Weighing the costs and benefits: A guide to Honor Societies
Editor’s note: This guide is meant to provide a quick overview and offer easy comparison information of the journalism and mass communication honor societies described in greater detail last week.
By Lindsey Wotanis
Marywood University
Kappa Tau Alpha
Key Facts:
- Founded 1910
- “Kappa Tau Alpha is a college honor society that recognizes academic excellence and promotes scholarship in journalism and mass communication.”
- 96 chapters nationwide
Key Benefits:
- National recognition for academic excellence
- Academic and service awards for outstanding seniors
Costs:
- To start a chapter: No charter fee
- Individual initiation fee: $30 for lifetime membership
- Honor cords: $8 plus shipping
GPA Requirements:
- Must have at least a 3.00 GPA (on 4.0 system) in junior/senior level journalism/mass communication courses.
Continue reading “Journalism and Mass Communication Honor Societies”
The thought of incorporating something else into the mix might be overwhelming. But adding an honor society has the potential to pay dividends for advisers, students and campus communities who are in the trenches engaged in everyday collegiate media work.
At a time when students are increasingly skeptical about the value of high priced textbooks and professors are often asked to justify their cost, it undoubtedly helps when a book offers something “more.” Vincent Filak’s “Dynamics of News Reporting & Writing,” released on Jan. 2, 2018, does just that. In addition to providing a potpourri of chapters routinely found in reporting books, including “Interviewing,” “Broadcast-Style Writing and Voicing,” “Basics of Writing,” and “Editing Audio and Video,” Filak, a professor of journalism at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, has deftly added “more” in the form of a blog, dynamicsofwriting.com. It includes almost daily updates with additional information, examples of material discussed in the textbook and interactive elements to keep students engaged and the material fresh. Recent blog posts, including “Profile Writing: You can observe a lot by watching” and “5 cool things about open records I learned from an #ACPBOM session,” provide timely and helpful content that can be integrated into a course curriculum.
Abstract — This paper examines publication of the NTUBulletin newspaper at the National Taipei University of Business (NTUB) from spring 2016 through fall 2017, focusing on the fall 2017 semester. This was the first English language newspaper published at our school. The newspaper is a full-color paper, printed on A3 and A4 paper. A four-page paper has been expanded to six pages. The paper has undergone one redesign. It began with a four-week deadline schedule that was reduced to three weeks in the second semester. A News English class originally published the paper and later was moved into writing courses. The paper thus always had a focus on writing improvement with students – the value of which has been shown in questionnaires distributed to the class. This paper has created substantial energy and excitement at NTUB, and the teacher has been invited to distribute copies to other schools and speak about the experience of publication and writing training in the course.