1) Professional experience qualifying me to lead the University Press is my work with the South Florida Sun-Sentinel as a staff writer and group editor, freelance PR writing for Pollack Communications, and my position as office manager and accounting director for a local electrical company, A Custom Electric, LLC.
I began working for the Sun-Sentinel’s teen publication, Next Generation, in July of 2001 where I was a staff writer and group editor. As group editor, I managed a staff of 15 to 20 people including writers, photographers and illustrators. I was in charge of running staff meetings as well as creating and handing out assignments to fill a full page. My experience as a group editor for Next Generation has prepared me to successfully lead a staff at the UP. After I graduated high school, I joined the Sun-Sentinel’s college publication, College View. As a freelance writer for College View, I have turned in several 500-word personal columns relating to college life and the college experience. As a member, I have also had the opportunity to volunteer and assist in the planning of Sun-Sentinel sponsored events such as the yearly High School Journalism Awards and the National Writers Workshop Convention in Fort Lauderdale. Currently, I am still a member of the Sun-Sentinel’s College View program.
Through Pollack Communications, I have done freelance public relations writing for several Forum publications including the Wellington Forum and Coral Springs Forum and most recently the Fort Lauderdale Forum and the Delray Times. My freelance work with Pollack Communications has been part of an ongoing feature project called, “The Best of…” After five weeks of voting through the local newspaper, I receive a list of winning businesses/organizations for categories including entertainment, appearance and local businesses. With this list, I call all the winners and write a 130-word review on each winner and what makes them the best in their area. I began freelancing with Pollack Communications in May 2006 and I am currently working with three South Florida Forum publications. The skills I have acquired doing freelance work for Pollack Communications have helped me to become a better writer on a tight deadline as well as improving my organizational and people skills.
As the office manger for A Custom Electric, I was in charge of a staff of more than 20 employees. My duties included administrative, reception, accounts payable, receivable and billings; client contact, managing and maintaining the service department, typing proposals and estimates, coordinating with vendors and scheduling and confirming appointments for the senior staff. I was office manager for A Custom for a year and a half, and I am currently in charge of the business’s accounting. I handle all accounts payable, receivable, invoicing and billings as well as ordering equipment and office supplies. The skills I have learned as office manager and accounting director qualify me to lead the UP because they have helped me to become a better leader – I understand what it is like to run a company and a staff. I also understand business management and accounting, which has helped me in creating contracts and handling timecards and payroll at the UP. I also know how to handle and maintain a monetary budget, buy supplies and motivate my employees.
Extracurricular experience that qualifies me to lead the University Press is the work I have done as part of the staff of the UP. Currently, I am the assistant editor and promotions director for the paper. As well as assisting the editor in chief in the daily running of the paper, as assistant editor I also fill the shoes of news editor and I am in charge of the news section and news writers. As the right hand to the editor in chief, I also assist the editor oversee the production and planning of the paper. My duties include coordinating meetings, recruiting and retaining new staff members, ensuring successful communication between the editors and assisting the editor in chief with anything and everything that needs to be done to ensure the paper is successfully completed, printed and distributed. In working so closely with the editor in chief, I feel I have a true understanding of what is required of the UP leader and how much time and effort is required to lead the UP – all of which I am fully prepared to give.
Before I was appointed assistant editor at the UP, I was the copy desk chief. As copy desk chief, I was in charge of overseeing all copy editing as well as copy editing articles myself. I also have experience final proofing the issue before it is sent to print, a task in which every editor in chief must be involved. Knowing what it feels like to wait for copy also gives me an advantage as an editor. Because I have been involved at several different levels of production, I can relate better to the staff and I can also set and enforce deadlines successfully.
2) A major strength of the University Press this semester is the strength of the staff itself. As a whole, I feel the dedication of the editors and the staff has truly contributed to the success of UP this semester in a way that has not been accomplished in the past. Communication has always been an issue at the UP, and it is usually the greatest weakness. This semester, I feel we have overcome this hump and the senior staff has really made an effort to have successful communication throughout the newsroom. In order to create a different level of communication, we hold our editors meetings at local restaurants and everyone is involved in the production of each issue. There is always brainstorming and planning and everyone knows what is going on and who is doing what. Through constant communication via e-mail, phone calls and meetings, I feel we have also eliminated confusion in production. There has also been an emphasis on recruitment of new staff members this semester, something that was always a problem in the past. There are no “clicks” among the editors and new people are always welcomed and then kept track of and checked on. Although there may always be some miscommunication, I feel with the strength and true dedication of the staff, this semester has proven to be one of the most successful in communicating.
