Janice Mack Guess

Mrs. Janice Guess first time author came to speak to Mr. Chambers mass media & society class to introduce her book "little colored girls want to wear pearls too!" Along with the new title aurthor Mrs. Guess is well respected career driven women. Working as a aministantive specialist & recruiting coordantior at NCCU, Mrs. Guess spend her time transitioning student into the professional world. Speaking to our class Mrs.guess explained why she decided to write her book. Telling the class how African-Americans weren't allowed to read and write and how we as a race are just now starting to document our own history. She talked about her up bringing during the civil rights movement, being traumatized by seening first hand what our race had to go threw. Describing an event when she was a little girl riding with her parents and siblings, they saw the KKK burning a cross in the yard of an African-American family. Her explaining the details of that event was inspiring, because we came so far as a race. It's not blind to the eye that these things still are happening in places throughout the US. Her story gives me a new outlook on the importance of knowing how to read, write, and doucument. 

                                       Chambers class

Verna Dickerson Holtzclaw

Verna Holtzclaw Executive Producer at bet spoke to Mr Chambers over the phone. Mrs Holtzclaw spoke briefly with our class talking about her experience at Hapton University and how her work ethic landed her an entry level position with bet. She talk about being a women coming up in this industry an how her respect change as her title grew. Mrs Holtzclaw talked about her mentors  influence her and help her thoughtout her career. She also talk about how important it is to have a mentor or someone you could go to for advice.

                                     Chambers class

Alumni Aaron Saunders visits

        During North Carolina Central University homecoming alumni Aaron Saunders journalist for The Daily Republic came to speak to the students in the mass comm department. Saunders come to speak on his struggle to work in his profession. He talked about his journey that lead him through college to work as a journalist in South Dakota. He explained the value of having an internship saying that if we want to work in our profession we need to feel out continuous internship applications until we get one.
         Mr. Saunders made a point to the class that i now live by its not were you start it's were you finish. When i first came to college i had no clue to what i wanted to do, but now I'm getting the feel of what i want to do with my life. Listening to Mr. Saunders i now see that news is the the key to entering the media industry. Everything involves news and current events for example the LA riots and the rap industry N.W.A was talking about this event in their music. So what every i want to do weather it's a radio personality or a recording artist it's still informing people whats going on in that particular era. listening to Mr. Saunders for three class periods it made me think and gave me that push to continue shooting for my dreams.

                                                                                        Chambers Class

My Obituary

IN LOVE & MEMORY OF NICK

Sunrise Dec16, 1991 Sundown 2098

As a child Dominick Askew known NICK to some nick nick to others problem nickbadass grew up in the small town of Ahoskie NC. Dominick was the loving child of Lisa Anntranette Eley and Louis Dominick Askew who he was named after. Dominick was a well rounded student who was willing to take chances and strived for success. Nick was very active in his home town working with the community and helping developed the youth. In high school Nick played football as the starting left tackle and he would make sure that we knew that. He also works at Davis Kids College As a teacher’s assistant giving back to the youth whenever he had free time. Dominick went on to peruse higher education at North Carolina Central University and graduated with a degree in Mass Communication with a concentration in Radio Broadcast. While in college Dominick had a dream like every other black kid growing up in the hip-hop culture. Dominick had grew a passion with what head had been playing around with since the age of nine. He wanted to be heard he wanted to reflect his pain and tell his story; he did that threw rap. Creating lyric patterns, and learning the craft of his art mixing and mastering, audio editing, shooting and video editing Dominick went to began the start of a new cycle. After college Dominick went on to work as a full time radio personality converting his career as a recording artist producing several number one hit albums.

