Visiting editor to be honored by SPJ

Terrific week coming up!

Visiting editor-in-residence Sue Burzynski Bullard will be honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award Tuesday evening at the Society of Professional Journalists Detroit Chapter banquet.
Sue, a veteran editor at The Detroit News, left the newspaper this past summer to join the J-School faculty. She has done a phenomenal job in the classroom teaching ethics, editing, advanced reporting and media management classes.

She will be leaving us at the end of the term to take an associate professor of journalism job at the University of Nebraska. Lucky Huskers! Sue is a J-School alum, and we will miss her talent and skill. She is most deserving of the SPJ award.

Also leaving MSU's J-School is Sandra (Sam) Combs, another Spartan alumna. She will be joining the journalism faculty of Arkansas State next fall. Sam's been the basic reporting courses coordinator since she arrived on campus five years ago. Ironically, Sam is past president of the SPJ chapter giving Sue the award!

Good luck to both of them! We will miss them

Last week’s whirlwind visit by Ithaca College Dean Dianne Lynch was a real eye opener for both faculty and students. Her thorough grasp of the fast paced changes triggered by the Web and its impact on the traditional news media platforms was striking, insightful and right on target. See a brief clip on Dianne's take on the future of journalism.

Media guru on campus Thursday

Dianne Lynch, dean of the Park School of Communications at Ithaca College and one of the savviest people I know in forecasting the digital revolution and its impact on traditional media companies is coming to campus this Thursday and Friday. She will be meeting with students in several classes and with faculty. If you are interested in meeting with her, just let me know.

That’s the good news.

Now some puzzling news. Maybe you could explain this to me. This term we held the 2d annual Howell essay contest that awarded a $3,000 scholarship and a $1,000 award for a 2,500 word essay on media bias and the ongoing presidential race. We had seven applicants. For the Mary Adelaide Gardner Scholarship that pays full tuition (in state or out of state) for a student’s senior year in the J-School, we had just three applicants. For our regular scholarship awards announced at the annual Awards Program (this year scheduled for 3 p.m., Sunday, April 27) we had half as many applicants as in the past.

What gives?? I keep hearing and reading about the high cost of tuition and how students are buried under loans. This is good money and few are competing to get it.

I don’t get it. I paid my way through school. I had loans. I tried my hardest to land any scholarship that would have helped cover my tuition costs. We send global emails to qualified students. We post flyers up on bulletin boards in the hallways, and we ask faculty to announce these opportunities to students in their classes.

Please let me know your thoughts on this!