By Tim Stephens, APSE President
Over the past few years, APSE has taken significant steps toward growing its relationship with college students.
We partnered with universities that are making investments in sports journalism, such as our relationship with Indiana University's National Sports Journalism Center to host the APSE Red Smith Hall of Fame and be part of a rotation for our annual Winter Conference. We've made efforts to bring our regional meetings to college campuses, such as visits this spring to the University of Maryland, Northwestern University and Quinnipac University. We've awarded annual scholarships to deserving, high-achieving students. And, of course, we opened our organization to student memberships.
That effort began with just a handful of students but quickly grew to more than 60 student members last year, most of them sponsored by a generous and supportive sports editor or other APSE members. We quickly learned that building a lasting infrastructure for student recruitment and involvement would require a more organized approach that also gave students a voice in the organization and shifted the recruiting responsibilities to the students themselves.
It was for this reason that I proposed APSE create student chapters.
I researched how student chapters are structured in other professional organizations. I solicited feedback and suggestions from several APSE members as well as several prominent journalism educators. I presented the plan during our executive committee meeting at the Winter Conference in Indianapolis. I then asked our Futures Committee, chaired by Glen Crevier of the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, to examine the proposal and get feedback themselves for any modifications.
And now here we are. I am proud to annouce that APSE is now accepting applications for student chapters. (TO LEARN MORE AND TO SUBMIT AN APPLICATION, GO HERE: http://apsportseditors.org/student-chapters/
As part of this initiative, I am also creating a new APSE committee to work directly with our student members and student chapters. Previously, student outreach has been split between our Professional Development Committee and our Outreach Committee. As our student outreach grows, we'll need a committee dedicated specifically to student issues. This also will allow the efforts of the Professional Development Committee to focus on our professional members and the Outreach Committee to focus on recruitment of professional members and news organizations. The Student Liaison Committee will be chaired, at least initially, by me and will include APSE members, educator members and student members.
Connecting with students who are committed to sports journalism is an important role for APSE. It is an opportunity for our members to identify potential job applicants and to serve as mentors early in their careers. Doing so helps individuals, news organizations and sports journalism as a whole. In the long run, it helps APSE. The graduates of today are the leaders of the newsroom tomorrow, probably sooner than we think. They will be the future leaders of APSE, also probably sooner than we think. We need to bring them into APSE at the beginning of their careers, foster their development and keep them with us.
Interest in APSE student chapters is high. I've already received inquiries and positive feedback from several universities.
I hope we'll be welcoming our first APSE student chapter applicants at our Summer Conference in metro DC.
Tim Stephens is Deputy Managing Editor at CBSSports.com. He can be reached at tim.stephens@cbsinteractive.com.
