 at Kings Barcade. This free event features four local artists and should be a great time.

Deadlines – I would like to discuss a new compensation policy that is a bit more tailored to the realities of the people we work with. I have shared it with fellow leaders and only need to tweak it with my adviser.

Wolf TV
submitted by Kenny Hertling, station manager

Revenue – We have not made any revenue or sold any ads yet this semester, but we did receive $300 in appropriations funding from Student Government.

Expenditures – There are not any out of the ordinary expenditures.

Personnel – Still around 20 staff members, but there have been more reporters that have come in.

Training – No training has been conducted as of yet, but with money from Student government I hope to be able to give my staff training soon.

Technology – Are there any problems with technology? None that I have not mentioned before. Is the hardware/software being used adequate? If not, why not? And what would be better? Yes, but there is better equipment out there, just not within the budget. How are we working to function in a technologically sophisticated environment? We used our equipment to the best of our ability.

Coverage – Each week I ask them to bring in one topic/event that they would like to see covered and I put that on my list of projects for the week.

Deadlines – There are no issues so far.

Ethics/Legal issues – None have come up.