Past Issues

• Vol 7, No. 2
• Vol 7, No. 1
• Vol 6, No. 2
• Vol 6, No. 1
• Vol 5, No. 2
• Vol 5, No. 1
• Vol 4, No. 2
• Vol 4, No. 1

Oh, Canada: Broadening our Horizons in More Ways Than One

Evonne (Von) H. Whitmore, ICIG Head
Kent State University
ewhitmor@kent.edu

I'm looking forward to an international experience in Toronto this summer. Although Canada is just across the border it is, after all, still another country. The city best known for attractions such as: CN Tower, the theater, science museum and International Film Festival, also offers many opportunities for academics. Interested journalism and mass communications professors could begin to explore possible lines of inquiry relating to Canadian mass media. The numerous program offerings at this year's AEJMC Convention in Toronto from August 4-7 provide an opportunity to investigate the academic possibilities.

But have you ever considered the possible opportunities and rich learning experiences of international internships? According to the American Council on Education, most students improve academically after completing an internship. Imagine coupling what is already a good thing with the additional rewards of living and working in another country. Of course, sending students across the pond in today's climate of terrorism is not something to be taken lightly by students, faculties or their universities; make no mistake about it. But recent reports by the Commerce Department note that there is an increase in international travel by Americans and foreigners coming to the U.S. Perhaps, a sign overall that insecurities about terrorism are subsiding a bit.

KSU student Glenn Luther had the unusual experience of interning in Afghanistan during 2003. The first of its kind internship was the direct outgrowth of a relationship between former photo journalism professor William Gentile and Aina. The organization claims to promote education, training and information for the development of independent media and cultural expression in Afghanistan. Speaking in the campus newspaper about the decision to sanction the unusual internship, Jeff Fruit, Director of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication said: "Any fears or concerns he may have are overshadowed by the opportunity that lies ahead." Luther said: "Why did I choose to go?" My question would be why not ...What better place to teach and learn photojournalism . . .? This is where the news is happening."

Luther's internship was, of course, very unique; not just because of its location, but because of the nature of international internships in general. As a rule, they can be fairly difficult to obtain and are usually rather costly. Nonetheless, the benefits appear to outweigh the negatives. For information about obtaining international internships for yourself or your students who do not want to receive academic credit, Internships International is a good place to start. For students wishing to receive credit many colleges and universities have their own arrangements through foreign language departments or international studies programs. Perhaps, your school has such a program. ICIG has also compiled a comprehensive list of resources for international internships on our web site at: http://www.aejmc.net/icig/resources.htm.

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Toronto 2004: ICIG Programming

Marian Azzaro, ICIG Vice-Head & Program Chair
Roosevelt University
mazzaro@roosevelt.edu

By now you are planning your schedule for next month's AEJMC conference in Toronto. If you aren't yet, you should be! I'd like to take this opportunity to point out our ICIG scheduling.

First of all, I would urge you all to attend our business and members meeting. This year's meeting will be on Friday August 6th at 6:45 a.m. Please save that time slot and join us. We'll have a lot to cover including election of new officers and discussion of our annual report and triennial renewal application.

Second, I want to encourage everyone to support our research paper authors. Rosanne Pagano did a terrific job this year of running a paper competition. Of 7 papers submitted, we have three outstanding papers being presented at the Friday scholar-to-scholar session at 11:45 a.m. Dana Rosengard will serve as discussant for this session, so stop by and show your support.

Finally, I want to call your attention to our panel programming. This year we have a great mix of programming, put together with a lot of fine partners including the Advertising Division, MAC, PR, CTM, GEIG and others. Please plan to attend each session and be sure to bring along a friend!

