Monica Hill earns AEJMC award for scholastic journalism

This article is an adaptation of a story published by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Read the full story at aejmc.org.

Members of the Scholastic Journalism Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) selected Monica Hill, director of the North Carolina Scholastic Media Association, as the 2024 recipient of the Innovative Outreach to Scholastic Journalism Award.

This honor recognizes an innovative program or shared resource offered by a college or university that is targeted to high school, middle school or elementary school students or teachers.

Throughout her tenure as director of the North Carolina Scholastic Media Association, Hill has helped to create numerous innovative programs including "Journalism Field Trip Days."

Raul Reis, dean of the UNC Hussman School of Journalism, said in his nomination, "Monica harnessed the lessons of the pandemic when the NCSMA continued seamless outreach and engagement through all areas of programming. The lessons she learned informed her latest outreach and engagement event, the spring semester High School Journalism Field Trip Days. These Field Trip Days offer students a no-fee connection to campuses across the state. Monica created a simple structure of three programming elements: a campus tour, a journalism/media/communications tour and one instructional session. Participating campuses agree to the structure and agree not to provide a meal to students and teachers. This specific and unique agreement ensures that well-resourced university campuses do not offer a perk that other campuses cannot. The intentional approach is one that invites all to take part."

Reis concluded, "These spring semester High School Journalism Field Trip Days represent the best of outreach because they offer true engagement. This outreach and engagement initiative removes barriers and promotes access." Describing the program, Hill said, "The goals of our Journalism Field Trip Days all center around inviting all to invite all. Those of us who work in scholastic journalism outreach and engagement may sometimes forget that what can seem second nature to all of us can be completely unknown to others."

Hill described four goals of the High School Journalism Field Trip Days program:
* To increase high school journalism students’ access to college and university campuses.
* To introduce high school journalists to nearby journalism and media resources.
* To remove barriers from high school journalism field trip opportunities.
* To encourage college and university campuses to invite high school journalists to visit their respective campuses.

The Scholastic Journalism Division Innovative Outreach competition is designed to recognize programs that promote interest and training in scholastic journalism at the secondary and pre-secondary level (K-12) by providing models of innovative programs that higher education media programs could replicate. The ability to replicate the outreach program is a major factor in the selection of the award winner. These can include one-day workshops, online training or summer training. Also eligible for consideration are innovative resources that help scholastic journalism students and teachers, such as apps, podcasts, websites and curriculum materials.