Chambers Class

Jordans over textbooks

Around HBCU's I hear students discussing about not having enough money to pay for their textbooks. Students are angered by the rising price of tuition and how they have to take out high price loans each semester and still can't afford their textbooks. But that’s not the case, me being a student of an HBCU I see students that take their refunds before they buy their books they go buy Jordan's. The price of Jordan's can be $200 plus the average cost of a textbook is about $150. This is happening a lot, I know students personally that choose to buy the new Retro Jordan's than their required text.
Around HBCU's I hear students discussing about not having enough money to pay for their textbooks. Students are angered by the rising price of tuition and how they have to take out high price loans each semester and still can't afford their textbooks. But that’s not the case, me being a student of an HBCU I see students that take their refunds before they buy their books they go buy Jordan's. The price of Jordan's can be $200 plus the average cost of a textbook is about $150. This is happening a lot, I know students personally that choose to buy the new Retro Jordan's than their required text.

 I feel that the money that we borrow to get us threw school should be spent correctly instead of buy useless item such as shoes, that get worn out after about the first month of having them. Students get caught up in the hype about the new Jordan's coming out because they hear their favorite rapper talking about them in their songs and wearing them. But your favorite rapper is not helping you pay for your textbooks. I had a friend to take his whole refund and bought Jordan's and new clothing but didn't buy any of his textbooks and the effect of that he fail 3 of his courses and no longer attend school because he wanted to be fly rather than educated. Myself personally I think that paying for overpriced shoes and clothing is a terrible investment.

  I understand the way that culture has shape the young community but we are playing more of the consumer’s role than trying to supply the consumers. Being a student myself I agree that the price of textbook can get outrageous but what we get out of buying them is far greater. When students get their pal grant, scholarships, or loans they should know how to manage that money and do what needs to be done. When students come to college and get those large sums of money they go wild with it because they never had that type of money before.

 I feel that as a part of orientation they should host seminars to help new students manage their loan money. If students come to college aware of all of the hype they will survive the Jordan’s over textbooks epidemic. This will also help students understand the material items are not as important than what you came to college to do. The understanding of managing money isn’t hard it’s just the scarifies of luxury items until we are able to really afford them. 

Chambers Class

Megan Riley

Megan Riley  Executive Ptoducer for news 14 came Mr Chambers mass media & society class to speak. Megan explaind the importants of having experience in the news field because it's new in everything. She also spoke about having internships and how they could be the key to starting your career. Listening to her speak I understand that all it takes is to just get you foot in the door in the media industry and there is many opportunities at hand. Even someone with an interest in sports, music, or fashion it's all involves news. Megan explaind the pressure in the news room with deadlines, and the amount of time it takes to create a news segment. Megan said that you have to have a passion for writing and working In the newsroom to be successful in the field of journalism. Megan explained that knowing how to write is very Important but their are other jobs to be done in the newsroom. Besides being a journalist you could be a photographer, producer or video editor. But the jobs are going to the competitors who can do it all.

                                     Chambers class

 

Homecoming!! No Concert!!

Rumor has it that North Carolina Central University is not having a hip hop concert for this year’s homecoming.  Students all over NCCU’s campus are saying the tradition will be ruined. Should the student body be deprived of a concert? 

Kemet Gresham a junior at NCCU said “each year we have an underrated concert for homecoming. Instead of getting rid of the concert altogether we should find a way to make more money and hire better performers. NC A&T our rivals has a large scale concert each year because they have a partnership with the Greensboro coliseum. Maybe NCCU should have a partnership with the Durham Bulls Stadium and host a larger scale concert.   This would bring in more money and we can advertise to non NCCU students.”

It’s unclear why we are not having a homecoming concert many think it’s because of our budget. Paisley Williams a sophomore at NCCU said “if funding is the reason why we are not having a concert we should have fundraisers year round to support our homecoming. The student activity board should maybe host bake sales or even a mini carnival.” While doing interviews I asked students how we could improve homecoming in the years to come. Kamau Winfield NCCU sophomore said “we should promote our homecoming events outside NCCU and up the price of tickets to expand the budget for next year.”