• On Wednesday, catch our joint PF&R session with the MAC Division at 10:00 a.m. and then join us for a teaching panel, "Square Pegs/Round Holes: strategies for preparing students to find internships and jobs." Panelists will discuss specific issues and special circumstances of preparing students to find appropriate internships and jobs.
• On Thursday, we start things off at 11:45 a.m. with our PF&R panel "Nurturing Diversity in Journalism and Mass Communications: results of minority internship and scholarship programs." For this panel we have assembled a group of professionals and faculty representing the AAAA's MAIP program, the Chips Quinn scholars program, and the Edelman Worldwide PR agency. Light refreshments will be served for this lunch hour discussion. Also on Thursday at 3:15 a.m., we partner with the PR Division for a teaching panel discussion. Panelists from seven different universities will share perspective on this panel entitled "Thoroughly Modern Assessment: an overview of creative approaches to evaluating student interns."
• Friday is probably our biggest day this year. We start the day with the PR Division again and a teaching panel at 8:15 a.m. Then we have our paper presentations at the scholar-to-scholar session at 11:45. Then later we present a joint session with CTM and GEIG at 5:00 a.m. And, our last scheduled session for the conference is then our business and members meeting at 6:45 a.m.

Overall, we've got a great conference planned. I'm looking forward to strong attendance at every session and a big turnout for our meeting on Friday. Have a safe trip and we'll see you in Toronto, eh!

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Six habits of highly effective internship directors... and an ICIG Toronto update too

Rosanne Pagano, Research Chair
University of Alaska, Anchorage Assistant Professor of Journalism
afrp@uaa.alaska.edu

You probably know that old Jewish legend that goes something like this: If you make a match between two people who fall in love, get married and live a lifetime of happiness, you've earned a place in heaven.

Is there a similar charm that works for internship directors? Those who listen patiently to students' unformed plans ("See, what I'd really like to do is to use my creativity."), mentally sift through our list of contacts and projects, and then, often with just days to go, make a match. ("I think a summer internship at United Way will stretch your creativity as well as help you see how a public education campaign really comes together.")

After directing dozens of undergraduate internships for academic credit, I'm convinced that matchmaking - the ability to both listen and dream at the same time -is an important prerequisite for success in placing a student intern. And after talking with peers and reading up on how other disciplines match interns to projects, I've learned that effective internship directors tend to share the same qualities.

1. An effective internship director is a good listener. We've learned that students often have good intuition about internship placement if they're allowed to think out loud. Effective internship directors are masters of the open-ended question: "If you could make your own internship, where would you go? What would you do?" We've learned to avoid dictating in favor of the gentle prod: "Come back in three days with a list of skills you'd like to apply at your internship and another list of things you'd like to learn."
2. An effective internship director always works with a safety net. Effective internship directors encourage students to aim high by applying to nationally ranked, competitive internships, and we're our students' biggest cheerleaders when they win. But if they don't, we have Plan B - an internship that's the equivalent of a safe school where acceptance is virtually assured. Sure, Plan B offers less glamour, but there's just as much- and often more - useful work.
3. An effective internship director starts early. We're diligent about alerting students to internships by posting fliers, broadcasting e-mail notices and visiting classrooms to talk about fitting an internship into academic plans. We're always on the lookout for promising students who can be tapped to become successful interns. And we don't only cultivate students who happen to share our interests. A good matchmaker knows the chance of finding just the right person is greater when the roster is full- and varied.
4. An effective internship director knows when to quit. What I really wished I'd learned early is how to reliably spot what my friend at UC Berkeley's graduate school of journalism calls "the real deal." These are students who've not only amassed pre-professional credentials (by producing for the campus radio or TV station, editing the campus newspaper, leading public relations projects), but who also convey through conversation, intellect and demeanor that they're ready to grow beyond the classroom. An effective internship director learns to identify, listen to and dream aloud with students who are the real deal - and to re-direct students who aren't.
5. An effective internship director keeps current. Good internship projects are as varied as students themselves, and effective internship directors learn to be responsive to trends in students' professional goals. These days, for instance, I'm fielding more requests for internships that combine journalism with graphics and design. To learn more about projects that may entice this hybrid crop of students, I'm developing a network of "visual journalists" -  practitioners at magazines, Web sites and newspapers who are adept at both reporting and presentation. Effective internship directors know that student interests often mirror industry trends.
6. An effective internship director develops suitable assessment tools. We'll hear more in Toronto in August from panelists focusing on best practices in assessment of student interns. But for now, let's just say that effective internship directors know that grades don't always tell the whole story when it comes to assessing interns as they cross over from accustomed role as students to new roles as emerging professionals. To assess fairly, effective internship directors are mindful of the range of real-world challenges that interns must resolve, often while working quickly and independently.

