The University of Alabama

Center for Community-Based Partnerships

University of Alabama News

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                                                                                                                                        July 10th, 2008

 

MJW to celebrate silver anniversary

By Alan Minor

MJW 25 Student Staff Member

Mervin Aubespin, right, coaches MJW student Jonathan Tucker from Duncanville during the 2006 workshop.

Dr. Ed Mullins (right), MJW 25 director,and Jannell McGrew, alumni reunion coordinator, pause for a photo during a planning session.
   
Marie Parson
Dr. George Daniels
Dr. Marian Hunttenstine
Adelaide Oneal

Each summer, 20 to 30 high school students are selected to participate in an intensive 10-day workshop in journalism on the University of Alabama campus, but this year’s Multicultural Journalism Workshop marks a special occasion.

 

Starting July 11, a Silver Anniversary alumni reunion celebration spanning three days will be held concurrently with the 25th Multicultural Journalism Workshop, which ends July 19. “I never dreamed of celebrating a Silver Anniversary,” MJW co-founder Marie Parsons said. “The program has become more than the simple summer high school minority workshop we started with. In fact, the minority program became a model for the college’s recruitment and year-round college-level support for students of all cultures, in all communication fields.”

 

MJW has given students the opportunity to “study and practice journalism under UA faculty and top journalists from across the nation, learning how professionals report, write and present the news in print, online and by broadcasting,” according to program director Ed Mullins, a retired journalism professor and dean who has worked with all 25 workshops and will be directing his fourth.

 

Each year MJW students, with the help of faculty, compile a newspaper among several other project assignments. At the conclusion of the workshop, awards are given out to outstanding students and faculty. MJW’s intensive nature of the workshop has allowed it to reach a measure of success.

 

“Not many outreach/engagement programs have gained the necessary traction to last for 25 years,” MJW director Dr. Ed Mullins said. “So just being here for 25 years attests to its success.”

 

But the road to success has been a long one to travel. Back in 1982, then graduate student Parsons and professor Dr. Marian Huttenstine came together with the idea to recruit and develop minority students towards careers in the field of journalism. A year later, Parsons became the director of the Minority Journalism Program, which decided that a workshop would be a valuable tool in attracting future journalists to UA and developing them. In 1984, the first Minority Journalism Workshop (later changed to Multicultural Journalism Workshop to reflect the idea that the workshop was open to all races and ethnicities) began with the inaugural class consisting of eight students, six of which resided from Tuscaloosa.

 

“I stumbled through the first MJW with just a few months to plan, trying to figure out how to pull off this new project,” she said. “The second year, I knew exactly what Year One could have been, and we spent 12 months in preparation. It was a resounding success. A highlight was an hour-long meeting with then-Governor George Wallace, in his office in the Capitol.”

 

Within the first 10 years of the Minority Journalism Program, minority enrollment rose 12% within the college and department, a percentage owing some of its success to MJW. Donations also helped, including a $100,000 contribution by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in 1994, as well as MJW’s self-fulfilling dynamic that brought in funds from Alabama’s two major professional media associations, the Alabama Press Association and Alabama Broadcasters Association, as well as donations from individual newspapers and broadcast operations.

 

“MJW got its kick-start with $4,000 from Dow Jones Newspaper Fund, the Birmingham News and the Tuscaloosa News and through the dedication of a few faculty members and a corps of undergraduate and graduate assistants,” Parsons said. “The power that has sustained the program comes from the reporters and editors who are MJW’s Visiting Professionals.”

 

Mullins said many of those who have returned year after year will be recognized at the Friday night banquet with an award named the “MJW Distinguished Professional Award,” in recognition of both service to MJW and a successful career. Many of those visiting professionals, over time, have come from former MJW campers.

 

Also receiving awards Friday will be those who have given “above and beyond,” says Mullins. “They have come when we have called.” This group will receive the MJW Founders Award, named for the program’s three founders, Parsons, Huttenstine and Mullins.

 

“If there is one factor most critical in MJW’s success, it’s professionals returning to the Capstone year after year to help the new class acquire their skills, graduate, take their place in the profession, then come back and help the next class,” Mullins said. “They have become leaders in student media on this campus and others and then they have gone on to become professional leaders. It’s the quality of leadership that stands out. The thousands of students — 500 of them through the workshop but hundreds more through other programs in the college related to MJW — have benefited from MJW since it began in 1984. They acquired skills and attitudes. They got education and training. They networked with distinguished professionals. They attended job fairs and other career-boosting activities. They got jobs. They succeeded. And then they gave back by returning year after year to help the next MJW class.”

 

Jannell McGrew, a Class of ’94 alum, is a testament to this dynamic trend. McGrew, who is an award-winning journalist and freelance writer in Montgomery, has made it a point to give back to the program that helped start her career.

