Five Days. Three million dollars worth of journalism equipment. One Emmy award-winning video editor. These were the resources afforded to 13 Dallas high school students last summer.
“I learned more in two days in the program (about journalism) than I did in an entire six-weeks period,” Trenton Patterson, current Lincoln High School senior, said in an e-mail interview.
Patterson was among the first crop of students to participate in College Zone, a new summer program created to give underprivileged high school students in the Dallas Independent School District a glimpse into college life.
Nearly 21 percent of Texas students from low income households do not graduate high school. The program serves a dual purpose – to give students hands-on experience in the newsroom and to alert them to the resources available to further their education.
SMU journalism professor and Emmy award winner Michele Houston created the idea for the program after a trip to talk about journalism to Skyline High School students last October.
“Students didn’t want to talk about journalism. They wanted to talk about college and how to get there. These were honors students,” she said.
After her visit to Skyline, Houston contacted Jose Bowen, Dean of the Meadows School, and Tony Pederson, chair of the journalism department, about initiating College Zone 2007. Students from Skyline, Hillcrest and Lincoln High Schools became the first students to participate.
For the week, the students learned how to shoot and edit film and use equipment in SMU-TV’s newsroom.
“The most rewarding aspect of the program was the hands-on experience we got dealing with the editing software and actual production,” Patterson said.
The focus of students’ packages, or news clips, was about how to afford and complete college. A financial aid advisor, financial aid recipient and director of the Dallas Rising Star Program were all interviewed. The Dallas Rising Star Program provides tuition money for Dallas County Community College District for Dallas Independent School District graduates with B averages. After attending DCCCD, students can also take advantage of opportunities for full tuition at SMU.
“A lot of the kids didn’t know about test scores, applications, financial aid, all of those things about getting into college,” said Jia Thomas, a junior journalism major who helped Houston with the program.
Aside from learning all of the technical information about how to get into and pay for college, students also spoke with Bowen and SMU alumnus Raul Magdaleno. Both Bowen and Magdaleno received scholarships and worked during college in order to put themselves through school.
When recently discussing Texas’s primary concerns for education, Texas House Representative Dan Branch cited securing more financial aid for community colleges and private universities.
Next summer, Houston hopes to expand the program to allow students to stay in SMU dorms. This opportunity would give the students even more of a college experience. This past year, students received lunch, a notebook and t-shirt provided by the university.
The interviews conducted by College Zone 2007 participants can be found on smu.edu/dailydata/2007collegezone. Links to financial aid resources and sites on college experiences are also available on the site.
