MINUTES
Tuesday, March 9, 2010 • 7 p.m.
Student Senate Chambers • Room 201 • Witherspoon Student Center
CALL TO ORDER.
Members present: Al McArthur, John Sanderson, Lindsey Warhurst, Dean Phillips, Michele Chandler, Russell Witham, Kate Shefte, Helen Dear, Mike Alston, Laura Frey, Jim Ceresnak, Bradley Wilson
Members absent: Kelley Brackett, Meagan Gay, Bob Ashley, John Clark, Louise Bannon, Denise Gonzales Crisp, Demi Olubanwo, Lauren Blakely,
Candidates present: Susannah Brinkley, Andrea Mason, Mollie Mohr, Thomas Anderson, Kieran Moreira, Caleb Van Voorhis
Candidates absent: Mario Terry
Others present: Dick Reavis, Ty Johnson, Saja Hindi, John Cooper Elias, Krystal Pittman, Martha Collins
OLD BUSINESS
- Approval of minutes — CLICK HERE Al McArthur asked if anyone had any corrections/clarifications to the minutes. They were approved unanimously.
NEW BUSINESS
- Hiring of student leaders for 2010-2011
- WKNC 88.1fm — Thomas Anderson and Kieran Moreira — Al said the Board would begin with a recommendation from the advisory board on the hiring of the WKNC general manager. John Sanderson said the advisory board recommended the hiring of Thomas Anderson as general manager. The recommendation was approved unanimously
- Wolf TV — Caleb Van Voorhis — The Board continued with a recommendation from the advisory board read by John Sanderson that Caleb Van Voorhis be hired as station manager of Wolf TV, with the condition he pursue the Visionary Leadership Certificate, part of the Leadership Development Series offered by the Center for Student Leadership, Ethics and Public Service. The recommendation was approved unanimously.
- Agromeck editor — Susannah Brinkley — The Board continued with a recommendation by the advisory board read by Lindsey Warhurst that Susannah Brinkley be hired as the editor of the yearbook contingent her developing a training program for her and her staff given that she will not be able to attend the traditional summer workshop for editors. The recommendation was approved unanimously.
- Business manager — Andrea Mason — Krystal announced that a business office advisory board met to interview the candidate for business office manager. Although no voting member of the board was present at that meeting the group of students and alumni recommended Andrea Mason be hired. This does not require Board approval. That recommendation met with no discussion or objections.
- Nubian Message editor — Mario Terry — Al McArthur moved on behalf of the advisory board that Mario Terry be hired as editor of the Nubian Message on three conditions: (a) Mario will complete ENG214 in the summer or fall; (b) Mario will implement use of the writing coach for himself and his staff; and (c) the advisory board work more closely with the editor to provide guidance and assistance.
- Windhover — Mollie Mohr — Lindsey moved on behalf of the advisory board that Mollie Mohr be hired as the editor of the Windhover. The recommendation was approved unanimously.
- Technician editor — No candidates
Al said the group would then discuss the hiring of the Technician editor. Bradley began by reviewing the four recommendations of the advisory board.
- the Student Media Board should continue to work to waive the fulltime student status (Dick Reavis);
- the Technician editor-in-chief position be opened up to students outside Student Media (Bob Ashley – with the hope that if an outsider did apply, someone from within would step up);
- the position be made a co-editor position (Dick Reavis, Marcia Gumpertz);
- the advisory board or a task force hear more from existing Student Media students about what conditions they would be willing to serve under.
He said based on a survey of alumni, discussions with current students an alumni, they had developed and discussed some more specific items for the Board to discuss to keep the process moving.
- The Board should re-open applications for editor effective March 10 with the staff requirement automatically waived. Applications would remain open through April 6 at noon.
- The job description of the editor should be modified so that it requires only about 20 hours per week in the office including all budget meetings and daytime hours to deal with outside concerns, meetings and setting the vision for the staff. The job description would also include the hiring of a staff of six senior staffers but NOT production. The editor would NOT be required to be the final person to sign off on pages and would never be *required* to stay late. The six senior staffers would include a news editor, features editor, viewpoint editor, sports editor, design editor and photo editor. Each of these (except probably photo editor) would take turns, one night a week serving as managing editor (and would be compensated for that extra work). They would only be required to stay late one night per week in that capacity. This spreads the late-night work among five people. The senior staff would meet once on Sunday afternoons for a full critique of the paper open to all staff members in addition to the daily critique at the budget meetings. The editor would still serve as the tie-breaking vote on the editorial topic but would not serve as a section editor and would not be responsible for writing the editorial.