 

“It is my pleasure to be a part of a program I participated in as a student and one that has helped shape my career over the years,” MJW alumni coordinator McGrew said. “I will be involved in working with students and coaching them and helping coordinate activities. The MJW program has done more than rally dozens of news-thirsty, would-be pros each year and give them an intense sneak peek at the real world of news coverage,” McGrew said. “It has ushered hundreds of those same potential journalists into the communications field, and it is often credited as the turning point of many award-winning reporters' and other professional communicators' lives.”

 

One of many examples is Halimah Abdullah, now a Washington Bureau reporter for McClatchey newspapers. Here’s what she wrote about MJW:

 

“I am deeply honored to be named a MJW Distinguished Professional. The program was pivotal to launching my journalism career and I am thrilled to know that after all of these years the program is still going strong. I will be working out of town the weekend of the awards ceremony and therefore unable to attend. I ll be sure to make a donation to MJW’s ongoing efforts and am available to mentor interested students long distance, and wish you all great success in hosting the event. Best, Halimah Abdullah, Washington correspondent, McClatchy Newspapers.”

 

Two others whose dedication to MJW is legendary are Merv Aubespin, retired associate editor of the Courier-Journal in Louisville, and Sherrel Wheeler Stewart, assistant city editor of The Birmingham News. Mullins is not sure how many MJWs they have worked, but each time he has called they have responded (“it’s in the teens,” Mullins said. This year Aubespin will be professional in residence and Stewart will lead the news meeting at which the students and faculty come up with the theme and individual assignments, culminating in the camp newspaper, web, photo, video and broadcast presentations.

 

Mullins, Parsons and Aubespin have all won national awards from media and educational organizations for their diversity work.

 

Aubespin will be the keynote speaker at the reunion banquet.

 

“It has taken, as they say in Hollywood, a cast of thousands to put us on the national diversity map,” Mullins said. “It is impossible to name them all who have helped, so let me stop trying and say a little about this year’s class.”

 

He said there are 25 students, in keeping with the silver anniversary, ranging in age from 15 to 18. A few have already selected UA as where they will go to attend college. Two of them are Amethyst Holmes of Huntsville and Drew Hoover of Montgomery, who won the top high school writing awards given by the College of Communication and Information Sciences, the Rick Bragg Feature Writing Award and the Bailey Thomson Editorial Writing Award, respectively.

 

All has not been easy with MJW, Mullins and Parsons say. “It has been a struggle year after year to come up with the approximately $1,200 per student that the workshop costs and the additional funds to run the program year round,” Mullins said. “We need at least $50,000 a year to run a program of this kind. Getting that money has been a constant struggle. But the struggle is worth it and somehow we have found the money year after year.”

 

Despite these obstacles, those who work with and support MJW remain optimistic about the program’s prospects.

 

“In the last year, as interim director of Alabama Scholastic Press Association, I have personally witnessed the renewal of interest in the teenagers in the state who are the future stars in our field,” Parsons said. “A director of high school outreach will begin work in August in a newly created, permanent faculty position. Provost Judy Bonner, Dean Loy Singleton and Journalism Chair Jennifer Greer made a compact to secure the survival of the Multicultural Journalism Program and of Alabama Scholastic Press Association. They take over for those of us who have moved on or retired: Ed Mullins, Marian Huttenstine, Charles Self and myself. We are leaving the program in good hands.”

 

But for now, all eyes are on the present.

 

“I look forward to celebrating our 25th anniversary,” McGrew said. “We'll be able to look back at how far we've come, to meet the new crop of program students and to look ahead, expecting another 25 memorable years.”

 

Of this year’s program, Dr. Jennifer D. Greer, chair of the journalism department, said, “This silver anniversary is a testament to the commitment the department has to training the next generation of journalists to succeed in an increasingly diverse U.S. society. We’re so fortunate to have founders Mullins, Parsons and Huttenstine leading this reunion as we celebrate the program’s long success.”

 

And from C&IS Dean Loy Singleton: “I congratulate all who have contributed over the past 25 years to make the UA Multicultural Journalism Workshop a success. The University, our college, media organizations, nonprofit foundations — and, especially, the returning MJW alumni who come back each year to give back — have made our workshop one of the longest running and most successful partnership programs of its kind in the nation. Friday’s banquet (July 11) is a worthy celebration of a program that has contributed greatly to a great cause, diversifying the American mass media workforce.”

 

Major donors over the years also include UA’s Center for Community-Based Partnerships, The Tuscaloosa News, The Birmingham News, the Press-Register (Mobile), Knight Foundation, Boone Newspapers, Inc., Gannett Foundation, Cox Radio in Birmingham, Scripps Howard Foundation, Mercedes-Benz U.S. International.

 

A new major donor this year is Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation.

 

The alumni reunion celebration begins with a reception at 5:30 p.m. with the banquet starting at 6, at the Sheraton Four Points Hotel. The final event of the workshop is a student awards luncheon, Saturday, July 19, also at the Sheraton. Keynote speakers will be Dr. George Daniels, journalism faculty member, and Adelaide Oneal, a 2008 Northridge high school graduate and top MJW student in the Class of 2007.