Archives for December 2019

Make the 2020 Election a Teachable Moment

By Marcus Messner
AEJMC Standing Committee on Teaching
Virginia Commonwealth University
mmessner@vcu.edu

 

 

(Article courtesy of AEJMC News, January 2020 issue)

It’s 2020 and this year’s presidential election promises to become one of the hardest fought in the nation’s history. The presidential primaries are about to begin and the road to November will be long with many opportunities for students to get involved.

There will be days when your students will talk about nothing else. So why not make the election a teachable moment in your classes?

Now is a good time to get your colleagues together to make a plan for the fall semester. Here are a few projects that you   can plan on your own or as a team for your school or department:

Get-Out-the-Vote Campaign
Offer a course or class project that designs and carries out a non-partisan campaign to get students to the polls. It’s a great experiential learning opportunity, especially for public relations and advertising students. Put students in the driver seat and let them design campaign materials and social media strategies that will engage their peers.

Start out with a voter registration drive on campus. If students are registered at all, many of them will be registered in their hometowns. They need to either newly register, change their registration or vote absentee. Your campaign can tell them how to do that.

Then turn your attention to the get-out-the-vote effort and go beyond just the horse race. Prepare detailed materials that show the policy positions of all presidential candidates, so that students can make sophisticated decisions at the polls. Focus especially on the issues that are top of mind for your students (a survey can help). If preparing the materials is too time consuming, you can contact one of the many non-profit organizations with voter-turnout operations who are always willing to share their materials.
Also prepare instructions for students on how to get to the polls in your city, if your campus does not have its own polling station. Increase your campaign’s presence on central places around campus on a daily basis between October and November.

Your student affairs unit might have extra dollars to spend for your campaign’s social media advertising during the final days.

Mock Debate
Only very few universities get to host presidential debates with the actual candidates. If yours is not one of the lucky four, it does not prevent you from holding your own mock debate. Put your debate team or communication studies majors in charge of organizing a panel discussion by inviting representatives of the Young Democrats and Young Republicans to debate the policy positions of the presidential candidates on your campus (of course invite third parties representatives as well, if they are available).

Alternatively invite local party politicians to engage in a debate about national issues. It will be a great showcase of what the election is truly about and which choices students face. It will also contribute to a civilized discourse about the election on your campus.

Speaker Series
Bring engaging speakers to your school or department between Labor Day and Election Day. There are many opportunities to bring your students together for speaker events without going through an expensive speaker’s bureau.

Invite some of your alumni, who work in political campaigns or cover politics for a news organization, to talk about their work. You might also have a professor on your faculty who has done so in the past. Ask a historian or a political scientist at your university to bring some perspective on the race unfolding in the fall. Invite international students to discuss difference to elections and political systems in other countries. Hold an open forum with a moderator at which students can share their views.

Election Coverage
Journalism classes can already get a head start by covering the primary election in your state this spring semester. During the fall semester, the general election will be a great testing ground for students to put their reporting skills to use by covering the candidates and the most important issues for voters at your university and in your community.

Partner a journalism class with a local news organization to add student reporting and perspective to their coverage. Let the reporting efforts during the fall culminate in an Election Day project that covers voters at the polls in the morning and provides live updates on the election results in the evening. It’s a great opportunity to give your students a chance to work in a newsroom-like setting and to sharpen all of the skills they learned your previous classes during a breaking news situation.

Creating an engaged campus during a presidential election is a great contribution you can make to our democracy. While the presidential election will likely lead to more political division this year, making it a teachable moment in your classes will not only engage your students, but allow them to have an impact with their coursework by helping their peers make informed decisions at the polls.

<Teaching Corner

Call for Applications

Background:
The purpose of the Institute for Diverse Leadership in Journalism and Communication is to increase racial, gender and ethnic diversity in administrative and other senior-level positions in journalism and communication education. The Institute’s objective is to identify, recruit, mentor and train future leaders and administrators. The Institute is co-sponsored by AEJMC and the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Applicants MUST BE current AEJMC members. Applicants must be associate or full professors interested in administration and/or journalism and communication practitioners who have moved into the academy and have a minimum of three full-time years in an academic setting. The program is for people of color and women.

Fellows will participate in Institute activities while continuing to work at their home campuses. The Institute program involves five group sessions during the fellowship year, two of which will happen during AEJMC conferences. Fellows and their home institutions are expected to cover costs associated with travel to those two AEJMC annual conferences, which most members normally attend. Travel for the other three trips will be funded by the Institute.

Components:
There are three key components of the Institute:

• Workshop Sessions — Mandatory workshops for fellows will be held at the AEJMC 2020 San Francisco Conference, the 2021 ASJMC winter workshop, the 2021 ACEJMC Spring meeting and the AEJMC 2021 New Orleans Conference. Workshops will cover a variety of administrative issues, including fundraising, leadership styles and dealing with difficult people.
• Mentor Program — The Institute will match each fellow with a current administrative mentor. The mentoring relationship consists of monthly contact via telephone or email, and a week-long visit to the mentor’s campus for a first-hand look at administrative duties at a journalism/communication program.
• Networking — Institute fellows are introduced to current administrators during social and programming sessions at their workshops. Mentors introduce fellows to other administrators to help the fellows begin to establish networks of resources.

Application Process:
AEJMC expects the selection process to be competitive. Applications for the 2020-21 year of the Institute should include ONE PDF file that includes the following parts:

Part I. An “Institute Application” that answers the following questions:

1. Why would this program be valuable to you now — at this stage of your career?
2. What skills and past leadership experience do you have?
3. Why would you like to become an administrator or have a leadership position in higher education?
4. What would you like to learn from the program if you were selected?
5. What do you see as the most pressing issue for JC administrators today, and what two ideas do you have that would help?

Part II. A vita, maximum of 5 pages. Vita should include: • current position, rank and number of years of teaching;
• summary of professional experience;
• leadership positions and significant service contributions to department, university, AEJMC and other academic associations; • maximum listing of 10 publications, presentations and awards (total of 10 for all three).

Part III. Two letters of recommendation. One letter should be from your immediate chair or dean, and one should come from another person familiar with your work. The letter of nomination from the immediate chair or dean must indicate the institution will provide funding for the candidate to attend the two required AEJMC annual conferences if the person is selected for the program.

The complete packet should be converted to a PDF and emailed to: AEJMCnews@aol.com. The file should be called: AEJMC_Institute_(your last name). All application materials should be received by 5 p.m. Eastern time on Monday, March 16. Only complete applications will be considered. The selection process is very competitive. Up to eight fellows will be selected for the 2020-21 class. Notifications will go out by late April. Direct questions to Jennifer McGill at Jennifer@aejmc.org. Type “Institute Inquiry” in subject line.

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