L to r) Assistant Professor of Literacy Studies Theresa McGinnis, Associate Professor of Literacy Studies and Director of the Reading/Writing Clinic Andrea Garcia, and Verizon’s New York Director of Government and External Affairs Susan Hayes.
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and Research
Faculty Publications
Bob Papper
Hofstra
A unique feature of the project is the development of an innovative Web-based instructor design interface and a library of objects to enable instructors to modify the context of the design problems to fit different instructional and geographic settings. The research investigates the transferability of the model and its potential to improve STEM teaching and learning. Content is driven by the concepts and skills identified in the K-12 Standards for Technological Literacy (STL). Partnering with Hofstra’s Center for Technological Literacy in this project are the State University of New York at Buffalo, the NSF National Center for Telecommunications Technologies, Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania, and the City University of New York.
Promoting Literacy in the Community Hofstra’s Reading/Writing Learning Clinic received a grant on December 4 from the Verizon Foundation for a new literacy outreach project titled “Supporting Youth and Families in Developing Literacy for the 21st Century.” This project will promote literacy to economically disadvantaged teens and parents from communities that neighbor Hofstra. Participants will have the opportunity to develop and strengthen their literacy skills and learn to implement new technologies necessary to participate in today’s society. The Verizon grant was applied for and will be implemented by Andrea Garcia, associate professor of literacy studies and director of the Reading/ Writing Learning Clinic at the Joan and Arnold Saltzman Community Services Center, and Theresa McGinnis, assistant professor of literacy studies at Hofstra. t h e p re s i d e nt ’s re p o r t 2 0 0 8
The grant will help fund two ambitious initiatives: a series of literacy workshops for parents and an after-school “Young Men’s Writing Project” (YMWP). The YMWP will be modeled after the Reading/Writing Learning Clinic’s Young Women’s Writing Project, which has been running successfully for six years in the Roosevelt and Uniondale School Districts. These writing workshops for young people encourage middle school students to channel their creativity through poetry and other kinds of writing and reading. Both initiatives are scheduled to begin in spring 2009 with the recruitment of students and families.
Professor Analyzes Minority Composition of the News Media The percentage of journalists of color and women working in local television and radio news rose in 2007, as did the percentage of both groups in newsroom leadership positions, according to a survey by the Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) in conjunction with Bob Papper, Hofstra professor and chair of the Journalism, Media Studies, and Public Relations Department. The 2008 RTNDA/Hofstra University Annual Survey shows that minorities comprised 23.6 percent of local television news staffs, up from the 21.5 percent result in 2006, and the second highest percentage since the peak in 2001. The number of Asian Americans, Native Americans and Hispanic journalists all increased, while the number of African Americans remained steady at 10.1 percent of the workforce. “In 14 years of doing this research, these are probably the best results, overall, that I’ve seen for women and minorities in TV news,” said Professor Papper. “In what appears to be an era of ‘doing more with less,’ it’s heartening that there still appears to be a commitment to diversity in TV news.” “I’m pleased we are still seeing progress in diversity in electronic newsrooms,” said Barbara Cochran, RTNDA president. “There is still more to be done to help newsrooms keep pace with the growing diversity of the U.S. population, and RTNDA will continue to provide resources and share best practices to assist with those efforts.” The percentage of women news directors reached an all-time high of 28.3 percent in 2007. Furthermore, women are as likely to be found as news directors in the largest markets as in the smallest, something that has not been the case in the past. RTNDA published Dr. Papper’s survey in the July/August issue of Communicator, RTNDA’s monthly magazine.
The BIG PICTURE