If one thing hasn’t changed since starting on The Elm my freshman year, it’s that we always need writers. Since most students have a hectic schedule, it is good when we can provide an incentive for them to write, other than the experience and knowledge they gain.
As of now, we pay eight dollars for news stories and seven dollars for all other articles. While at least it’s something, it is not a significant amount of money considering all the people our news writers have to interview and the time it takes to write the article.
What keeps people writing is, hopefully, their love for journalism and the experience, but also the fact that there is a journalism internship available. Students can earn two course credits in the internship while being paid to write weekly.
The journalism internship allows our writers’ work to be reviewed by a former journalist each week, making the piece better and more thorough. The paper heavily depends on this. Taking the internship twice has prepared me to be the editor of different sections and Editor-in-Chief.
John Lang, who teaches the internship, however, is retiring after this fall.
Lang has suggested someone to hire to take over his position. This is not only important for the internship, but for the paper as a whole, because we desperately need a journalist to reference when things get tough and to guide us in improving our paper. When I asked administration if someone was going to be hired in his place, the response I received was discouraging.
In an e-mail, Dean Christopher Ames said, “We are not planning on offering the internship this spring because so few students actually enroll in it. I agree that The Elm needs an active advisor and that an experienced journalist such as John Lang is a crucial resource. I’d like to see us develop something a little more far-reaching for next year, if we can.”
It is true few students enroll in the internship. Currently, we have three people enrolled and that’s been the average for the past couple of years. Though that may seem like an insignificant number, it means a lot to the paper. That is a guaranteed three articles in the news section each week in addition to the ones my news editors and I write. We can’t write everything, nor should we, so I worry that without class incentive it just may be us writing each week.
So few students sign up for the internship because an adjunct professor teaches it. Other professors also do not commonly advertise for the class. The Elm interest meeting at the beginning of the semester had a low turnout because of the confusion as to where the publication house is, despite my efforts to advertise it. As I said , it would be great if we were located in Hodson Hall, but that is not the case.
Though I think the school is capable of hiring someone else this year, since the position is currently filled, I certainly hope it would be able to develop something even better next year. We need an advisor to stay connected to Chestertown because it is hard to know what is happening in the community as students.
The paper is a resource many people read and depend on. Not only does the campus benefit from the paper, but so does the outside community. WC needs to start treating us like we are important in this way.
It is important that the school not lose the only journalism class offered.We should not take a step backward in the area of journalism. Please suport our getting a new journalism advisor as soon as possible.
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