- The advisory board should meet between April 6 in the evening and April 12 to review and interview applicants making a recommendation to the Board at the April 13 meeting.
- Between March 22 and April 6, the Technician staff should participate in an aggressive self-marketing campaign focusing on the skills that working on staff provides to all staff members, including leadership, teamwork, time management, and camaraderie. It will kick off with an ad in the March 22 (Monday after spring break) and a series of posters/fliers for students to post around campus. We will drive them to a Web page that they can type in their contact information and a staff member will visit with them personally.
- Note: It is within the provision of University Regulation 11.55.6 for a student to request a work plan to function with less than 12 hours. It has been granted in the past for other campus leaders. If requested, I could review that with the student to determine if it’s realistic. The student would have to examine further ramifications of financial aid and insurance and that would be their own, personal responsibility.
- If no one applies as editor by the April 6 deadline, the Technician should cease publishing after the spring semester and will take the summer and fall semester to “reinvent” itself as a non-daily publication, using the Web site for news updates and a new staff structure.
- Our new full-time “production assistant” position — a person who will work in the office in the afternoons/evenings specifically and primarily with the Technician staff — has been posted. It is only open to NCSU employees who were terminated as part of a RIF. Assuming no qualified candidates come out of that search, it will be open to the general public. I expect that to happen later this week or next week. We will have applications open probably through the end of March, will review applicants in April and hope to have a person in the position by June 1. This person would be integral to the future of the paper as they will be able to devote almost their full time energies to the Technician.
Reavis, a member of the advisory board, said it was his opinion that the universal complaint was thatthe student staff does not get along with Bradley. He said if no one comes forth as editor, the paper will fall apart. There is a chronic shortage of news reporters and there is an indifference of people to the news.
Jim Ceresnak said in Student Government they have the freedom to do the projects we want to do. Mike Alston said it the students made the decisions.
Reavis said the students don’t control all the money that comes into the Technician. He asked if the Technician could be a tabloid-sized paper so they could have less content space to fill every day.
Susannah said if we shut down the paper for any length of time, the students will be skeptical of it. Russell said if we shut down the paper for any length of time that it would be more difficult to get people to apply. You’d be doing a disservice to students. Michele asked if there would still be online news.
Jim said he understood the challenges the group faced but that he couldn’t seriously believe the group was seriously closing the doors on the paper. This is not North Carolina community college. We can do this. We’ve just got to get together to do it. We need a vigorous recruitment process. There are people who want to do it. Russell said the problem was that most of the jobs at the senior level were teaching other staff members to do their own jobs. You can’t just bring people in.
Saja said the paper would have a serious problem with credibility if it discontinued publication for any length of time. Ty said there was more than enough news going on. The job of the paper is to hold leaders such as Jim accountable.
Coop said the group has to find someone who feels the same way as Jim. There’s no reason why, he said, we can’t build the paper back up. Al asked where we find that person. Lindsey asked what are we going to do to get people to apply. Russell said leaders come from all walks of life. They have to be a natural leader. Coop said this was an opportunity for someone. Lindsey again asked what we were going to do to get the message out there.
Bradley reported that the process of hiring a full-time production assistant is underway. It has been opened to the general public. After the process continues for a while, a committee of students, staff and possibly alumni and faculty will review the applications, and make recommendations. As always, he said, students will be an integral part of the process.
Russell said they have some amazing freshmen on staff and that in two years they’ll have an amazing group of people.
Laura asked about moving with the idea of having a group of people in charge as was discussed earlier. Saja said there has to be one person accountable. And Laura agreed that you still have to have one person with a vision.
Mike said they all agreed that they wanted a daily paper. Dean asked specifically who didn’t want a daily paper. At least two students raised their hands. In the alumni survey, 13 percent of Technician alumni indicated they didn’t think the paper needed to remain daily.
Al said the group needed to decide whether or not to re-open applications and how to proceed. Lindsey said we needed to have some form about what we’re going to do with recruitment and need that committee to meet before applications are re-opened.
MOTION: Mike Alston moved that Saja Hindi chair a committee of students, Technician staff members and alumni to (a) write a job description for the editor; (b) re-open job applications Mach 26 – April 8; (c) develop a recruitment plan; and (d) write a detailed survival plan for the paper. The motion passed with no objections.
Before moving on with the agenda, Al reminded Board members that they should talk these things out before Board meetings, should review the information posted online and should know what they’re talking about before they come to the meeting.
