September 2011

MINUTES

Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2011 • 7 p.m.
Room 201, Witherspoon Student Center

Members Present: Henry Allen, Siddharth Gandra, Jamie Lynn Gilbert, Cordera Guion, Kenneth Hertling , Alanna Howard, Molly Matty, Paul McCauley, Ronilyn Osborne, Dean Phillips, Jim Rothschild, Paul Ruddle, William Stronach, Katherine Trapp, Laura Wilkinson

Members Absent: Michael Biesecker (excused), Kathryn Glaser (excused), Taylor Hiott

Others Present: Martha Collins, Krystal Pittman

CALL TO ORDER

NEW BUSINESS

Approval of minutes from April 2011 board meeting. The minutes were approved with no objections.
Election of Board officers
- Election of a chair – In accordance with the Student Media Constitution, “The board will elect, by majority vote, a chair and vice chair at the board’s first meeting. The chair of the board will be an elected or appointed student, not an ex-officio, non-voting member. In the absence of the chair, the vice chair will serve as the chair. With no opposition, Laura Wilkinson moved that Paul McCauley serve as chair of the Student Media Board of Directors. This will be Paul’s second term as chair.
- Election of a vice chair – Any board member may serve in this role. With no opposition, Dean Phillips moved that Henry Allen serve as vice chair of the Student Media Board of Directors.
- Election of secretary – Any board member may serve in this role and a secretary can be appointed at each meeting. Molly Matty volunteered to serve as secretary for this meeting.
Hiring of Agromeck editor
- No applications met the deadline to apply by Tuesday, Sept. 6 at noon.
- Current interim editor Kathryn Glaser submitted her application on Tuesday, Sept. 6 at 6 p.m.
- The annual publications advisory board will interview Kathryn on Thursday, Sept. 8 at 7:30 p.m. and then make a recommendation regarding hiring of the editor at the regular board meeting.
- The final appointment shall be determined by majority vote of the voting Board members present.
- On behalf of the annual publications advisory board, Alanna Howard read the following statement: “After reviewing Kathryn’s position paper and having a lengthy discussion, the advisory board recommends the Student Media board hire Kathryn based on the merits of the pages produced to date and the organizational and editorial plans she has for the future. We reviewed the proofs from the first deadline and agree the book is off to a good start.”
- The Board unanimously approved the motion made by Alanna Howard to hire Kathryn Glaser as 2011-2012 Agromeck editor.
Adoption of standing rules
- Four standing rules are proposed regarding attendance, excused absences, emergency votes and video conferencing. The standing rules were approved with no opposition.
Budget update After six summer issues and the first four weeks of fall, Technician advertising billed is $50,806. Our budgeted income to date (what we expect to have made by now) is $50,252.12. Because we do not collect 100% of what we bill, we are slightly behind our income projections.

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

Business Office – Ronilyn reported the Business Office moved to its new location in Suite 307 on Friday, Sept. 9.

Nubian Message – C.J. reported that the Nubian Message office is moving to 325 and 326 (Krystal’s old office and the photo office) on Friday, Sept. 16.

Society for Collegiate Journalists – Adviser Martha Collins reported the group is holding weekly meetings on Fridays and is working with the Union Activities Board on a screening of “A Clockwork Orange” for Banned Book Week.

Technician - Laura reported the special 9/11 10th anniversary edition came out on Sept. 12. She also commended her staff on breaking news during the summer and this semester. Laura made some changes within the payroll structure, increasing the amount for color correcting from $10 to $15 per night and no longer paying photographers for archive photos (those that have already run once). The total payroll amount budgeted has not changed. She also plans to use the $50 monthly “staff member of the month” award pay, hoping to split the money between Technician and Wolf TV. Laura will decide who will be staff member of the month, based on recommendations from Student Media Production Assistant Tyler Dukes.

Krystal Pittman reported on behalf of CSLEPS director Mike Giancola that the search committee for the director of student media advising was narrowing candidates down the pool of candidates to conduct telephone interviews the following week. They would then select three or four finalist candidates to bring on campus for an interview.