A major weakness of the University Press this semester is our readership – or lack there of. Readership and a successful return rate on distribution has always been an issue we need to deal with. Because we are largely a commuter campus, many students do not know the paper exists and others do not even care to read it. The return rate on the issues we put out also varies greatly upon the issue. Although we have covered many interesting topics, many of our issues do not move off the stands. Although it is virtually impossible to make people care, I think we have begun to successfully promote the UP in a way that has not been done in the past. I think this is actually a good weakness to have because it is a challenge that can be overcome with hard work and dedication.
3) The most important goal I would like to accomplish as editor is to make what I feel is a major weakness of the University Press into a major success. Because we are largely a commuter campus, readership has always been a problem. We have already begun taking steps toward promoting and advertising our paper to the students and I plan to continue this venture. Beginning with distribution and promotions, I plan to increase readership of the UP on and off campus. Currently, the staff is required to pass out papers for an hour each week and I plan to ensure that this continues until students pick up the paper themselves. I also plan to update and expand how the paper is distributed; in fact, I believe distribution in general needs a complete overhaul. The paper should be distributed at all dorm rooms, student apartments and local student residences. I also would like to begin off campus distribution next semester at all local restaurants and bookstores.
As far as promotions, I want to create and market several promotional ad campaigns urging students to pick up the paper. I also want to involve all media outlets and promote the paper on Owl TV and OwlRadio. The Web is also another way to reach many students and I would like to make our site more interactive. I also plan to use popular Web sites such as Facebook and MySpace to reach students. Because I would like to have a career in event planning, I would also like to create events on campus in conjunction with school clubs and organizations with the UP co-sponsoring all events. I plan to get our name out there as much as possible so students begin to recognize it and know they can always rely on the school newspaper to inform them of what is going on at every FAU campus.
Once distribution is updated and expanded and promotion projects are well underway, I would like to make changes to the content of the paper. I plan to add feature sections to the paper that students want to read. A column or guide or a new innovative way of displaying the listings section is necessary to attract new readers. Students like reading something by the same person each week and knowing that they can always pick up the paper and turn to that one thing they enjoy reading. Consistency is something we do not always have. Although we started the idea of “Artist Spotlight,” the feature is not always in the paper and if it is, it is on a different page each time. We often equate these problems with a lack of space, but I think it is important to pick something and be consistent. Starting next week, we are beginning a new column called “What’s Cookin’ ” featuring a biology major who has a love for cooking and would like to teach others how to eat great on a college budget. This writer came to me with the idea of writing one story and I came up with the idea of giving her a weekly column. I would like this column to be one of many weekly features to come in the future.
4) Ensuring that the University Press covers and reaches students at every FAU campus is extremely important. Currently we have a northern campus editor on our staff that successfully covers the Jupiter and Treasure Coast campus. Because I currently oversee and run the news section, I try very hard to cover news and happenings that occur on all of FAU’s seven campuses and I plan to continue to uphold an emphasis on covering “other campus news” in our news section. I also want to extend my goal of promoting and marketing our paper on not only the Boca Raton campus, but at every FAU campus. I also plan to have at least one cover story from another campus and I will ensure that all covers can relate to students at every campus. I would like to work with Student Government representatives from all campuses and invite them to contribute to the paper. I want to have a tab and section for each separate campus on UP Online where students can go to get specific news and information about their campus. Having at least one writer from each campus would also be ideal and I want to promote and recruit at all campuses to ensure that this is possible.
5) The most important idea I would like to add to UP Online is to make the site, in general, more interactive. I would like to include podcasts, voice feeds and streaming audio to the site. I want the site to be something that every FAU student checks each morning before class; I want to make our site a true resource for the students.
Because FAU has seven different campuses, one idea that I would like to feature on the UP Online is to have separate tabbed sections for each FAU campus. In these sections, I would like to include information that relates to students at that campus only. I would enlist the assistance of Student Government representatives at each campus to contribute notes from their meetings, listings of events on their campus and important issues that need to be covered. I think this would be a good opportunity to cover issues on every FAU campus. We can also open message boards for student discussions.
Another idea that I would like to bring to UP Online is to create a message board and open forum for students to rate their professors. This way, when students register for new classes they can come to our site and view other student’s opinions about specific teachers. Much like the popular site ratemyprofessor.com, UP Online could be a resource to all FAU students. We could also post the reviews students fill out about teachers at the end of the semester.
Regardless of how we go about it, our site needs to be more interactive and more informative. I would like to hold brainstorming sessions and involve other students in the process of improving our Website by inviting students to idea sessions where they comment on the site and lend their own ideas. This group of students could include computer science and business majors and well as students in the field of communications and web design. I would also like to include students who are not involved in a related field to come in and comment for pure aesthetic value. I think it is important to get feedback from the students because our paper and our Web site are for them. We are student-driven publication – by the students, for the students.
