Metro prof seeks regional post
by Armando Manzanares
The Metropolitan
The Society of Professional Journalists is holding their annual convention
in New York City, N.Y. Sept. 9-11.
Metro has an SPJ student chapter, for which Metro professor Deb Hurley
is faculty advisor. She has been a member since 1977. This year, Hurley
is running for SPJ Regional Director. The organization has 12 regions
in the nation and Colorado sits in Region 9. Metro has four student members
attending the conference this year.
SPJ is an organization for all journalists, Hurley said. “We tend
to be for the working journalist. There are other focused organizations
for editors and such, but SPJ is an umbrella organization with our primary
mission dealing with Ethics, Freedom of Information, access to records
and meetings and diversity.”
One of the unique aspects of SPJ is that it is made up of both students
and professionals. SPJ began in 1909 as a fraternity out of DePauw University
in Greencastle, Ind. It developed from a fraternity to a college-based
organization, to a professional organization and has always kept that
student base, Hurley said.
“SPJ firmly believes that student journalists will be professional
journalists one day and the relationship that SPJ provides between the
pros and the students is important,” she said.
One of the largest student chapters in the country, with more than 100
members, is at Colorado State University.
“I think what is amazing about this conference in New York City
is the access to the kind of big name journalists that you usually don’t
get in other locations. We get to hear Walter Cronkite and others that
we as journalists tend to look up to—some of the big names.
The interaction between students and professionals—the ability
for the students to get advice, network and strengthen their chapter is
going to be great,” Hurley said.
The Office of Student Publications, publisher of The Metropolitan, has
other components including The Met Report, a student-produced newscast
available on Comcast cable channel 54 and online at www.metreport.com.
The Met Report has been selected as a national finalist for Best All
Around Online Student Broadcast Station for SPJ’s Mark of Excellence,
which honors the best in collegiate journalism.
Look for coverage of the convention in next week’s issue.
Metro’s Journalism program has been preparing new journalists for
the world of media since the 1975-1976 academic school year, when the
first Journalism degree was awarded.
Throughout the years, the program has graduated over 600 students. Most
of them continue to work and thrive in the field of Journalism, according
to Metro’s census.
One of the aspects the program prides itself on is that the faculty have
been or are currently professionals in their respective fields, who teach
writing, editing, photojournalism, public relations and layout and design.
“One of our strengths is all of our faculty are or were working
in journalism. We don’t want people who are going to teach theory,
we want people to teach in this program that have worked in the field
professionally because we feel that is very important to our students,”
Hurley said.
Hurley has been teaching at Metro since 1987 when the program first became
its own department. Originally, the journalism program fell under the
English Department’s command. Journalism now falls under the Department
of Communications, Arts and Sciences, which is now Metro’s largest
academic department.
Hurley is one of three full-time faculty in the journalism program. This
semester, there are a total of 24 full and part-time faculty on staff.
More than half of them are currently working for local publications like
The Rocky Mountain News, Denver Post and Westword.
The Journalism program is offering a new course this semester: Investigative
Reporting. David Migoya, an investigative reporter for The Denver Post,
teaches the course. Migoya has been a guest speaker for some of Metro’s
journalism classes in the past.
Migoya began his pursuit of journalism while attending The University
of Colorado at Denver. He took an elective course through Metro in reporting.
After that class he switched his career ambitions from Engineering to
Journalism, he was a junior at the time.
The course consists of better in-depth reporting, as well as computer
assisted reporting skills, using databases for better in-dept reporting.
The course is slated to offered every fall and going to be offered as
a program elective.
He said for him to teach at Metro is convenient and yields him the opportunity
to give back the knowledge he has gained as both a student and professional.
“Metro is a really unique school. The journalism students have
the opportunity to expand their learning from the campus to the city streets.
This gives the students a better opportunity to learn,” Migoya said.
Getting faculty to teach here is not hard Hurley said. “We have
faculty coming to us saying I’d really like to teach, sometimes
we go looking for them.”
The journalism program has a close working relationship to with the two
major dailies in Denver and have internship programs throughout the state,
which are made available to students, Hurley said.
“I’m a firm believer that journalists are educators at heart.
One of the things that we like to do is educate the public on what we
are covering. There are a lot of folks out there that really like to teach.
Usually we’re never at a loss for people who are interested in teaching
here at Metro,” she said.
The department has reached out to students for years, giving them opportunities
to learn how to write and report in a professional setting.
Former Metropolitan news editor Noelle Leavitt spent her 2004 summer
interning at the Rocky Mountain News through a Scripps internship.
“I wouldn’t have been able to work at the Rocky Mountain
News if it weren’t for Deb Hurley and Kenn Bisio,” Leavitt
said. “They believed in me and my skills, and recommended me for
the internship. It was the best on-hands learning I’ve had outside
of the classroom.”
Leavitt was also awarded the Gene Amole scholarship. Ian Neligh, former
Metropolitan editor-in-chief and Leavitt split the Gene Amole scholarship
because the Rocky Mountain News and the Gene Amole’s family could
not decide who was the best candidate for the scholarship, so they awarded
them both.
“The scholarship is such an honor,” Leavitt said. “Gene
Amole put a wonderful mark on journalism, and I’m so grateful to
finish my senior year with the help of his foundation.”
Additional highlights of the program include a number of graduates currently
work for local and regional publications like the Rocky and the
Post, as well as the Boulder Daily Camera, Daily
Times-Call and The Gazette in Colorado Springs, among others.
Some of those graduates have moved out of state to pursue their passion
for journalism. 1987 graduate Robert Davis currently works for USA
Today in Va. 1994 graduate Antoinette Vecchio works for Newsday
in N.Y. and 1979 graduate Frank Mullen works for the Reno Gazette
Journal in Reno, Nev. All three graduated with Journalism degrees
and were former Metropolitan editors during their time at Metro. Both
Davis and Mullen teach Journalism at the university level as well.
Fall 2003 numbers showed 398 students have declared Journalism as a major
with 42 students declared as minors. A Bachelors of Arts in Journalism
was first available in the 1974-75 academic school year with the first
degree awarded the next year.
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