EXECUTIVE SESSION

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

ADJOURN

TEXT OF REPORTS

Agromeck
submitted by Kathryn Glaser, interim editor

Personnel — The staff consists of around 14 people. That is made up of the three top editors (myself, Sharon Eshet-design editor and Jordan Moore-photo editor), one returning designer, six new designers and around four writers who have already written for us or have attended meetings. Recruitment brought in mostly designers. I have been impressed with the skill of our new designers, most of them were editors of their high school yearbooks. I plan on recruiting writers soon from journalism or English classes.

Training — At the beginning of August, Jordan Moore and I traveled to Miami for a conference. We were able to see what we could do differently as a team and how we could better train staff. We are working on bringing designers, writers, and photographers together to work on spreads.

Sharon and I have met with each new designer to teach them our design style. They then designed a spread and we looked over it with them to teach them what to do differently next time.

Each writer has come up to the office and sat down with me as I went over the story process with them.

Coverage — During the summer coverage is always difficult but we managed to get several good spreads covering what has been going on around campus. This fall we are looking to cover groups on campus that have not been typically covered in the past. I have also been working with WKNC to cover more about the music and arts culture in Raleigh and N.C. State.

Deadlines — The first official deadline was Aug. 18. 84 pages were due to the plant at that date. Those 84 pages consisted of spring and summer coverage. The deadline was not meet because we sent the pages off on Monday instead of Friday. We discovered some last minute mistakes in page setups when talking with our account rep at the publishing plant, and decided it would be more beneficial to make corrections before sending, rather than having to make corrections on all proofs, especially for such an early deadline in the year. We will work to make the next deadline by having a goal of what spreads we want completed each week.

Marketing- We have already scheduled dates for Senior Portraits. We will promote this by emailing every senior, putting it in the paper, and using WKNC. During Senior Portraits we will encourage every senior to get a book once they are printed.

I have talked to my photo editor about taking photos at tailgates during football games and giving them cards telling them to check out our website and our Facebook page for their photo, and also that they might have a chance of being in the book.

The General Manger of WKNC and I have talked about cross promotions with Agromeck and WKNC. They would do an advertisement for us and we would do a monthly DJ pick somewhere in the book, probably on our calendar spread.

Business Office
submitted by Ronilyn Osborne, business office manager

Since the start of the school year it has been evident that campus and national sales have not been as strong as years past. In an effort to make up for this weakness, the business office has developed a variety of specials and promotions and so have relied greatly on this revenue outlet. We have also added a Fall Housing Fair and Guide that is scheduled to take place in early November, which we expect to supplement our income. As for the specials, it does appear that these efforts are paying off. We have recognized that some specials are highly effective while others are not and will be evaluating these throughout the semester. For example, last year the Pet of the Week special was not doing well and this year we already have a sponsor and so is looking to be much more successful. The Football Preview relieved two bad weeks and put our revenue back in the black.

Technician - Overall they are down $14,800.00 so far. Local sales are the same but nationals are down $6,200 and campus is down $8,273.00, which is due to budget cuts. We realize we are going to have to continue to work the local market even more to compensate in the losses in national and campus sales.

Agromeck - National Ad Agency is pushing hard and we hope when we hire a special projects staff member, he or she can help with the local aspect of sales.

Nubian Message – Symposium Guide generated $750 total revenue. This is the first year for the Symposium Guide and hope to do even better next year. So far they have made $305 in regular issues. We are currently putting together a strategy for new website sales.

Wolf TV – We are working to get sponsors for packages, especially for the new Rundown segment.

WKNC – Sales are up for WKNC so far with lots of venues relying on WKNC to get concert and event information out to the audiences.

Personnel – Since the start of the summer, we have removed two office assistants and added two new office assistants to the staff. The office assistants are doing a wonderful job working with Martha since there is no money in the budget this year to provide her a work study assistant.

As for the sales representatives, we have lost two members of the sales team but have made great improvement to the staff despite our loss. Since then we have added three representatives to the team. We also got a previous sales rep back this year, since she has just finished her Disney Program Internship. In addition, we have hired Paul O’Leary as a sales representative specifically focused on WKNC sales. We are currently working on hiring two new sales representatives, one specifically for special projects and one specifically for the Nubian Message.

