IHSA

IHSA Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes - 2005-06

Journalism Advisory Committee

June 13 , 2006

The IHSA Journalism Advisory Committee met in the IHSA Office in Bloomington, Illinois, on Tuesday, June 13, 2006. The meeting began at 10:00 a.m. Committee members present were: State Final Co-Chairs - James Tidwell and Sally Turner (EIU); Advisory Committee members Dixie Schroeder, Princeton; Stan Zoller, Rolling Meadows; John Gonczy, Chicago (Mt. Carmel); and Cathy Wall, Harrisburg. David Brady, Summit (Argo), was unable to attend. Sectional host, Lynn Holly, was also in attendance. IHSA Assistant Executive Director Susan Knoblauch conducted the meeting.

Terms and Conditions Recommendations:
1. Item IV A and B - Host Financial Arrangements:
Recommendation: An event fee of ten ($10) dollars per event entered shall be paid at the sectional and state levels for competing schools.
Rationale: With a change from $5 to $10, tournament management can more efficiently cover the cost of judges for the competition.

Approved

2. Item XI D – Number of Judges
Recommendation: In Sectional and the State Final Contest, two (2) judges shall be used.
Rationale: Changing from 3 judges to 2 judges will help in tournament cost and tournament management. Students will receive the same benefits due to the new ranking format.

Approved

3. Item VI D 3 - Competition Order:

Block A events will include:
* Feature Photography (Block A & B)
   News Writing
   Review Writing
   Advertising
  *Yearbook Layout: Double Page Spread
   Copy Editing
  *Newspaper Design
   Editorial Cartooning
   Editorial Writing

Block B events will include:
       *Feature Photography (Block A & B)
   Feature Writing
  *Headline Writing
   Sports Writing
  *Info graphics
   Yearbook Theme Development (Duo or Single Event)
   Yearbook Copy Writing

*Requires computer Lab

Rationale: The change in the competition blocks will allow the tournament to flow better. Consideration was made regarding duo and single events, needs of computer labs, and the time needed to judge events.

Approved

Administrative Recommendations:
1. The IHSA will continue to promote the state series in journalism to member schools and continue to work with professional press associations.
2. The IHSA will post online and mail to member schools the finalized journalism terms and conditions and rules of the events.

Items of General Discussion:
1. Competitive Journalism State Series dates will remain the same as the 05-06 season. Spring does bring conflicts, however the current dates are the best at this time.
a. Sectional Level Competition – Week 42 of the IHSA Standardized Calendar (Saturday, April 21, 2007).
b. State Level Competition - Week 43 of the IHSA Standardized Calendar (Saturday, April 28, 2007).
2. Site: Sectionals – 6 sites were confirmed this year (4 advancing from each site in each event) for the 06-07 season the IHSA will secure 7 sectional sites (3 advancing from each site).
Facilities interested in hosting can contact the IHSA office. Recommendations were made to return were Roosevelt University (Schaumburg Campus), University of Illinois, and Southern Illinois University. An ideal facility to host must have availability to three large computer labs. Host requirement lists are available for review. The advisory committee discussed the continued need for the required software necessary for sites to successfully run a competition. Many programs can be downloaded on a trial basis. What is most important is that each sectional site manager communicates with competing schools what is available as soon as possible. The IHSA has begun contacting host sites.
3. The 06-07 state competition will be held at Eastern Illinois University. James Tidwell and Sally Turner from EIU will assist in the management of the contest and site. Sally, James and the staff at EIU did an outstanding job as the inaugural year hosts.
4. The following time schedule will be implemented for Sectional and State:
9-10 Registration
10-10:30 Opening Session
10:30-12:00 Block A Events
10:30 Advisors’ Meeting
12:15-1:45 Block B Events
2:00 Block A Awards
3:00 Block B Awards
Team Awards - ASAP
5. Discussion covered the process of developing the needed material for the 15 categories for sectional and state competition. The process will involve creating prompts from downloads and material gathered by state final managers (Sally and James) which will be prepared at the IHSA office for the sectional and state level competition. Detailed discussion went into the suggestions for planning and implementing the 15 categories. Rules of each event will be spelled out in the terms and conditions.
6. Advancement to the State Series – The top three in each event will advance from the seven (7) sectional level competitions to state. The top six winners in each event will be recognized at state. Team points will be calculated for the overall top three teams.
7. Rubrics and score sheets will be revised and posted online.
8. Judging of the Competition – Local managers will select judges. Judges may be media professionals, college journalism professors, journalism graduate students, college journalism majors, university newspaper advisers, high school journalism instructors/advisers, yearbook advisers, and former advisers.
10. Discussion of future additions to the Competitive Journalism State Series may include Sports Coverage, Radio and Television Broadcasting. Future interactive DVD prompts were also discussed. Investigation of some live events was also examined.
11. It is recommended that no advisers are present in the judges’ room

12. The IHSA will continue to make strides with the scoring software to be used during the state series.

13. Sample prompts and rubrics will be reviewed and updated and posted online at IHSA.org under the Journalism link. The rubrics will also be in the terms and conditions. The sample prompts are to serve as a rough guide.

14. Competing schools and the events they brought to the state tournament will be added to the state final programs for 06-07.

15. EIU will work in conjunction with other professional organizations to secure sponsorship for the state journalism tournament. Sponsorship would be used to offset the cost of food and hospitality.

16. The IHSA will work in conjunction with EIU to provide ample signage for the event.

17. The IHSA will work on ways to showcase the state final winners. Suggestions were to publish their work so other schools can see the state winners. Sally Turner and EIU are entertaining ideas on how to best showcase the students’ state work.

18. Students’ work from schools (sample papers and yearbooks) may be showcased at the state tournament so during down time students can see what other areas of the state are doing with their at-home publications.

19. The committee discussed ways to keep students entertained while the judges are scoring the last block of events. Suggestions ranged from just letting the students eat lunch to tours of colleges or local newspapers, slide slows of colleges, guest speakers, videos of news related award shows or movies.

20. Discussion of taking News, Sports, Feature and Editorial Writing to a live event lead to the consensus that we would stay with the status quo this year and look at the possibility for live interviews in years to come. The benefit of live interviews will allow students to have a more realistic experience – The logistics still need to be worked out. Some ideas may be piloted this year.

21. Campus maps need to be provided at both sectional and state tournaments.

22. Photography rules will be better defined in regards to leaving the memory cards with the proctors to parameters on campus (not allowed to drive or leave campus) to limiting contact with advisers.

23. It was suggested to add sample prompts to the rule book that is mailed to member schools – Focus will also be on how to judge an event – Here is what to look for…etc…

24. The Committee recommended that the IHSA provide available links to professional press association from the IHSA journalism menu page.

25. A word limit of 300 will be added to Yearbook Copy Writing and Feature Writing.

26. Newspaper Design and Yearbook Layout: Double Page Spread will be changed from a duo to a single event.

27. Advertising will design two business ads rather than three.

28. Students will be allowed to enter Yearbook Theme Development as a duo or single event.

29. The rubrics will convert to a ranking sheet. Students work will be ranked 1st through 6th. This new system will eliminate any errors that students may have in their scoring due to the numbers assigned to the rubric items with last years score sheets. This process will speed up scoring and eliminate ties.

30. Future meetings of the IHSA Journalism Advisory Committee and Sectional Managers will be held later this year.