04-16-2023 Education - Flipbook - Page 2
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The Baltimore Sun | Sunday, April 16, 2023
Real world experience that pays dividends
Students gain invaluable skills that will aid in their future careers
dents to hire.” She says that Coppin also has partnered with the HBCU in LA Internship Programs
that provide a select group of diverse student
leaders the opportunity to participate in a paid
8-10-week immersive internship. “We are creating
opportunities for our students in the film industry, as well as large companies such as Google,
Netflix and Yahoo,” says Morrison, who also notes
an engagement with Wasserman, a sports marketing and talent management company based in Los
Angeles, as another key connection.
For students looking for hands-on learning,
they do not, however, necessarily need to leave
campus, as Morrison says they are opportunities
to work on campus events and sports tournaments. In addition to their core business courses
and entertainment management courses, students
also can specialize by including 12 credit hours of
music or casino and gaming.
McDaniel students can spend their January term interning at University of Maryland's Shock Trauma unit.
By Gregory J. Alexander, Contributing Writer
T
here is no denying that the decrease
in resources and revenue has had
an adverse effect on the amount of
space that newspapers are able to
dedicate to local news. And while
national elections and what happens
on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., is important,
sometimes it’s what happens locally that impacts
everyday Americans the most – from local school
board elections to property tax rates and changes
to your trash and recycling schedule.
In 2022, University of Maryland’s Philip
Merrill College of Journalism launched the Local
News Network to aid news outlets throughout
Maryland by creating important localized content
and by teaming those outlets with student reporters. Jerry Zremski, lecturer and director of the
Local News Network at UMD, was hired in July
2022 and led the team’s first project, a comprehensive school board election guide ahead of the
2022 midterm elections. The project grew from
its initial smaller scale to be a statewide guide at
the urging of Rafael Lorente, associate dean for
academic affairs at the University of Maryland
Philip Merrill College of Journalism.
“There were 155 candidates across the state
for school board offices. We sent them a survey
on the big issues, and a team of 96 students followed up with them to conduct interviews. Of the
155 candidates, 102 responded,” says Zremski, a
long-time adjunct professor at UMD and former
Washington bureau chief for The Buffalo News.
Zremski says that in addition to the survey
and interviews, the students vetted each of the
candidates. “Students contacted the employers
that candidates listed on their paperwork, as well
as institutions they said they graduated from
to ensure accuracy. They also performed court
system checks and found 12 candidates did not
pay their taxes on time, while another candidate
in Charles County had a record of shoplifting,”
he says. The articles were posted online by the
Capital News Service, a student news organization
run organization at UMD, and the tax story was
picked up by the Baltimore Sun.
“Students have also done enterprise stories on
book banning, learning loss during the pandemic
and if school resource officers actually make kids
safer in school,” adds Zremski. “Editors across the
state are very excited to utilize our students for
reporting to fill a void due to a lack of manpower
and resources.” Zremski says that some of the
media outlets who have utilized student-produced
content include the Washington Post, Baltimore
SOAR
ABOVE
Banner, Frederick News-Post and Kent County
News.
A Business Approach to Hollywood
Sherida Morrison, professor at Coppin State
University's college of business, is well equipped
to counter the fear parents of Coppin students
pursuing a career in the entertainment industry
have that their kids will be “starving artists.”
“I remind them that our entertainment management program is in the college of business and
is a serious business program,” she says. “People
may not be aware of the varied leadership and
management opportunities in the entertainment
industry.”
Morrison, who started at Coppin in 2021, says
that the program’s goal is to expose students to
the different facets of the entertainment industry.
“We want to offer students the necessary skills to
succeed with the objective for them to create and
innovate at a level seen in Silicon Valley.”
She notes that minority representation in
entertainment management is lacking, but companies are contacting Coppin to address this
deficit. “We have had lots of conversations with
NFL teams, for example, including the Baltimore
Ravens, Philadelphia Eagles and Washington
Commanders, who are looking for minority stu-
Hands-on Experience
Nowhere is experiential learning perhaps
more important than in health care. For McDaniel
College health sciences students, an incredible
internship opportunity exists thanks to a partnership that the school has with University of
Maryland Medical Center’s Shock Trauma unit
that provides an annual two-credit course during
the January term that gives students hands-on
experience before entering the medical field.
McDaniel Biology Professor Susan Parrish,
who oversees the UMMC Shock Trauma internships, explains that students volunteer 75 hours
over three weeks and are exposed to all facets of
Shock Trauma. “UMMC’s Shock Trauma unit is
arguably the best in the country, so it’s an incredible opportunity for our students. They observe a
variety of procedures and assist staff with patients
who may be coming there due to a gunshot, car
accident or an assault,” Parrish says. “It can be
very intense.”
Parrish says that the internships allow students to participate in different areas such as neurology, cardiovascular and trauma resuscitation,
which may help them identify areas of interest as
they continue their academic journey.
Jordan Schultz, a sophomore health sciences
major at McDaniel, participated in January in the
Shock Trauma internship program. “It was near
my home in Baltimore and saw that it was a great
opportunity. I was able to observe different procedures and ask questions. It was very eye-opening.”
Schultz says that she hopes to be a physician
assistant and the internship helped her identify
a specialty that really interests her – orthopedics.
She also plans on volunteering again this summer
at Shock Trauma to gain more experience.
“Every day was different, so it’s great preparation for a career in health care,” she says.
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BEYOND
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