Training – To kick off the summer, the business office held a beginning of summer training session for the summer sales team. It was during this time that the staff got a head start on our newly developed specials and promotions. Once the school year started we held a beginning of school year training session to get started for the academic year. At this training, we went over expectation, goals, and rates. At this training session we also discussed territories and clients. This year we have decided to do something different and get rid of the territories and instead evenly split up all the clients. We expect this to make a positive impact on our revenue and give all reps an equal opportunity to sell. We wrapped up the training with a trivia game that covered all divisions of Student Media, important persons, and other miscellaneous related topics. Once the training was complete, we all got together in a team building activity at the bowling alley with the business office staff along with some of the WKNC staff.

The business office has chosen Alex Edwards, Matt Keller, Chelsea Perry, and myself to attend the SUN Conference in Chapel Hill from September 26-27. We are all looking forward to attending this conference.

Updates – The business office is planning on moving into our new office space this coming Friday, September 9. We all believe this move will be very beneficial to the organization. We do hope that this move will not be an interruption to our clients and so have been preparing for the move to keep the transition as smooth as possible. We are all very excited about moving into our new space.

Nubian Message
submitted by C.J. Guion, editor

A lot of new things have occurred within the Nubian Message since I have taken over as the editor. Over the summer we revamped the layout of the paper, we chose new fonts, upgraded our website, and created a special edition for Multicultural Student Affairs. We have also created new partnerships with other student media outlets and it really is an exciting time for the paper. The Nubian Message will also be moving to the Student Media offices in the near future.

I want to request to release the November 16 edition of the Nubian Message on November 30, which would fall on a Wednesday this year and is the anniversary of the Nubian Message. Basically, instead of coming out on the 16th of November I would like for it to come out on the 30th which wasn’t on the schedule.

Revenue – The Nubian Message has received three ads this semester thus far. Two of the advertisements were purchased for and helped to fund the African American Symposium special edition. We were only projected to sell $500 worth of advertisements for the entire year, but we have already surpassed that if my calculations are correct. I think that with a good marketing plan in place, the Nubian Message has the ability to acquire at least one ad per edition. I am currently working with Krystal and Ronilyn to find new clients.

Expenditures – The Nubian Message has a couple of expenditures which are out of the ordinary. This is the first year that we have published an African American Symposium Edition which was distributed to first year African American students at the Symposium the week before classes commenced. We also recently have upgraded our website. To do this Student Media purchased a new theme and our new website www.thenubianmessage.com is now hosted by Dreamhost. The above expenditures may be out of budget, but the African American Symposium edition was funded by non-fee income.

Personnel – The Nubian Message has not had any significant staff changes. I would say that we have about 10-15 regular staff members. We had a couple of freshmen that were interested in joining the staff. They came to the meetings and a few of them submitted articles for the first and second editions.

We participated in a couple of recruitment efforts within Student Media during the summer months such as the New Student Orientation organization fair and Student Media open house. The Nubian Message staff also continued recruitment efforts at the Back to School Jam and the Union on the Brickyard organization fair.

We haven’t currently hired anyone for circulation as they aren’t too tempted by the rate of pay to drive to Durham and back to N.C. State given the increase in gas prices.

Training – I have been familiarizing myself with the layout process over the summer and during the beginning of the fall semester. Tyler Dukes has been assisting with this process as well as other training sessions such as how to improve the look and appearance of the paper.

No actual training has taken place thus far this semester as far as the staff is concerned. We are however planning to hold a training session so that our staff members can familiarize themselves with the new site which will be lead by Tyler Dukes and I. This training session will be effective, because it will create a new way for our staff writers to submit stories and it will improve our web presence, because stories will be posted online first and our best articles will be in the print edition.