There is another rumor from an unidentified source who’s an associate of S.A.B said that Pusha T from the rap group called the Clipse is coming to perform at the fashion show. After students heard about the possibility of Pusha T coming they was sort of relieved. At the end of each interview I asked if you could choose an artist to come perform who it would be. Many said Asap Rocky, Rich Homie Quan, Kindrick Lamar, and J cole. The answer is still unclear about having a concert, but time will tell.

Alumni Visits

Wednesday October 16, 2013 Ernie Suggs Alumni of North Carolina Central University and reporter for Atlanta Journal- Constitution came to speak with the Mass Communication department.

Mr. Suggs came to visit NCCU during its homecoming and spoke to students about how he became the reporter that he is today. Suggs spoke on how he started his path in professional journalism here at NCCU working with the Campus Echo. Suggs explained that his passion for writing is what drove him to dedicate his time writing and publishing stories for the Echo. He told us how he applied for an internship with the National Association of Black journalist. After being accepted he went off to New York to work for Gannett Westchester newspaper coving the Yankees.

Graduating NCCU in 1990 Mr. Suggs went back to New York where he had a job waiting for him at Gannett Newspaper. Working for two year at Gannett he moved back to Durham NC to work for the Herald Sun Newspaper as a reporter. In 1996 Suggs was awarded a fellowship with the Education Writers Association for his work covering NCCU. This landed Suggs a job traveling the south to do a series of stores covering HBCU's.

Being very active in the National Association of Black Journalist Suggs became too organization vice president in 2005. Three year later Suggs was one of twenty-nine people, two who were black to be selected worldwide to become a Niemen Fellow at Harvard University. When Suggs graduated from Harvard University he was named to the Niemen Foundation's Advisory Board.

Chambers Class

The Rise in Textbook Costs

The Rise in Textbook Costs

        Students all over North Carolina Central University campus are complaining about the
rise in text book cost. Should textbooks be included in the in the cost of the course being that the
cost of tuition is also on the rise? Are there cheaper alternatives to buying textbooks if so how
much cheaper.
        Malcolm Elliot junior at NCCU say “the price of textbooks are sky rocketing, but new
technologies have given us cheaper alternatives such as e-books, and buying or renting books off
site such as amazon.com for almost half the price of the books sold by the university.”
Other students at NCCU weren’t afraid to disagree with Malcolm’s views. Sylvia Blank
sophomore at NCCU said “there are risks to buying e-books and hard copies off different sites.
The software on your tablet or PC could crash and your e-book would be useless or a site like
chegg.com could send the wrong book or the book may have missing pages. The biggest issue of
all they may not offer the exact book we need because central have their own copies of certain
text for example the plazas Spanish book.”
       Matthew Ferante said “with tuition on the rise and textbooks on the rise it seems that
NCCU is designed to accumulate more dept for their students. NCCU should include the cost of
books into the cost of the course instead of it coming out of our loans. What about students who
don’t receive a lot of financial aid, and live off-Campus, they have to pay for housing, books,
food, gas, and car repairs.
       Blair Ingram junior at NCCU said “we as students have no say so on the rise in textbook
cost. Teachers demand that we have the books for our courses, they are critical towards our
grades. This comes down to if we want to do well in school were going to get the required
textbooks regardless the cost.”

Mr. Chambers Mass Media & Society's class.

when i first entered the Mass Communications department i was unclear to what i wanted to do with it. After spending half of a semester i started to understand the business side of the media world. Being a former business major i see myself working behind the scenes in the broadcasting industry. Before i changed my major i had a talk with Mrs. Sexton in the career service department she told me "there is a business in everything, find what you love to do and learn the business."

I honestly i don't know what i will take from Mr. Chambers Mass media and society class but i hope I'm able to find my hustle. I also hope to build a strong network, I learned that you cant succeed without the help of someone else. I plan to work with audionet in the upcoming semester to get some hands on experience in a radio station. The only thing i feel that hold me back is fear to try new things and meeting new people. Hopefully i'm able to breakout my shell and try something i never did before who knows what may happen.

Chambers Class