Minutes
Journalism Education Association Board Meeting
Nov. 21, 2019 • 8 a.m.
McKinley, Mezzanine Level • Marriott Wardman Park, Washington, D.C.

These minutes were approved April 16, 2020.

CALL TO ORDER
A meeting of the Journalism Education Association board of directors took place Nov. 21, 2019, in the McKinley room of the Washington Marriott Wardman Park. It began at 8 a.m. and was presided over by Sarah Nichols with Connie Fulkerson as secretary.

ATTENDEES
Voting members: Sarah Nichols, president; Val Kibler, vice president; Megan Fromm, Educational Initiatives director; Lori Keekley, Scholastic Press Rights director; Laura Negri, director-at-large; Mike Malcom-Bjorklund, director-at-large; Julia Satterthwaite, director-at-large.

Nonvoting members:
Standing Committees: Karen Slusher, awards chair; Kim Green, certification chair; Nancy Y. Smith, contest chair; Evelyn Lauer, publications/public relations chair; Aaron Manfull, digital media; Jonathan Rogers, professional outreach/NCTE liaison
Special Committees: Nina Quintana, Career and Technical Education chair; Patrick Johnson, mentoring program chair; Journalist of the Year chair, Rebecca Pollard
Editor: Bradley Wilson, C:JET editor
Staff: Kelly Glasscock, executive director; Connie Fulkerson, program and awards coordinator; Kate Dubiel, webmaster
Liaison: Laura Widmer, NSPA
Others: Priscilla Frost and April van Buren, contest committee; Gary Lundgren, NSPA

READING OF NOTICE OF MEETING
The following was posted on JEA.org on Oct. 22, 2019: The Journalism Education Association board of directors will meet at 8 a.m. Nov. 21, 2019, in the McKinley room of the Marriott Wardman Park in Washington, D.C.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES
A motion to accept the minutes, with corrections, of the spring 2019 board meeting in Anaheim was made by Megan Fromm and seconded by Lori Keekley. (passed 7-0)

AFFIRMATION OF ELECTRONIC VOTES
Sarah Nichols affirmed these electronic votes:
· Motion to accept proposal from the Hilton San Francisco Union Square to host the 2023 spring National High School Journalism Convention (passed 7-0, May 22, 2019).
· Motion to accept proposal from the St. Louis America’s Center Convention Complex to host the 2022 fall National High School Journalism Convention (passed 7-0, May 22, 2019).
· Motion to approve copyright statement (passed 7-0, June 10, 2019).
· Motion to accept proposal from the Ace Hotel New Orleans to host the 2020 and 2021 JEA Advisers Institute (passed 7-0, Aug. 17, 2019).

APPROVAL OF AGENDA
A motion was made to approve the agenda with amendments made to include Bradley Wilson’s report and Nancy Smith’s motion prior to the lunch break (passed 7-0).

COMMENDATIONS
The following individuals or groups were commended by board members or committee chairs:
• Laura Negri, CJE (nominated by Nina Quintana)
For expertise and technical support in developing materials to help journalism advisers in Career and Technical Education programs.

• Lori Keekley, MJE (nominated by Rebecca Pollard)
For outstanding leadership behind the scenes to coordinate a smooth Partner Project workshop in Memphis.

• Gloria Guo (nominated by Sarah Nichols)
For outstanding graphic design work developing a First Amendment Press Freedom Award logo.

• Val Kibler, MJE (nominated by Sarah Nichols)
For attention to detail developing, facilitating and expanding a robust Virtual Workshop program.

• Bradley Wilson, MJE (nominated by Nancy Smith)
For leadership, vision and more than 100 hours compiling winning photo contest entries to create an online gallery for JEA members and their students.

• Margie Raper, MJE, and Danielle Ryan, MJE (nominated by Megan Fromm)
For focused, enthusiastic support toward adviser and student needs at Norte Vista for the Partner Project.

• Shari Adwers, MJE, and Abrianna Nelson, CJE (nominated by Megan Fromm)
For outstanding contributions to the JEA Curriculum Initiative, including responding to member requests and overseeing curriculum development.

• Pam Bunka (nominated by Sarah Nichols and Val Kibler)
For leadership and service to the Partner Project as a teacher-trainer in Michigan.