Technology – The Nubian Message has upgraded to a brand new, user friendly website. The new website will allow us to upload videos, slide shows, picture galleries, and so much more. Visitors also have the opportunity to easily connect to our social networks from the homepage. The brand new site also opens the door for new advertising opportunities as we have ad space available in the header, as well as in the sidebar.

The publication moved off of the Student Media web server, because there were a lot of issues with permissions, as well as issues with file space for all of the outlets on the server.

We also continue to use Twitter and Facebook as a means of connecting with our readers. Over the summer we were able to continue to post stories of events that occurred throughout the summer on campus such as the Brick incident and other notable stories.

Coverage – Being that the Nubian Message is a member of the AASAC organization, this gives us a better opportunity to know what’s going on with campus organizations as far as campus activities are concerned. I think that we are doing a good job of maintaining our focus on the N.C. State campus.

We also collaborated on a video project with Wolf TV for the UAB/BSB Back to School Jam. However, there was a bit of confusion with the footage for that particular event and Welcome Week as a whole. In addition to this, we have restarted our relationship with WKNC’s Underground Radio. This will give us access to CD reviews, countdowns, and other opportunities.

Deadlines – We’ve had a couple of challenges with staff members turning their stories in on time which has delayed the layout process for a couple of hours.

Other than that we usually get layout done on Tuesday night and the paper has been on campus by 9 a.m. on Wednesday mornings. Of course this involves me having to stay up until the finish of layout and then getting up early in the morning to drive to Durham to pick up the paper.

Ethics/Legal issues – No ethical or legal issues have occurred that I am aware of. We have had a couple of corrections that were needed in the first couple of issues where there was a wrong date for the launch of a website and the second issue there was a mix-up with last names in an article. However, we quickly made the changes in the online edition and posted the corrections on the website.

Society for Collegiate Journalists
submitted by Sarah Tudor, president

As SCJ we currently have 19 members including myself, Sarah Tudor. We are recruiting new members for this semester; applications are due by Sept. 30.

Each returning member pays $10 dues, which where we get our revenue. New members do not have to pay the $10 dues.

Staff changes for this year are as follows:
President: Sarah Tudor
Vice President: Lucia Moser
Secretary: Elise Heglar
Historian: Tim O’Brien

We are not having any problem with technology, since we all use our computer to keep notes.

To keep campus involved we have a few things planned for this semester, starting with Constitution Day, which is Sept. 17. We are spray painting the tunnel on the Thursday night before the holiday to keep students informed. Along with this for Banned Book Week we are in the works of trying to get a banned book movie to play for free at the student theatre.

As a staff we are working well together and seem to be getting things done at a reasonable pace.

Technician
submitted by Laura Wilkinson, editor

Personnel – The summer staff was dismal, as can be expected when thousands of students leave campus for three months, but we made it work. I heard very good reports about Mark Herrings’s leadership role during July while I was out of the country. The final week of summer production, when both Mark and I were not available, was tense at best from what my summer staff told me.

Since it is the beginning of the academic year, our staff is growing rapidly; however, I do not have a set staff count yet because of this influx. We actively recruited during New Student Orientation over the summer, through Student Media Open House, through interpersonal contacts, and most recently through Dick Reavis’ journalism classes. Our next planned recruitment effort will be at the CHASS Student Groups Fair the day of our board meeting (Sept. 13).

All senior staff positions are filled, though there is one deputy news editor position open. Justin Rose was hired as a deputy news editor at the beginning of the term and attended the fall retreat. One week after the semester began, Rose said he wished to cease his employment. As of Sept. 8, I have not yet gotten his official resignation in writing. He will need to pay Student Media back for the cost of retreat as well.

One staff member has approached me with a disagreement in pay. When we met we also discussed an insubordination issue and the person was given a final warning to cooperate or face termination.

Training – There were no official training sessions conducted throughout the summer. For the first pay period of August, entry-level staff were not required to attend a training session due to various reasons. All senior staff that attended fall retreat were required to submit a reflection paper to Tyler Dukes about their retreat experience. From now on, all staff will be required to attend one training session per pay period as their job description dictates.

Technology – Due to user error, several days worth of online PDFs were not uploaded correctly. This issue with Issuu, the online service used to display the PDFs, has since been fixed.

While a painting crew was painting in Witherspoon, they caused the fire alarm to go off several times in one evening. It was eventually determined by the fire marshal that the issue was not caused by our staff. Side note: our walls are now an extremely unattractive color not conducive to good staff morale.

Thursday, Sept. 8, the staff operated without air conditioning. It was toasty, but fans protected the servers.

We still do not have cable for the television in the news room, which is unfortunate but not vital to our success.

Coverage – Sports coverage has been dominated by soccer and football coverage thus far, but I’ve spoken with them about ways to cover other areas of sport in an interesting fashion. News has good days and bad days, but the quality of the content has improved drastically since the spring, largely because of our new News Editor, John Wall. Features continues to cover many diverse topics, but they need to work on planning packages in advance. Viewpoint has been strong so far, though the new columnists need more training on focusing topics.

The design department needs stronger leadership than it has right now. The photography department has been training a lot of new photographers – some come back with pretty decent shots, many come back with rather boring shots. Often, the section editors do not offer the photo staff good photo assignment descriptions, leading to less-than-stellar photos. This will be an issue we’ll continue to work on in the coming month.

We’ve been covering a variety of local, national and international subjects affecting students, which is something for which I’m tremendously proud of my staff. We’re also getting a lot better about covering breaking news on both the writing and photography fronts.

Deadlines – By my count, we have missed deadline a total of four times out of 17 as of Sept. 8. The first time was with the first fall issue. The other three times were all during the week of Aug. 28-Sept. 2. Sports and News have been the most frequent contributors to missed deadline. I have personally spoken to the Sports Editor about how we can improve our deadline accuracy.

In an effort to encourage the staff to make deadline, I have put the unofficial deadline goal at 11:30 p.m. instead of midnight. We have made this deadline several times in the past few weeks.

Ethics/Legal Issues – Over the summer, Tyler Dukes found out that the previous photo editor for Technician had digitally altered a photo of the Free Expression Tunnel that ran in the Brick for Technician. The photo editor and I have talked about the situation and she understands she was in the wrong.

In Monday, Aug. 29’s issue, News reported that two men were scamming students on campus. Tuesday, both the News Editor and I received phone calls from the scammers who claimed the vouchers they were selling were valid. It was not determined until that Wednesday that the men were indeed scamming students. Although in the end it was not an issue of libel, it could have been if the men’s stories were true. Tyler Dukes, myself and the News Editor have discussed what should have been included in the original story that wasn’t and how to avoid such situations in the future.

Corrections have been continually updated in print, but I have fallen behind on updating the corrections page online. It will be updated well before the Board meets. I understand the importance of keeping the corrections online updated and promise to do better in the future.

Expenditures – This fall I began implementing a slightly different pay system than in previous years for the photography staff. Photographers will no longer be compensated for file and archive photos that have previously run in the paper. I have received one complaint from the individual specified in the final paragraph of the Personnel section of this report regarding this new pay system.

I have shifted some payroll money around to different areas. I will provide a spreadsheet detailing the changes at the Board meeting (if not before the meeting electronically). I apologize for it not being included right now, but math takes time and patience – neither of which I have in abundance.

Windhover
submitted by Alanna Howard, editor

In April 2011, I hired Javan Sutton as a junior designer, and Chelsea Amato, a junior designer from last year, as the design editor. Over the summer they both had impressive internships but we collaborated on a few poster designs to prepare for the fall. Summer work for Windhover revolved around securing a date and location for an early Open Mic Night, having some designs ready to go, and beginning publicity efforts. Facebook archived the old Windhover group and so I created a new page, and have been slowly increasing the traffic to it. Our Twitter presence has continued to grow. For the fall, I have the following events planned:

Open Mic Nights
Month-long display by main circulation desk at the library leading up to second OMN
Windhover-themed First Friday w/ Design Council
Crafts Center/Study Abroad Photo contest
Potential spring OMN at Irregardless Cafe
Release Party