- Compensation policy revisions — CLICK HERE for draft Compensation policy — After discussion on time sheets with students saying that the top reason for people not getting paid on time is that they inaccurately fill out their time sheets, Laura Frey moved to approve the proposal and suggested that all editors review this with the staff. Mike Alston seconded. It was approved unanimously.
- Budget update — There was no discussion after the monthly review of the budget.
Al congratulated all of the newly hired student leaders and thanked Mike Alston for his service to the group as his term expires before the next Board meeting.
ADJOURN — Al declared the meeting adjourned.
EXECUTIVE SESSION
The Student Media Advisory Board may adjourn into executive session to discuss matters of litigation, potential litigation or personnel.
REPORTS SUBMITTED IN ADVANCE
AGROMECK
Submitted by Michele Chandler, editor
Deadlines and Book Progress — We submitted our Feb. 12 deadline a week late. However, with the extra time we were able to finish the opening of the yearbook, allowing us to submit a full signature to the plant. Our next deadline is March 12. We will be submitting any leftover content from January and February, in addition to March coverage which amounts to 47 pages. We will have our final deadline of the book on March 26 to send the closing, index, ads and up to 32 remaining pages.
Due to the length of the book and extra senior portraits this year, we have increased our total page count to 344 pages. With 257 pages in the plant, and no more than 32 due on final deadline of March 26, that leaves 55 pages due before Spring Break.
Campus Awareness/Marketing — Our use of Twitter, Facebook, e-mail marketing and ads in Technician booked the majority of senior portrait sessions. Herff Jones photographers shot 567 senior portraits for this year’s book, more than doubling the previous year.
We held a portrait session in the Brickyard on March 1 to replace the lack of group shots in the index. The portrait shoot resulting in an extra 13 photos for the book. Due to weather conditions, the second day of portraits was cancelled.
We also used Facebook to encourage students to send in submitted photos for the index. We are accepting submitted photos until March 10.
Personnel — To assist the photo editor, Peggy Boone, and design editor, Susannah Brinkley, we hired Kathryn Glaser as our assistant design editor and Marissa Aikers as our assistant photo editor. They will be required to hold 5 office hours a week, attend weekly meetings, and assist the other section editors as necessary to make deadlines smoother. Since both of these students are freshman, we hope their additional training will encourage them to apply for leadership roles on staff in the future.
Book Sales — As of now, we have sold eight copies of this year’s book. For a final push in sales, we plan on using an e-mail broadcast to remind students to purchase a copy of the book.
NUBIAN MESSAGE
Submitted by Demi Olubanwo, editor
NO REPORT
TECHNICIAN
Submitted by Russell Witham, Kate Shefte, Lauren Blakely, co-editors
The Technician underwent no significant staff changes this month. Amanda Faber, our only copyeditor for most of the year, quit earlier this week so she could focus on finding a full-time job after she graduates, but we have two new trained copyeditors that will be filling in soon. Both have previous experience in the field. One, Megan, has a long history in Student Media and performed the same task for the Technician before while the other, Vince, has experience copy editing his parents’ motor sports magazine.
Several representatives from the Technician attended the third annual convention of the North Carolina College Media Association Feb. 20 and underwent training. All came back with positive feedback and a greater understanding of the other college publications in the area. Most sections have scheduled individual training and will meet to fill this requirement within the next few weeks.
We have had continuing problems with two computers in the office. One of the design computers repeatedly crashed, losing all unsaved data, but that problem appears to be fixed. The computer in the editor’s office won’t turn on, but Fred said he’s working to address the problem.
Our inexperienced news staff has worked hard to generate story ideas and find reporters to cover them, but large stories have slipped through the cracks this month, as in past months. We did not have adequate coverage of two of N.C. State’s quirkiest and most well-known charity events this year, the Krispy Kreme Challenge and the Polar Plunge. But the news staff is getting into a rhythm and has shied away from the safer topics, now branching out into areas that benefit students. Freshman Arth Pandya wrote a well-received piece on job prospects after college recently and Ann Polk wrote a story on grading inequalities that included several sources. No more “speaker stories” above the fold!
Features continues to fill its pages with diverse stories. Science and Tech editor Jessica Neville has embraced her role and is putting out challenging, but strong, stories each week, tapping into State’s seemingly infinite cache of research projects going on around campus for story ideas. Rich Lepore has delved into the student-friendly topics of video games and recent movie releases. Viewpoint continued its strong – and occasionally controversial – coverage and Sports has moved away from the Pack’s disastrous men’s basketball season and embraced coverage of the promising young baseball season.