REPORTS AND ITEMS OF INTEREST
National Student Media Contests — Nancy Smith, Kate Dubiel
The new contest registration and critiquing system was rolled out this fall. Kate Dubiel was instrumental in creating the system and working with teams on testing the system and implementing the changes the committee wanted.

Nancy Smith was pleased that the upload rate was 95% for broadcast and layout, which is a record. Total enrolled is 2,128.

In the summer, the Allie Staub and committee members rewrote the middle school contests and revised the categories so they’d be more in line with the high school contests.

Quiz Bowl registration was moved from NSPA to JEA for the Washington, D.C., convention. More than 40 teams are registered for the fall convention; the committee is hoping to add more teams at convention registration.
Laura Negri, who took part in the online critiquing, said it was easy and went smoothly for her.

With the new registration system, the committee thought it was a good time to rebrand the contests, formerly known as the JEA Write-off Contest. The new name is JEA National Student Media Contests.

National Scholastic Press Association — Laura Widmer
Amber Billings left NSPA, and Ashley Tilley took over her convention responsibilities. NSPA also hired Ron Johnson part time as communications director. Sara Quinn is helping with web development.

Sarah Nichols, Val Kibler and Kelly Glasscock from JEA and Laura Widmer, Gary Lundgren and Ashley Tilley from NSPA met remotely about convention policies and procedures, specifically guidelines for registration. For Nashville, they will try opening registration a week before hotel registration opens. This may avoid the rush on the first day. This may help particularly in the fall with schools that open later in September.

Spring 2025 is the only convention site open. The executive directors will do site visits to get that filled. Laura Widmer is working with Kelly Glasscock on cost analysis of various cities. The aim for between 9,500 and 10,000 attendees for a fiscal year is a way to make the site choices, based on past attendance.

NSPA’s 100th birthday is coming up in 2021 in Philadelphia. Some marketing for this will happen in Nashville and Orlando.

Conventions — Kelly Glasscock
Washington, D.C.
National Student Media Contests registrations – about 2,100
Awards Luncheon – 370 registered
Pizza Party – 485 registered
JEA/NSPA haven’t been able to get the sponsorship for the pizza party since most sponsors prefer to sponsor adviser events. Despite charging $15 per student for the pizza, it costs NHSJC $45. Someone suggested offering the sponsor of the pizza party as a way to talk at the judges dinner if that would help get the sponsorship. There needs to be a solid plan for coordinating. A student event with food is a good way to help meet the hotel’s food and beverage contract requirement.

Pre-convention workshops are at 95% registration.
Hotel block in the Wardman Park is at 99%. Overflow blocks are 100% filled.
About 6,100 were registered as of last Friday, which is not as many registered as what was expected/budgeted.

Nashville will be the first spring convention in the east part of the country. We’re getting better at estimating the costs.
Chicago was expensive because of the union fees. AV was $158,000. In Washington, D.C., AV costs will be about $70,000 so D.C. will be more lucrative. Bringing more K-State students to help with labor for AV has helped.

Registration and hotel booking: JEA/NSPA leaders are looking at strategies to make it less stressful for advisers. For the fall, registration was moved into September. Once registered, the adviser was given the hotel code.
We have 953 hotel rooms in the block on peak (maximum number of rooms on a given night) Thursday and Friday.
There were 1,300 rooms in the Chicago hotel block plus four overflows.
In D.C., there are 1,100 rooms in the Marriott and four overflow hotels.
In Orlando 2020 we have 1,400 rooms. If we don’t fill the rooms, we pay an attrition fee. We have to fill at least 80%.

HEADQUARTERS REPORT — Kelly Glasscock
Accounting services has worked well. Everything has been digitized. JEA hired Cindy Horchem as a part-time office specialist. We also added a student web developer, David Hazelwood.
NSMC system development is winding down, but headquarters needs to update the membership management system. That and other web projects are in the planning process.
Assistant director position — The job, which will go through Kansas State University, was posted Nov. 11. There were seven applicants the first week. On Dec. 15, the committee will start reviewing applicants. Contacts will be made in December, and virtual interviews will begin in January. The position’s start date will be in August 2020, which will give a one month overlap with Connie Fulkerson, who will retire in mid-September. The job has been posted on 12 job sites.
Finances — This is the first time the taxes came in on the plus side. Investments took a huge hit in December. The bottom line is variable because of investments. Excess contributions (Yellow Chair) saw more money than in previous years.

