ICIG Web Site Wants to Be YOUR Main Internships & Careers Resource

Alan Kirkpatrick, ICIG Head
University of Colorado-Boulder

If you are someone who helps students make their way from the classroom into the workplace, you've got something to say that we ought to hear. That's because ICIG is making plans to expand its role at AEJMC by developing its Web site into a significant resource for internships and careers over the next several y ears.

ICIG officials have a preliminary notion of how the site will work and what it will feature. For educators involved with internships and placement, the list of most frequently asked questions includes:

o What are the state and federal laws regarding interns?
o What should an intern or alum do who is experiencing sexual harassment or other forms of discrimination?
o Where can I learn about international internship and job opportunities?
o Where can I learn about national internship programs?
o What are other college and university internship and placement programs like?
o How is technology changing what students need to know about preparing resumes and examples of their work?
o How can a student find safe accommodations in advance for a new job or internship hundreds of miles away?
o Where can a student learn about negotiating terms of employment?
o What should I be telling my students about employment contracts?
o Where do I go to find research as to employment trends (hiring, salaries, job satisfaction, etc.) in fields relating to journalism and mass communication?
o How do I find internship and career programs that focus on diversity?
o What resources and opportunities are there for my students with disabilities?

But when arranging Web space to meet such needs, which pages should be built first? How should they be maintained?

My goal is for ICIG -- with considerable help from interested members -- to construct a Goldilocks sort of Web site. Something that, at least to career and internship educators, will feel just right in terms of size and ease of use.

This summer ICIG is drafting a three-year master plan for the development of our site. Anne Hoag of Penn State, who is ICIG's Web designer and secretary, and I would like very much to hear from AEJMC members interested in how this resource comes together. These ideas will be blended into a proposal for consideration at the group's annual business meeting in Miami (6:45 p.m. Friday, Aug. 9).

An example of the kind of thing ICIG has in mind can be found at this site under the "Internship Resources" link. Vice Head Michell Betz compiled information for our International Exchange Programs/Internship Opportunities site.

Also, Anne and I welcome ideas from AEJMC members as to how the ICIG listserv can be used. During the 2001-2002 academic year educators from across the United States participated in a forum on internship evaluation, with several people providing electronic versions of evaluation forms for others to use as examples.

So please give us a call or drop us an e-line. Give us an earful or a screenful. Bring your opinions to the ICIG business meting in Miami. (Did I mention it starts at 6:45 p.m. Friday, Aug. 9?) Let us know how we can try to make your job easier and more effective.

We’d like to hear from colleagues interested in helping to expand that list and implement the Web site. Those wanting to contribute ideas and expertise can contact me at mailto:alan.kirkpatrick@colorado.edu I’d also like to hear from those who either are conducting JMC career-related research or are familiar with some that ICIG should know about. Finding relevant research has always been a challenge for ICIG, so any help in this area is always greatly appreciated.

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Reconnecting with Reality

Marshel Rossow
Minnesota State University-Mankato

Be good to your students . . . you never know when they’ll become your senior colleagues. At least that’s what happened to me during a recent sabbatical.

In my 17th year of teaching mass comm and journalism at Minnesota State University-Mankato, I decided to take a long-overdue break to reconnect with reality. I had come into teaching after 15 years in daily newspapering, and I knew it was time to revisit the newsroom. Having never worked at a weekly (the kind of paper at which many of my students land their first journalism jobs), I arranged to do some reporting, photography and newsroom work for a small chain near my southcentral Minnesota home.

In approaching the sabbatical, I didn’t really give much thought to the fact that the editors at two of the papers as well as the main reporter at one were graduates of my program. But on arriving for my first day on the job, I found it felt ... well ... strange to be seeking advice and assistance from people who only a fleeting year or two earlier had been students in my classes seeking ... well ... advice and assistance.

I can break my sabbatical time frame down into three chunks. Let’s call them Nervousness, Humiliation and Fun.

Nervousness. For the first couple of weeks, I felt unsure of myself. It had, after all, been 17 years since I left the newsroom, and I wondered if I (an old ex-newsman in my early 50s) still “had what it takes.” My former students were in an awkward situation, too, not knowing if they should call me Doctor or Sir or Professor or Hey, New Guy. But as I worked with my newfound coworkers, contacted sources, took photos and cranked out stories, the nervousness was replaced by . . .