Revenue – In the interest of ensuring Windhover’s existence for future students I have created a sponsorship campaign. On August 3 I mailed a formal sponsorship request and the benefits matrix to 39 area businesses, who are related to graphic design or are influential businesses attached to the Board of Trustees. I received one silver sponsorship from VisionPoint Marketing, and received an answer from Mulkey Engineers and Associates, who said to keep them in mind for next year. Those were the only responses. I plan to revise my sponsorship packet to mirror the Technician and WKNC advertising packets and Krystal Pittman has volunteered to take my materials and the business office will format it. In October I plan to send the reformatted sponsorship packet to another 50 businesses, and plan to focus more on businesses related to the arts.

Events – In order to increase visibility and to give more students an opportunity to share their creative works Windhover will be holding at least two Open Mic Nights this fall. The first is Friday, September 16 at 7:30 at the Crafts Center. The second is Friday, November 18 at Caldwell Lounge, although it has recently been suggested it move to Sunday November 20. Caldwell is a larger venue and has a grand piano. Several people have declined to play at the Crafts Center due to lack of a piano. 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 are currently discussing what to provide, possibly bookmarks. The idea is that the bookmarks would be available for customization within the Windhover brand, and this would generate awareness within the community for Windhover, provide a venue to advertise sponsorships, and get people involved in an aspect of the book. Posters with all the bookmarks would be made in the spring to advertise for the release party. Suggestions of items to provide instead of bookmarks are welcome. Throughout the month of October and into 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 display will be called “History of Windhover, Future of Windhover, A Semester of Critique.” 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 – We have spent $20 of our $550 publicity allotment on 80 posters for the September 16 Open Mic Night. Chelsea is being reimbursed for paying for printing at the discounted rates from the design school. I’m in the process of soliciting donations of food, and Irregardless has graciously donated bruschetta for 50 people, a $150 donation.

Student Media t-shirts were designed and ordered this summer, and paid for out of Windhover’s budget. As of now, we have not been billed, and I’m not sure which line item the money is coming out of, but I received prior approval from Bradley and Martha to pay for the shirts from Windhover’s budget. The shirts cost less than $250 and the business office is selling the shirts at $9/shirt. Windhover will recoup the costs.

Personnel – Currently there are five people on staff with plans to hire at least two more. Chelsea and Javan are currently accepting applications for additional junior designers. These applications were due Friday, September 9. I have also hired Josh Bielick and Syanne Olson on a volunteer basis for audio and literary editor. Both are passionate and seem like great additions to our staff.

Training – To ensure the literary content in the forty-sixth edition of Windhover is of the highest quality, I’ve reached out to the creative writing and English Dept. to establish an editorial advisory board. The board will consist of 3-5 professors, masters and PhD students, supplemented with undergraduate students. The role of the professors will be in an advisory capacity. They will lead two trainings in the fall to instruct the students how to grade different literary forms, and to guide the committees in creating strong criteria for judging submissions. I’ve spoken with Tyler Dukes about bringing in additional training in the fall. Ten professors were contacted as first choices for the ed. board, and so far I’ve received two yeses and one no. The email was sent on Friday, so I’ll follow-up this Friday with a second email. Syanne, the literary editor, is a graduate student in English, and she’s contacting various grad classes and student groups to gain members as well.

Technology – Over the summer I emailed all old submissions that were left unanswered in the account and posted any work to the website that responded. I’m working with Tim O’Brien on a website template redesign. It won’t reinvent the wheel, but it will give it a much needed face life, incorporating social media while making some of the graphics more interactive. I’ve been tracking the site statistics and Google Analytics on the website, and over the summer successfully reduced the bounce rate. One challenge I still face is the discrepancy in site visits. Some days we get major jumps in traffic (200+), and then some days only have 30 visitors, so I’m working on isolating the reasons behind that. We have an ad on WKNC and on technicianonline.com, and a link on the Facebook page. For the month of September thus far, we’ve received 398 views, and the biggest month this year was August, with 1,221.

Top Referrals for September:

Facebook: 18
WKNC: 13
Crafts Center: 2
Various blogs from people who have submitted

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