The 990 draft is something the board can approve. We have an extension until May.

Statement of activity updated to positive $120,000. Big swing is due to realized expenses.
Total membership was 2,942 as of Friday.
There is no documentation of subsequent events.

Budget requests are due Dec. 15 to Kelly and Sarah.
There will be a virtual budget meeting this year with a review of the current budget in January. Glasscock will work on the current and upcoming budget. The auditor will make a report.

CAREER AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION — Nina Quintana
She said she needs assistance on ways to engage audience to take the tests at conventions. We have just 14 advisers testing at this convention; she had hoped to have 40. She wanted to find ways to get more students involved with getting the testing for building portfolios. If we are looking at going the CTSO route, we’ll need to get more students involved. Quintana would like to go to a conference and learn how to network to get more information.
Sarah Nichols suggested that perhaps focus needed to be on “badging and certification.” Get Aaron Manfull to put some of the things on the Digital Media site and get the state directors involved. How CTE is working in each state. Nichols encouraged board members to get behind CTE movement and Nina’s effort. Becoming a CTSO is not something that probably will happen for JEA, but we should focus on badging, certification, competition, etc. JEA offers the Certiport exams at a better rate than some schools. Sarah suggested more promo in C:JET and on the Digital Media site. Laura Negri said you don’t have to do Career and Technical Education to take the tests. Perhaps give more ideas on what the tests cover. Nina suggested focusing marketing on why it is beneficial to JEA members.
Retreat – Quintana is getting more inquiries about CTE and how to get started. She would like to develop a workshop in New Mexico. The state’s college and career readiness bureau is willing to work with her. It would be cost effective and beneficial to have it in New Mexico; it would help to pull resources from other states.

COMMITTEE AND EDITOR REPORTS
Digital Media – Aaron Manfull. He thanked board members for sharing their newsroom photos. The committee is focusing on Adobe projects (tutorials) and other tips, resources, plus adding more on podcasts. Recently he has begun soliciting sample podcasts from scholastic journalism folks (pros, students, advisers), and six to 10 are scheduled to go out the next couple weeks. Manfull encouraged committee members to post to the Listserv weekly. Nichols commended Manfull on getting members involved in contributing to the Digital Media website.

One Book, Social Media, Evelyn Lauer – JEA will be announcing a new logo for Scholastic Journalism Week at the convention. The theme is Big Questions, Big Results. The selected design stood out among others. Lauer oversaw a chat on investigative journalism with the author of JEA’s One Book, “Dopesick.” This was one of the more engaging chats with an author during Lauer’s time doing the One Book chats. She will present a session about investigative journalism tied to the book.

Mentoring Program, Patrick Johnson – Lunch and Learn, leadership and team building with mentors and mentees will be tried for the first time. There are 45 signed up to attend. There will be a Mentor Power Hour after that. The committee added a law and ethics component to the mentor training. Lori Keekley and Jane Blystone worked well to bring this information to the training. Online training is good. Continue to talk with state organizations to encourage people to go through the training. We need more people to support the young teachers. Nichols said the law component was a way to give new advisers a good base in law and ethics and helping to navigate the variables and the important part of the mentor training. Is not a replacement for MJE but allows mentors to be better equipped to guide the young advisers in the law and ethics components. Keekley said the training is scenario-based.

Journalist of the Year, Rebecca Pollard — Last spring there were four entries in Aspiring Young Journalist and 36 entries for Journalist of the Year, the same as previous year. The process has gotten easier in the last five years. Quality portfolios are now posted on the website. Three years in a row there has been a copyright violation and a student is disqualified — mainly in broadcast entries. Students who don’t organize in the 11 categories are at a disadvantage. There were 39 judges. The extra two weeks between the JOY deadline and convention helped. There is a rubric in place that works well. One of the judges was a Journalist of the Year. Anaheim had just 10 JOY state winners attend the convention and just seven attended the lunch at the hotel restaurant. It’s a good way for the kids to network. For Nashville, Parker Davis will speak at the opening ceremony. His speech will be live streamed.
Pollard suggested the JOY state winners could meet an hour before the opening ceremony. Other students could mingle with the state winners. OR There could be a meet and greet after the keynote Thursday.
Perhaps CTE certification could be on the rubric.

