Annenberg Honors Program
Underwritten by an endowment from the Annenberg Foundation, the Annenberg Honors Program is a supplemental academic and extracurricular program designed to expand and enrich the total learning and growth experiences of students throughout the School. Entry into the program is open to all freshmen and first semester sophomores. A GPA of 3.5 or better is required.
Annual Communications Job Fair
Hosted by the School of Communications, the Fair is designed to serve as a forum for School students to meet and interview with industry-wide organizations for the purpose of securing internships and job placement. The Fair has attracted approximately 800 participants (students and professionals) from across the nation. Recruiters and exhibitors represent a diverse group of more than 90 nationally-recognized broadcast, public relations, advertising and print industry organizations.
Annual Paul Robeson Competition and Awards
The Paul Robeson Competition is designed to award outstanding creative work in audio, video and film produced by students at the University and a noteworthy media professional from the industry. The competition focuses on screenplay writing, as well as aspects of production (i.e., directing, sound and cinematography/videography). One prominent media professional is selected for his or her contribution to Excellence in Production and is invited to screen a work and deliver a workshop to students and faculty. The most recent professional awardees are Harry Belafonte (2003), Spike Lee (2002), Haile Gerima (2001), Orlando Bagwell (2000), Euzhan Palzy (1999) and Gordon Parks (1998).
Black College View.Com
The BlackCollegeView.Com site is designed for a national African American collegiate readership. It is operated and maintained by School of Communications’ students. Under a partnership with the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), students also serve as reporting staff for the NNPA news service and its BlackPressUSA web site. This outlet provides news editorial students with practical curricular opportunities for developing their reporting, writing, editing and visual graphics skills.
District Chronicles
Created in 2001, this periodical prepares and trains students desiring a career in journalism and provides them with opportunities to enhance their understanding of, and involvement in, the total newspaper operation. The goals are: (1) to serve as a catalyst to ensure that the voices of the city’s voiceless are heard and (2) expose students to the ideas of entrepreneurship in the news industry. Strategic to its success is the focus placed upon advertising sales. The District Chronicles has created an advertising sales program that identifies students to become sales trainees. The selected students are subsequently trained in advertising and sales and ultimately sell advertising to support the newspaper.
Glasshouseradio.com
In order to keep pace with the rapidly evolving technological advancements in internet media production, glasshouseradio.com, Howard University Internet Talk Radio was established. Like no other, this student run station opens a new world for media programming and ownership. This arena affords students the opportunity to serve as interns and media professionals. A marketing plan has been established that helps to identify advertising dollars to sustain and grow the station.
The Illtop Journal
The Illtop Journal, created in collaboration with renowned comedian, entertainer and director Chris Rock, is a multimedia organization and training ground to develop comedy-writing techniques and create a high-quality humor magazine by using student comedy writing as a channel to elevate the black social consciousness. First with humor, then with useful information, young writers are challenged to elevate their awareness of how humor works. The Journal mirrors society from a collegiate perspective, educating, entertaining and enlightening audiences by fostering a new paradigm of humor as social commentary.
Institute for Media and Diversity
The Institute for Media and Diversity strives to educate the nation’s newsrooms about the complex texture of the nation by working to eliminate the culture of stereotypes that pervades the news media. By expanding the intellectual skills and cultural understanding of mid-career journalists, the Institute provides counterbalancing views to those in the nation’s newsrooms. In addition, the Institute has a direct impact on retaining and expanding the number of African American and other minority journalists in the nation’s newsrooms.
Magazine Publishing Program
Designed by the Department of Journalism, this program prepares student candidates for all aspects of magazine publishing: editorial, advertising, circulation, public relations, production and design. Additionally, this program supports the re-design of existing courses; the development of new courses; the establishment of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary modules for incorporation throughout the curriculum; and the launch of a general interest student magazine.
NABEF Media Sales Institute
The Media Sales Institute, sponsored by the National Association of Broadcasters’ Education Foundation (NABEF), introduces graduating seniors to the fundamentals of media sales careers through a ten day hands-on intensive seminar during the summer months. Recognized as an industry model, this program prepares students of color to work in broadcast, print and other media industries. Institute faculty consists of top media managers from around the country who provide media sales case encounters, research and total sales immersion sessions.
National High School Forensics Institute
The National High School Forensics Institute is the premier revenue generating summer debate institute for high school students across the nation. Howard University holds the 2003 Mock Trial National Championship. The team is currently undefeated (8-0) this mock trial tournament season and the University is ranked 4th in exhibiting best campus activism in the nation. Two primary functions are in place to sustain the Institute. First, prepare and sponsor a ten (10) day debate institute and second, conduct sales and sponsorship marketing through the creation of a compact disc compilation of evidence, arguments and case outlines and a quarterly newsletter of current developments in the topic area.
WHBC-AM 830
WHBC-AM is the student managed and operated carrier-current radio station supported by the Department of Radio, Television and Film. This student run station is fortunate to have WHUR-FM, a commercial station on campus that is licensed to the University. Through this collaboration, WHBC students receive mentoring, workshops, audio and surveillance equipment and financial support for other technology-related necessities.
Youth Journalism Academy
The Youth Journalism Academy, celebrating its 25th Anniversary, offers programs for youth in grades nine through twelve. Designed to introduce them to careers in the media for two weeks during the summer months, students are enrolled in two, two-week workshops in newspaper journalism and advertising. During the school year, the Academy provides communications speakers to high schools; provides sponsorship assistance for the Washington Association of Black Journalists’ Saturday Seminars; and career counseling to Washington area teenagers. Academy sponsors have included: The Washington Post, USA Today, the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund, The National Press Foundation, The American Advertising Federation, District Two and the Michael L. Trilling Foundation.