Humiliation. It was in the middle leg of the sabbatical that I found myself becoming a little ill at ease accepting assignments (which, given the independent attitude that 17 years of professorship instills, felt a lot like like “taking orders”) and seeking advice from those whippersnapper former students who were, by gosh, almost young enough to be my . . . uh. . . students. It was, to say the least, a bit humbling after having guided those same people through their undergrad years. At one point at the end of a frustrating day during which I had asked to have the computer layout software explained to me for about the ninth time, I was ready to pack it all in and retreat to the security of my campus office. But I figured such a flight would have made me sort of a postdoctoral dropout, and so I stuck it out. And as the days of the sabbatical waned, the job became . . .

Fun. It was fun to have a photo published that illustrated the point I had hoped to make. It was fun to get the perfect quote from a source. It was fun to escape the newsroom to look for a story nobody else would have, and it was fun to see a byline on that story when it hit the street. But it especially was fun to work with those ex-students-become-colleagues who made me proud as I observed the dedicated journalists they had become. For the splendid skills I obviously had imparted to each of them I just wanted to give myself a well-deserved pat on the back! But, of course, I couldn’t. I had an editor looking over my shoulder, a deadline to meet and that darned computer software to figure out.

Small Market Internships:
Plentiful Opportunities & Challenges

Kim Landon
Utica College

We have done our job. Students know that internships provide the important keys to job-seeking success. All of them want at least one. Good news? Not necessarily.

In a small city like Utica, N.Y. - not unlike hundreds of other small-city homes to colleges across the country - the opportunities for internships in the communications fields are limited. There is one medium-circulation daily in the city, and half a dozen small dailies within easy driving distance. Add the handful of weeklies in the region, and there is actually a substantial list of opportunities for print internships.

So far, students interested in writing news, sports or features for newspapers have had an abundance of choices in local internships. However, for those who want experience in photography, copyediting, or online journalism, the only choice is the Utica newspaper. Fortunately, the staff is eager to have journalism interns in any or all of those departments.

Not so fortunate are the students who want a magazine internship. In a small city, the answer for those students is frustrating, although in the long run, productive. At Utica College, students interested in a magazine career often write for the features department of the local newspaper. A new, regional, monthly women's publication is willing to accept longer, magazine-style pieces from interns. The students don't learn the inner workings of a magazine, but they do manage to publish several magazine-quality pieces for their portfolios.

However, fewer and fewer students want to limit themselves to print internships. For those who want a career in broadcast journalism, finding an internship in a small city is a challenge although not necessarily an impossibility. One of the major advantages of placing interns from a small college in the local community is that the television and radio news directors, reporters, and producers are likely to be alumni. That is the case in Utica, and this has provided internship opportunities for just about all of the students interested in broadcasting. More problematic, however, is the quality of the broadcasting internships. At the small, local radio stations, news copy is generally taken from the local newspaper. Radio interns are also expected to participate in promotional activities, to answer phones, and even to perform secretarial duties. While the students who take these internships don't generally produce much portfolio-quality work, they come away from the experience with a thorough knowledge of how a small radio station operates.

At the two local television stations, the experiences also vary widely. The higher rated station has a strong union, so the interns do nothing more than "shadow" the reporters, and watch newscast preparations. Generally, we don't recommend that the more talented students take this internship, but it is often a good solution for a weaker student who is interested in exploring career options in television.

The smaller of the two stations allows interns to do everything except appear on camera. News interns there have covered breaking news, written scripts, edited tape and even produced newscasts. Salaries are so low and turnover is so high at such a small station that interns often end up with part-time jobs as well.

Much more plentiful, at least in this small city, are internships in public relations. Again, the types of experiences are limited, but the students often end up working for alumni, and very often end up with paid positions when they graduate. Non-profit settings are eager to have public relations interns and give them more work to do than they can complete in a semester. There is one public relations agency in town, and two agencies in Syracuse, an hour away, that accept our interns, generally are the more talented students. Often, these local internships provide a springboard to full-time positions with the agency, or to jobs in major cities such as Boston or New York. Less available in a small city are internships in corporate public relations. One or two local companies have accepted interns into their communications offices, but depending upon the company's circumstances any given semester, these internships are not consistently available.