NCTE/Adobe/Flipboard, Jonathan Rogers – He would like to develop an ad campaign for the NCTE publications to reach more English teachers. It’s a powerful organization. We could highlight JEA’s curriculum, mentoring, digital mentoring. The NCTE convention conflicts with NHSJC for the next two years. Rogers has been chatting with Adobe and Creative Cloud. He’s doing a lot of beta testing on apps and seeing some exciting things with Adobe. He’s an Adobe Education Leader. Flipboard is showcasing portfolios and other things. It’s a good way to share good work. NCTE members are active on Twitter so keep engaging. There will be a JEA poster at the NCTE convention.

Awards, Karen Slusher — The committee moved the deadline to March 15 for Broadcast Adviser of the Year. The winners will be announced the first week in May so they could get more recognition, but recognition will be at the fall convention. Loyola University in New Orleans is BAOY sponsor. Headquarters staff and Slusher are looking into alternatives to Survey Gizmo for award submissions and judging. The Submittable management system is one option they’re reviewing.

Certification, Kim Green – More folks are offering testing places during the summer. More people than usual are taking the MJE test in Washington, D.C. For the first time an Option C recipient is taking the MJE. Her project is how to host a certification exam. They had to meet the same criteria as others. The project can’t be company-based though. Feb. 1 is the application deadline for the spring convention. Committee will be working on vocabulary for the exam.

Magazine, Bradley Wilson — Advisers working on MJE projects can do a package for Communication: Journalism Education Today. The online supplement has been getting good feedback. Wilson is partnering with NSPA’s Gary Lundgren on a page about award-winning publications. He plans to upload political photos and develop a repository of individual articles from past issues. Copyright should be taken seriously. The winter C:JET was printed on recycled paper for the first time.

Curriculum Initiative, Megan Fromm — We started the year with six curriculum leaders, but one has stepped down. We are challenged by curriculum leaders not being aware of the task they agreed to take on. It may be better to have a two-day workshop. It’s been difficult for new people getting acquainted with the curriculum. Sometimes the links are a problem with index on the website that will need to be solved.

NEW BUSINESS
Contest position bylaws change — Nancy Smith
Nancy Smith moved that the contest chair will be appointed by and directly responsible to the executive director. The position will be removed from the bylaws in Article VI, Section I Standing Committees and will be outlined in Section VII, Section 5: Contests as follows:

JEA’s contest chair will be appointed by and directly responsible to the executive director with the approval of the president. The contest chair will oversee the National Student Media Contests, the Junior High/Middle School National Media Contest and the National Journalism Quiz Bowl. The contest chair may appoint coordinators to assist with these duties with the approval of the executive director. The chair will serve without term limits and may be removed from the position for cause by the executive director. The chair may step down at any time with a written letter of resignation and transition plan for future contests.

Approval of 990 — Sarah Nichols moved to approve 990 draft as presented. Laura Negri seconded. (passed 7-0)

Standards for Journalism Educators, Sarah Nichols — Legal and ethical issues section was updated and refreshed and digital media reflects what we do now rather than four years ago. Committee members were Logan Aimone, Marina Hendricks, Michael Hernandez, Sarah Nichols and Justin Raisner. There was a discussion about marketing this through meetings, digital media and groups. This will be posted on the JEA website.

Sarah Nichols moved and Val Kibler seconded to endorse the revised Standards for Journalism Educators with revisions as discussed. (passed 7-0)

Membership categories bylaw change — Val Kibler
Val Kibler moved to remove the word “secondary schools” from Section 1d(2) of the JEA bylaws. Megan Fromm seconded. (passed 7-0)

JEA Power Hour. Sarah Nichols invited board members to discuss other items of interest.

ADJOURNMENT
Julia Satterthwaite moved and Lori Keekley seconded to adjourn the meeting. Meeting was adjourned at 1:42 p.m.

_______________________________________________________________________
A follow-up meeting will be held at 2:30 p.m. Nov. 23, 2019, in the Jackson room.

The next board meeting will be at 8 a.m. April 16, 2020, at the Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville.