The switch to this new weblog and the announcement of the Center for Innovation in College Media has caused some questions to arise in people’s minds. I hope this post will answer some of those questions. We’ll start with the basics:
Who’s behind this?
Chris Carroll, Ralph Braseth, Rob Pongsajapan, Lee Clontz and I are the folks who have been working over the past few months to get this initiative off the ground. Lee and Rob have been instrumental in the technical move. Chris, Ralph and I have been taking care of the organizational details. If you want to hurl darts, throw them at the three of us.
What is this?
The Center for Innovation in College Media is a non-profit 501 (c)3 organization that will be dedicated to advancing the cause of innovation across the college media spectrum. We hope to do this by providing resources, training, and research on new media, cultural shifts, and technology that will change the way we all think about media in the future.
Our model is something along the lines of a “think tank,” like the Poynter Institute, but specifically geared to college student media. Right now, there are three “directors.” Chris Carroll is overseeing the business aspects of the CICM, Ralph Braseth is overseeing outside relations with industry and college media groups, and I am overseeing the programming and this blog.
As we get the “think tank” part going, we hope to have “fellows” join our ranks, who will contribute a portion of their time and talents to providing resources for college media. Right now, Rob Pongsajapan and Lee Clontz are “charter” fellows of the CICM, thanks to their technical contributions to this effort.
We have a number of projects that we hope to launch in the coming weeks and months. We’re here for the long haul. Our first major effort is an intensive workshop for students and advisers. We’ll provide the facilitators and some equipment, but this will not be a theoretical conference. One thing we are going to do is ask attendees exactly what they feel like they need to learn. We are planning to have “tracks” for people who are experienced in new media and for people who are just getting their feet wet.
When will this occur?
We’ve scheduled this national workshop for Feb. 8-10 at the Freedom Forum’s First Amendment Center in Nashville, Tenn. Space will be somewhat limited, and we’ll have more details in the coming days as we finalize the program. Other efforts will get underway as we have the resources. We are also available to do training at individual campuses as our schedules allow.
Where are we located?
Right now, the CICM exists mainly in cyberspace - here on this weblog. Our first workshop will be in Nashville, Tenn. But we hope to expand to regional workshops within the next year. A lot depends on the level of response from the students and advisers who are involved in student media. Eventually, we hope to have a site available where we can test new technology and bring people for training, where the tools are already available. This is somewhat like the Newsplex at the University of South Carolina. That is obviously a long-term dream.
We hope that attendance at a CICM workshop will be seen as a badge of pride for college journalists that they will display proudly on their resumes. And we want to make that training as widely available as possible.
How are you planning to achieve this?
We are going to be looking for grants, partner organizations, and any opportunity we can to make these dreams a reality. We hope to provide many of our services for free, but obviously, conferences are going to cost money to host.
We are not a membership organization. I think it’s important to emphasize that we are not asking anyone to “join” the CICM as a member. We want our services to be available to all who desire to advance college media forward. We’re not “selling” anything, except the opportunity to join us in a new media adventure.
Why are you doing this?
I have been following the shifting nature of media for a while now. The past year at Reinventing College Media convinced all of us that college media needs to be concentrating on new media now. There are lots of people addressing the industry and its need for change. And there are quite a few who are trying to reshape journalism education. But campus media exists in a unique universe - sometimes independent, sometimes student organization, sometimes journalism department lab. And these dedicated student journalists and their advisers need training and resources that are geared to their situations.
The CICM can address that need in a way that reaches across organizational boundaries and provide resources in an “open source” manner. Our organization is light, which is both a blessing and a burden. We can move quickly when we need to make a decision, but our resources right now are mainly in manpower.
I hope this post addresses some of the questions you may have. Above all, we want the CICM to be useful for college media. If you have any suggestions of ways to improve our efforts, drop us an e-mail or reply in a comment.
And if you are interested in helping out in any way, e-mail me at scmurley -at- gmail.com.
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