There's my list of the six habits of highly effective internship directors; what traits are on yours? Please let me know by sending e-mail to afrp@uaa.alaska.edu.

Toronto update:

Look for ICIG research paper presentations during the scholar- to-scholar poster session in Toronto on Aug. 6. Discussant is Dana Rosengard. For more on ways to assess student interns, don't miss "Thoroughly modern assessment: An overview of creative approaches to evaluating student interns," an ICIG panel discussion. Participants are Elizabeth Birge, assistant professor of journalism, William Patterson University; Lona Cobb, associate professor, Bennett College; Michele Ewing, assistant professor of public relations, Kent State University; Charles A. Lubbers, professor and assistant director for graduate studies, A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications, Kansas State University; Andi Stein, assistant professor of communications, California State University Fullerton; Tom Weir, associate professor and director, School of Journalism and Broadcasting, Oklahoma State University; and Dana Rosengard, assistant professor, University of Memphis.

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Keeping a Hand in

Catherine Winter, ICIG Teaching Chair
University of Minnesota Duluth
cwinter@d.umn.edu

Most of us agree that it's crucial for our students to get internships to gain professional experience. I think it's crucial for us teachers to get professional experience, too.

In particular, those of us teaching skills classes, such as writing, reporting, layout, web design or broadcast production, need to keep ourselves fresh and experience for ourselves the challenges our students will face in the field.

Teachers who have recent experience:

• have more credibility with students;
• are more up on how current technology is used;
• can give students a realistic view of the personal life of a person in that profession (the hours, the family conflicts, the trouble finding someone to date who's not a conflict of interest);
• know how to write a resume and keep a clip file or make an audition tape;
• have firsthand experience dealing with current trends such as consolidation and convergence;
• have contacts that can help our students get internships and jobs.

Teachers with professional experience can also construct classroom activities that simulate what goes on in the real world. For example, I ask my broadcast students to role-play interviewing. Each of the scenarios I give them involves a situation I know they're likely to encounter, because I encountered it myself when I was a reporter. (The student arrives for the interview, and the subject says, "You're not going to record this, are you?" Or the subject keeps moving away from the mic. Or another person comes in and makes noise.) After this exercise, the students say they feel armed to deal with likely problems, and they are less likely to wind up with useless tape. I could not have developed this exercise without having experienced these problems.

But my old experience has been getting stale, so lately I've been volunteering to help out a local publication with editing. And this coming academic year, I'm taking a leave of absence from my teaching job to take a contract position as an editor and producer of public radio documentaries. I figure this work will help inform and refresh my teaching. (If it also reminds me of why I left journalism for academia, so much the better!)

There are lots of other ways to keep your hand in. Some of us freelance articles. Some of us do formal internships, such as the RTNDA program that places teachers in newsrooms during summer break (see http://www.rtndf.org/resources/excel.shtml). Some of us set up such internships informally on our own. The people I've heard from who've done this all say it makes them better teachers.

If we want to influence the next generation of professionals, we've got to keep doing professional work, and keep communicating its importance to decision-makers in the academy. Professional work should be a key factor in hiring, tenure, and promotion. Without it, we are not serving our students as well as we should be.

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A strategy that may help expand internship placements

Nancy M. Somerick, Ph.D., Professor and Director of Internship Program,
School of Communication, The University of Akron
nmsomer@uakron.edu

Some organizations may want to request interns, but they don't know who to contact, what questions to ask, or what information to provide.

As managers of college-level internship programs, it is our job to make the process of requesting interns as efficient and as easy as possible so that placements for our students can be expanded. There are a variety of strategies that can be used to accomplish this. For example:

Be sure that your academic institution's website presents information about your internship program prominently.

