Dr. Jane Blystone has been a vital member of PSPA since 1983.  She has helped with all aspects of PSPA, including presiding over the association on five separate occasions.  She’s also an active member of the Journalism Education Association Certification Commission and the JEA Scholastic Press Rights Commission. The Pennsylvania Student Journalist of the Year award was named for Dr. Blystone in 2011. Dr. Blystone tweets at @worddoct

Every year of teaching I have set goals for myself and for my students. It has been true for 44 years. Goal setting helps us navigate the path we see before us.

As I embark on retirement, I continue to set goals. This time, my goal is to serve JEA and PSPA as a trained mentor for new publications advisers right here in this great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, home to the oldest school press association in the country. To accomplish this goal, I spent four days at the summer Journalism Education Adviser Institute in Las Vegas in July.

One of the big takeaways from the JEA Adviser Institute is the power of collaboration. Both in the Adviser Institute and the mentor training, we spent considerable time engaging in collaborative strategies for teaching and mentoring. As I think back on advising, I know that the best times in teaching were those where students collaborated with peers and this teacher to create something bigger and better than we each could do alone.

Did your students take a picture that blew everyone away? Or maybe the last story for your school paper made heads turn. Perhaps your students designed a brilliantly clever cartoon or piece of artwork for your literary magazine. Or maybe your latest news broadcast got the attention of your whole school. Now is the time to earn statewide recognition. The road to the PA State Journalism Contest Finals starts at one of six upcoming Regional Contests:

PSU Behrend: Oct. 20
PSU Altoona: Oct. 27
PSU Berks: Nov. 3
Point Park University: Nov. 3
Temple University: Nov. 8
Harrisburg Area Community College: Nov. 14

NOTE:
Only PSPA members may send students to compete. Become a member today!

PSPA Level One members get three free student entrance fees for the contests. Level Two members get six. The cost per student to enter after that is $12.

Each student may enter no more than one contest.
Each school may enter no more than two students in each contest.

You can find the categories and specifics at paschoolpress.org.

Take pride in your students’ and staffs’ work and seek out the recognition that they deserve. Have them represent your school and enter the 2017-18 PSPA State Journalism Competition. Registration will open up around one month before the contests begin.

Pennsylvania adviser Aaron Fitzpatrick, CJE, recently worked with his staff to plan their first-ever J-Camp. For our first Member Voices post, he shares his reflections and advice. Fitzpatrick teachers journalism, communications, and college English, and advises the FHS Press Newspaper, the Shawnee Yearbook, and FHS Bulldog Beat broadcast at Freedom Area High School in Freedom, PA. He tweets at @afitzpatrickCJE.

​Each May, I sit down with my newly-appointed editors to evaluate the year that was in hopes of gleaning enough insight to help make the following year better than the last. After several years of jam-packed Augusts and Septembers, I came to learn that cramming all of that early-year content (interviewing, reporting, photography basics, etc.) into such a short amount of time caused as much stress for my students as it did for me, and I was never really comfortable covering such important content at such a staggering pace.

​Five years ago, as a new adviser, I quickly recognized the importance of team-building with a staff that works so closely together so often (our staff of 25 produces both the monthly newspaper and yearbook), and I began planning and implementing two days of staff bonding and leadership training for the following summer and have done so each summer since. The meeting with my 2017-2018 editors this past May yielded a significant consensus: We need to spend more time together covering the basics and growing as a staff before that first bell rings in late August. Two days of team-building turned into four, and our brief summer sessions evolved into our first ever J-Camp!