Bryan College Conference

In October, 2008, the American Council on Education and the College Board warned that tough financial times are ahead for American colleges and universities. This presents a unique opportunity for independent journalism programs like WJI to equip Christian college journalists. There are approximately 200 small Christian colleges in the U.S. that we would describe as evangelical or conservatively Christian. In these small private, Christian colleges, for the foreseeable future, there will continue to be cutbacks in college journalism and communication programs.

This means the following:

1. Student and adviser participation in national college journalism conventions and workshops will be curtailed.
2. College newspaper advising will be shifted to full-time faculty rather than independent experienced part-timers.
3. Resources for the newspaper will be postponed (i.e., computer software and hardware, professional memberships, etc.)
4. Minor journalism/media programs will be eliminated.

College journalists need to write and produce student newspapers so that they can receive valuable experience in reporting, writing, and editing and generate published clippings in order to be competitive in the marketplace. The better those clippings are, the greater the opportunity for newsroom internships. And the better the clippings, the better the internships. With diminished resources, the Christian college journalist will be at a great disadvantage.

That said, even if resources for college communications programs were not being curtailed, the need for outside training, workshops and networking still exists. Most Christian colleges do not have the resources to send their student journalists to as many important workshops and conventions as their public college counterparts.

Target Constituency for College Newspaper Workshop Program

The target constituency for the college newspaper workshop program is the college newspapers at Christian colleges in the United States. These colleges are chronically underfunded and the journalism program (such as they are) are even more underfunded so the Christian college student journalists are denied opportunities that are open to their colleagues in state colleges and well funded private colleges.

WJI will bring journalists to these Christian college campuses to put on workshops for the newspaper staff.

The program would entail:

1. The journalists serving as part-time WJI instructors will gather for an introductory weekend conference at the institute headquarters in New York City, and would be given guidelines and resources to accomplish the workshops.
2. Traveling WJI journalism instructors will visit the individual campus for a day of lectures to journalism/communication classes in the morning and a four-hour college newspaper workshop in the afternoon.
3. WJI would hold an annual awards banquet in New York City honoring the best journalism (new media) being done by Christian journalists in colleges throughout the country.