The entire paper made deadline consistently in February. The only times it missed were due to breaking news stories, large gaps in content or late game finishes. All in all, every section made it in before midnight except for five to six instances.
Technician has been wary of any ethical dilemmas, though none in particular stand out. There have been several instances where mistakes have found their way into print, most notably an expose on the water quality in Page Hall. Corrections run the next day and the writer is spoken to quickly with the full burden of what has happened expressed so it will not happen again. We’ve lagged behind in approving comments and webbing corrections, but between the three executive editors and design editor Biko Tushinde, we are now on a working schedule.
WINDHOVER
Submitted by Helen Dear, editor
The design and production of Windhover has been our staff’s major focus for the past month. We are taking the book to Theo Davis Printing on Thursday, March 11, and expect a proof back from them on Monday, March 22. We will receive the shipment of all 2,500 books to Witherspoon on Wednesday, April 14. We will hold a reception to release the books to the community on Sunday, April 18, at the Crafts Center.
The design staff and I have been working hard on making final design decisions and ensuring all the parts of the book are cohesive. The pages with the literary and visual content are more refined than other sections (like the table of contents, audio page, editor page, and cover design). This coming weekend we plan on compiling the six separate sections (each designer has been primarily in charge of one or two sections) into one big InDesign book document. Although we have been working on making the book cohesive already, putting the document all together will help us see the rhythm and pacing of the book and allow us to make it even more cohesive. Katie Meaney, a graphic design professor, gave us some really helpful feedback about the book last Thursday. She gave us guidance on some larger “global issues” (capitalizing on the bronze metallic ink, making more full bleed images, and addressing inconsistent spacing issues) as well as smaller typographic tweaks. The design staff and I made the decision to rethink our icon system by changing it from a subjective descriptive system to a more objective classification system. It was a big decision to make so late in the game, but it was the right decision to make.
We are giving Katie Meaney another mockup on Monday, March 8 to review (with the hope of her identifying small tweaks and typographic errors for us to change, rather than more global issues!). We will give Joe Wright and Mollie Mohr, our literary experts, a mockup with all the copy this weekend and have them edit the book for typos and other literary-related changes. I am hoping to meet with Bradley Wilson on Monday to look at the book as a whole and to have his opinion on the book’s design and content. Next week we will be employing the help of Shaade Oliveros-Tavares, our production assistant and 2009 junior designer, and Liese Zahabi, a graduate student in graphic design, to help ready our files for the printer. Shifting the production schedule to the week before spring break has meant a shorter timeline for the book and having to juggle classes/critique with Windhover, but I am impressed with how my staff has dealt with both so far. Though next week will be stressful, I am confident we will turn out a quality product.
Joe Wright is handling the audio portion of Windhover this year. He and Mollie Mohr have contacted several new bands in addition to the audio content I gathered last semester. There is a diverse range of music on the CD already; I’m excited to hear the final product. I am grateful to Joe for handling the audio business since I am not familiar with compiling and mastering a CD. We will produce 2,500 CDs through DiscReady and will send the files to DiscReady on April 5. DiscReady has a seven-day turnaround, so sending the files on April 5 will ensure we will receive the CDs before the date the books arrive (April 14). Sometime between April 14 and 18 (the reception date), the staff and I will manually stick the CDs in the books.
Mollie Mohr, candidate for 2010-2011 editor, has been an excellent addition to the Windhover team this year; her hard work, commitment to Windhover, and literary expertise has been greatly appreciated. Her dedication to a publication she has only been involved in for a short time shows me that she is passionate about Windhover and will be a great leader. I’m excited for a literary person to reclaim the editor position; I believe that’s where the emphasis should be and will make the work more evenly shared amongst the staff. She has already shared some ideas for improving the literary quality and scope next year, which sound great to me. Jeremy Purser, a junior in graphic design and a current junior designer for Windhover, has expressed interest in being design editor next year. His experience this year and design skills make him an ideal candidate for this position.
WKNC
Submitted by Mike Alston, general manager
Revenue — Double Barrel Benefit was a great success, pulling in about $6300 in ticket sales alone, with over $7500 in revenue from all related projects (silent auction, raffle, T-shirts). We are far short of our sales projections, at $8.832 of a projected $18,000. Everything else is looking good.
Expenditures — We spent money on a good training investment, a program called Camtasia that can screen record and do some spiffy editing to make tutorial and training videos for just about everything we do at WKNC.
Personnel — With a new local music director and a new afterhours music director both in place, we are really looking good for the foreseeable future in the music department.