In addition, your contact information should be displayed prominently so that more specific details can be obtained and questions can be answered by e-mail, “snail” mail or voice mail.

Also, consider making a form available that an organization's internship supervisor can complete and return to you by e-mail or by hard copy. The form can benefit you in a number of ways. For example, it can keep you up-to-date about placement opportunities available to your students. It can provide you with contact information at an organization so that you can follow up on an opportunity, and it can eliminate organizations that do not meet your academic requirements for clock hours that the intern would work, responsibilities that the intern would perform, and supervision that would be available to the intern.

Here is an example of one variation of a form that has worked well for the School of Communication at The University of Akron to identify potential placements. Of course, before the form could be used by any other internship program, it would need to be adapted to that program's needs.

Example of a form that an organization can use to request an intern from an academic internship program

If you would like your organization to be considered for internship placement, please complete and return this form to
Dr. Nancy M. Somerick, Professor and Director of Internship Program
School of Communication, The University of Akron
                   Akron, OH 44325-1003       Fax: 330-972-8045

You may also e-mail your request to nmsomer@uakron.edu
For more information, please call 330-972-6686.

Thank you.

Organization requesting intern:
Name _____________________________________________________
Address ___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________

Contact person at organization:
Name  ____________________________________________________
Title _____________________________________________________
Phone number______________________________________________
E-mail address______________________________________________

Responsibilities that you would like the intern to perform:
(Please attach additional information, if you wish.)

Approximate number of clock hours that you would like
the intern to work each week:_______________________________

Name and title of person who would supervise intern (if not the contact
person)
Name________________________________________________________
Title_________________________________________________________

Please indicate the term or terms that you would like an intern to work
with your organization:
_____fall semester (15 weeks) <                _____spring semester (15 weeks)
_____five-week summer session                 _____ten-week summer session

If you wish, please provide any additional information that you would like a student to know about this opportunity. Thank you.

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Part-timer

Mark Nordstrom, ICIG Newsletter Editor/Webmaster
Lincoln University
nordstrom@lincolnu.edu

Part-time employment is the backbone of higher education. Well, it's a back brace if it's not the actual bone. The backbone itself is not a single bone, but lots of individual parts that pile up to what we call the backbone. The part-time jobs a student works to pay for college could also be seen as one of the bones, along with courses and internships.

Most of my students have at least one part-time job that's helping them pay tuition. When I was a student several part-time jobs got me through school, so I feel like I have an understanding of the life. I think those part-time jobs can teach some important lessons that students can apply in their internships and I try to remember to remind students to make the connections.

An internship may not provide a student with enough opportunity to find, for example, the practical rewards for ethical behavior. However, if while working on an internship, a student is asked to behave in an unethical way (usually to distort the truth to make a better story), a lesson learned on a part-time job may help the student tactfully avoid following unethical instructions.

Sometimes an experience a student has on the job teaches a lesson about media coverage. Last summer a man here in Jefferson City, Mo. walked into his place of employment and started shooting people, then himself. Three people were killed, five were injured, others were shocked - a student of mine among them. He heard the sounds of the shots, saw people running and knew something was going on, but never really knew what was happening until he saw news reports later. Employees were sent home without an explanation. He learned via CNN what had happened a few feet away from him. In later days he watched news reports in the company break room of the event and he heard about it from people on the job. He got a much different story from people at work than what he got via news reports. He was told on the job that the victims of the shootings had demeaned and harassed Jonathon Russell before Russell came to the plant and started shooting. There was nothing in the news about that. Those plant rumors are only now being reported as confirmed fact and the student is reconciling his experience in the plant "rumor mill" with his internship experience to get a full picture of news reporting. His comments about it to other students help every student benefit from how he integrates his education with his experience on an unrelated job.

Every student, whether working part time or not, probably has experiences that can enhance the internship experience. It may seem like a very obvious point, but often it's necessary to point out to students that they need to consider other experience as applicable to their internships and their careers.

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