Adviser Update Adviser Update Spring 2017 | Page 19

19 However, I will never again be without such a resource. We meet two or three times a year to discuss the goals I have for my students and program. They provide feedback and suggest tweaks to the curriculum or expectations and outcomes. Then, they tell me what my students can do to be better prepared or how I might earn more experience, and therefore confidence, in the industry. Last fall, I was frustrated with my inability to bring a dynamic instructor to my entire staff and shared that with the committee. The head of the Journalism and Media Communication at Everett Community College, T. Andrew Wahl, asked a simple question, “What do you need?” I considered what I really wanted and needed from that training, and I told him. My students needed help with brainstorming story ideas, writing headlines and captions, and interviewing. They needed to hear it from someone other than me. Wahl suggested that he could put together a training for us. Instead of his coming to my school, we would go to him. My students would tour the campus and the journalism facilities there. His students and other instructors would teach sessions. We would open it up to all area high school journalism programs. Because community colleges are expected to do some outreach to local high schools, there was no cost to the schools. I would have paid him a presenter’s fee had he come to my school. Instead, I paid that to cover the cost of pizza for the whole crew. The best part was that there was some amazing training that happened, and I did not have to organize a single thing (except field trip paperwork). This Journalism and Media Communication Conference was a huge success. We have already set the 2017 date, and the other schools that attended have been spreading the word about what a great opportunity this event was. Our state journalism association plans to help advertise it in the fall. These opportunities to use my local resources do not replace the experiences of a national convention. However, they do more than supplement them. These local resources have strengthened my program to a point that attending one or two national conventions a year never could have. The consistency and adaptability of my local resources to address the specific needs of my students make more of an impact than any trip ever could. I encourage you to work smarter, not harder, and to tap into your local resources. ANNE HAYMAN Anne Hayman is the English department chair and journalism adviser at Arlington High School in Arlington, Washington where she advises The Stillaguamish Trail yearbook and The AHS Eagle online newspaper. Hayman is active in the Washington Journalism Education, and she is a Master Journalism Educator and attended the Reynolds Institute in 2014. She holds a B.A. from Eastern Washington University and a M.S. from Walden University. Photo session with Everett Community College professor Nancy Jones at the Journalism and Media Communication Conference on February 10, 2017. Photo by: Anne Hayman