The bottom line is that internships are available, and for some kinds of experiences, plentiful, in a small city. Alumni help open the door for interns. Experiences vary in quality, but at least at Utica College, we have yet to graduate a journalism or public relations major without at least one internship and a professional portfolio.

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Research Notes

Marian Azzaro, ICIG Research Chair
Roosevelt University

This has been a great year for research and renewed interest for the Internships and Careers Interest Group. After a research hiatus last year, and with no special promotion this year, we are pleased to report a successful paper competition. We employed a triple-blind review process, and our judges accepted three good papers for presentation. The authors, Lauren A. Vicker from St. John Fisher College, B. Gail Wilson from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and John E. Getz from South Dakota State University, have been invited to present their work on Friday, August 9th at the AEJMC conference in Miami. Professor Vicker's paper studies the use of internship supervisor evaluations as a way to assess an academic program. Professor Wilson's paper investigates the importance of and content of portfolios for graduating students seeking entry-level jobs in television newsrooms. Professor Getz researched the perceptions of journalism students regarding the value of internships. Please be sure to visit with and congratulate each author in Miami.

The leadership of the Internships and Careers Interest Group is pleased to be again accepting important scholarly research in the area. After this year's modest rebuilding success, we'd like to take this opportunity to open a discussion among the members. We feel the accepted papers this year demonstrate a broad range of research possibilities in this field and we would like to see greater participation. We invite your thoughts and ideas about research in this area. How do you feel about the ICIG continuing to sponsor an annual research competition? What might we do to encourage more submissions and more participation from students as well as faculty?

We welcome your comments in advance and/or in person at the ICIG business meeting at the AEJMC Summer Conference in Miami. Please send any advance comments to my attention, Marian Azzaro, at mailto:mazzaro@roosevelt.edu

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Miami in 2002: ICIG Best Program Yet

Michelle Betz, ICIG Vice-Head & Program Chair
University of Central Florida

Well, less than one month to go and we’ll get a chance to see what ICIG officers and session producers have put together for us in Miami ­ and it looks like it will be ICIG’s best offering yet!

This year’s conference theme is "Ways of Knowing: Inside and Outside the Classroom," and ICIG’s program offerings are right on target. We kick off the conference August 7 with a timely and relevant mini-plenary: "Things your Teachers Never Told You: War, Terrorism and Trauma". Also that day, ICIG and CT&P co-sponsor "Keeping Computer-Assisted Reporting Curricula Meaningful," and we are co-sponsoring
with RTVJ a session entitled "Cable Outlets: Career Builder or Dead-End?"

Thursday August 8 we’ll take a look at the "Spanish Explosion: Career and Internship Opportunities in Spanish-Language Media." Friday will see a discussion about integrating internships into the curriculum. We’ll wrap up Saturday August 10 with a follow-up of one of last year’s most popular sessions: "Converging Media: What’s Now? Now What?". We'll also look at a new area: "Preparing Students for the Business of Media: Internships in Sales, Finance and Management."

I hope you’ll attend these sessions. We’ve got speakers from around the world and around the country and I’m sure you won’t be disappointed! Click on our Web site's "conference" section for more details and speaker information on each session.

Finally, I’d like to thank a number of people without whom this year’s programming wouldn’t be happening. This year’s session producers (those people who found the fabulous speakers and coordinated everything for the sessions) were Alan Kirkpatrick, Elizabeth Gaeddert, Pat McNeely, Kathy Bradshaw, and Maria (MC) Santana. Of course programming also wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t partnered with other divisions. I’d like to thank the heads and program chairs of those divisions that co-sponsored ICIG sessions: PR, Vis Com, Civ Jou, Intl, RTVJ, CT&P, MME, GEIG and Mag.

I’d also like to thank all of ICIG’s officers, past and present, for making my two years with ICIG an absolute pleasure.

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