- Daytime MD – John Hubbard, 12/10
- Asst Daytime MD – Jeremy Leonard, 05/12
- Asst Daytime MD – Michael Jones, 05/13
- Afterhours MD – Joseph Brookes, 05/12
- Underground MD – Kunal Vasudev, 05/12
- Local MD – Nicole Kligerman, 05/12
- Chainsaw MD – Brian Tudor, 05/12
Training — As mentioned prior, we purchased Camtasia Studio for the purposes of documenting training procedures and to avoid lost knowledge. Also, our head music director Kelly Reid is developing more specific training curriculum through Camtasia and other utilities.
Technology — We are on the verge of installing Vitamin D for in-studio security cameras. Our open production computer is slow and terrible, and needs replacing.
I combined Webpage and Webstream analytics, and here’s what I found:
Note: in the average Webstreamers information below, I used average 30-minute webstream data for a week and found the weekly average compared to the highest 30-minute period to find a factor of 3.17 to reach the peak time daily average. Because the average Web stream is taken over a 24-hour period, the weekly numbers come in a little lower than what the 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. average is. I’ve likely overcompensated.
- There seems to be a positive correlation between Web traffic and average Web streamers.
- The daily average of Webstreamers is consistently higher than it was a year ago.
- The high water mark for Webstream was the week ending Feb. 6, 2010, the week of Double Barrel Benefit 7.
- This same week was the high water mark for Web hits, likely because of DBB 7 and a flurry of blog activity.
- Reverbnation has accounted for 13 percent of incoming Web traffic this year compared to virtually nothing previously. We worked a deal to get a DBB advertisement on their Web site, and it paid off. This may be an avenue to explore in the future.
- For the six-month period of Sept 1, 2008-Feb. 28, 2009 compared to the six-month period of Sept 1, 2009-Feb. 28, 2010, wknc.org went from 51,054 absolute unique visits for the six months to 92,869 absolute
- unique visits for the six months (+81.90%).
- For the six-month period of March 1, 2009-Aug. 31, 2009 compared to the six month period of Sept. 1, 2009-Feb. 28, 2010, wknc.org went from 71,215 absolute unique visits for the six months to absolute unique visits for the six months (+30.41%).
Number of absolute unique visitors:
- Sept. 2009 — 14,436
- Oct. 2009 — 15,626
- Nov. 2009 — 15, 637
- Dec. 2009 — 14,724
- Jan. 2010 — 24,627
- Feb. 2010 — 19,331
SOCIETY FOR COLLEGIATE JOURNALISTS
Submitted by Susannah Brinkley, president
NO REPORT
BUSINESS OFFICE
Submitted by Laura Frey
Week Prospects Meetings Contacts Sales 2 - 1/18-1/22 3 10 $5,294.33 3 – 1/25-1/29 5 10 $8,106.51 4 – 2/1-2/5 4 11 $3,536.53 5 – 2/8-2/12 5 1 13 $7,836.60 6 – 2/15-2/19 4 12 $8,584.85 7 – 2/22-2/26 5 14 $7,093.43
Revenue — As the housing fair is approaching we are hovering around the average $10,000 that we tend to make during this special issue. We have increased our housing guide sales from $9,497.00 in 2009 to $10,578.26. Our housing representative has done a great job with her clients to encourage them to increase their advertisements this semester. The rest of our representatives still need to increase their meetings with their clients but as the middle of the semester is quickly approaching, they have all done a great job this semester. To date our local sales have increased by $11,386.46 in comparison to last year’s sales.
Staff & Training — Our newest staff members really fit well with the chemistry we already have within the office. We will be having our next training after we return from Spring Break. I intend on showing Andrea how we plan a training session so that she will know what all goes into it for the future, should the board select her. By including her in my daily tasks it will make the transition go smoothly. The training session will include all of the staff to keep up our team bonding. The training will also focus on the future of the Technician since our staff would be drastically affected to a change in the way of organization within this media. Since we don’t know what to expect until the hiring of student leaders, Andrea, Charlie and I will need to figure out the best way to keep the business office running.
BUDGET UPDATE
As of March 1, 2010
Technician advertising billed: $189,496.58
Technician projections for collections: $176,231.81
Technician budgeted income to date: $275,645.65
Technician actual expenditures to date: $191,703.45
Nubian Message local advertising sold to date: $180
Agromeck local advertising sold to date: $0
Agromeck total advertising sold to date: $4,490
Agromeck book sales to date: 8
WKNC non-fee income to date: $33,970.35 (billed and collected)
CLICK HERE for a PDF version of the update.