The Blog for the WORD

This information was originally published in the WORD,  but a student - Gresham Gregory who does reviews for the WORD and is involved in all manner of multimedia - insisted that the message needed to be disseminated on a grander scale. So, it was posted on Hunter listservs and now here. Also, I realized because of Gregory, that this info could be important for those students [of all ages] coming to the Big Apple with their cameras. At the bottom of this message, are important links.

Briefly:

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… list this URL questioning the value of a journalism degree and journalism programs. It was written by Professor Jon Funabaki. It is an old (ooo-ooo-old) blog post but important for those trying to evaluate the merit of journalism courses and programs, that is, students who want journalism careers and instructors who teach in journalism programs and are serious about what they teach. This post was prompted by a discussion with a colleague this past semester in the Department of Film and Media Studies where I teach.

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Date: Thu 8 Jun 11:41:38 EDT 2006 - This has really been a great year for the journalism students and all the mentoring they have gotten from you is paying great dividends.  Congratulations.

I came across this old email as I was doing summer cleaning of my email box. Mentoring, for me, is characteristics of journalists/J-instructors whom I respect: A primordial urge kicks in when they meet the up-and-coming and want to help, not  as crutches but as mentors. Mentoring is big part of the serious journalism programs, such as those at Columbia University and CUNY’s. That’s what my former students say and they don’t use the word, nope, they describe - effusively - their interactions with faculty and administrators and staff. Some can even cite mentors they’ve met as they started their careers. Mentoring shouldn’t be a big deal.

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“I was offered a position yesterday afternoon, took it and start Monday [July 14]. I am now an Editorial Assistant at First30Days.com, a start-up website at Hearst. I’m a Hearst employee and working in their beautiful tower - I am very excited! I love that it is a start-up because they really made it seem like I would be able to have a lot of say in what goes on the site and now I will be able to witness firsthand how something takes off (or flops) and what works and what doesn’t.”

Charlotte Cusmano

 

Charlotte Cusmano majored in media studies at Hunter College, was the features editor then managing editor at the Hunter Envoy, which she was trying to help revive from a deep, deep slumber (I’m talking lots of years) so that it could live up to its claim of being the student-run, independent newspaper at the College. She did this while also holding several internship positions and taking classes full time. She graduated in June.

Hunter’s student journalists like Cusmano do the remarkable regularly and one would expect an up tempo joie de vivre to be resonating fiercely about their accomplishments, yet … so, I post snippets about student successes on Hunter-L, the College’s main community network for information (i.e., listserv), on other lists, like my department’s listserv, fm-l, and on hunterword.com  to let other students know about their peers’ successes because I believe success can be infectious.

And I plan to do it here on this blog.

So, I end this ode about Cusmano with one of my favorite refrains: I’ve encountered more exceptional students here at Hunter than I did teaching in the journalism program at Rutgers University (New Brunswick campus) and the journalism program at the Brooklyn campus of Long Island University.

More of this later.