TUESDAY JULY 21, 2009
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Foreign journalists tune up skills at Gaylord Eleven journalists come from across South Asia to study U.S. media and culture KYLE WEST
The Oklahoma Daily
Eleven female broadcast journalists from South Asia came to OU to take part in a 10day visual storytelling workshop designed to improve their broadcasting skills. The “Visual Storytelling Workshop” is a program funded by the U.S. State Department and started by Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication Dean Joe Foote, and included women from the Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh. “The goal is to teach experienced journalists more advanced skills in broadcast production and how media and the newsrooms work here in the U.S,” said Celia Perkins, public relations specialist for the Gaylord College. “The plan is for them to take these skills back to their countries and advance the media in those countries.” Perkins said the workshop was important because it helped encourage further freedom in the newsrooms of developing countries. The workshop partnered with the electronic news gathering class taught by broadcast professor Ken Fischer. According to Perkins, the class would have been cancelled without the participation of the South Asian journalists. Fischer said the program was intended to expose the journalists to American broadcasting and culture. Most of the participants
are already highly experienced broadcast journalists who work for major news outlets in their home countries, he said. “It’s great to see students interact with the journalists,” Fischer said. “It’s been pretty good, but the process is ongoing. We’ve had students get interested in international studies because of this class. We got a lot of people involved, but it’s a collaborative learning experience for everyone.” Fischer said the class went to the Oklahoma City National Memorial Friday morning, KFOR-TV-DT in the afternoon and horseback riding Saturday. He hopes the women take back the skills they learned in the workshop and become leaders in the newsrooms in their respective countries, he said. “I hope that they’ll leave feeling that they got a little more of an understanding of what Americans are about, even through it’s one week in Oklahoma,” Fischer said. “I hope that they learned more about Americans and see what we’re about.” Scott Hodgson, media arts associate professor, was partnering in teaching the South Asian journalists, along with five other faculty members. He said the nine OU students taking part in the electronic news gathering class also worked and learned with the visiting journalists. Hodgson said the idea of the class was to train the journalists so they could train others in their home countries. “Our hope is they’ll be trainers,” Hodgson said. “We train the journalists, and our hope is that they go back and do some additional training where they work to pass on the thing we’ve been able to share with them.” Hodgson said that the eleven women
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Saadia Mahmood, an exchange student from Pakistan, works with Elise Smith, a broadcast and electronic media junior, on editing a package while Bob Dickey, a media specialist at Gaylord College, looks on from behind. Mahmood, along with ten other girls from Dhaka, Nepal, and Pakistan, came to OU to particiapte in a 12 day workshop hosted by the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication, which focused on visual storytelling. were split into three teams, each one representing a different country. They each competed to come up with the best news package, and that two of the teams focused on wind energy. The news packages shot during the workshop will be aired on the journalists respective news stations when they return home. Meherun Nahar Runi, who broadcasts out of Dhaka, Bangladesh, said the workshop was interesting and helpful. “I feel that every part of this workshop is so interesting,” Runi said. Runi said she has 10-12 years experience in reporting, but that she still learned a lot through the class. She said she came to OU
for one week of a workshop because she hopes to become a leading broadcaster in her home country of Bangladesh. “I want to improve my professional skills,” Runi said. “I hope that after a few years I will be in a standard position in my country.” Runi said she was impressed by the knowledge of the program instructors, and found their advice and training useful. “I want to thank our teachers,” Runi said. “They are very, very good. They gave us our knowledge and solved all the problems we’ve had.” The 10-day workshop began July 11 and concludes Tuesday.
OU Press employee criticizes university about layoffs, employment search ‘Long time’ employee said seniority, staff handbook should have been considered CHARLES WARD The Oklahoma Daily LILLY CHAPA/THE DAILY
Housing and Food Services sold “eco-clamshells” in Cate Center last spring. Crossroads Restaurant will implement these environment-friendly containers in the fall.
Crossroads offers green options JAKE VINSON The Oklahoma Daily
Crossroads estaurant in the Oklahoma Memorial Union is undergoing some changes that are making the campus eatery more environmentally friendly. Food containers made out of recycled material are replacing many of the restaurant’s Styrofoam products. Some of these changes were first applied after the Spring 2009 semester, but many are still in the process of being implemented. Kevin Barker, director of retail operations for Housing and Food Services, said the change to recycled-based products is an ongoing effort. “We are still in the process of swapping out all of the older Styrofoam and non-recycled paper products with newer products made by recycled goods,” Baker said. “Coca-Cola is working to make a new paper cup that is made from recycled paper that we will be offering in the near future.” New brown paper bags are taking the place of the large Styrofoam containers used in the past for to-go orders, and Styrofoam coffee cups have been replaced by thicker recycled paper cups. Daniel Ambuehl, geology senior, is a long-standing customer of Crossroads, and said he is happy that the university has made the change. “I am glad that Crossroads has become more environmentally friendly,”
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Ambuehl said. “Being able to recycle all the things that used to just be thrown away will greatly help the environment for later generations.” The changes made to Crossroads are not the first experiment with a more ecofriendly system. Last semester, Housing and Food Services began providing reusable eco-clamshells that could be purchased and used by students for carrying their to-go orders and leftovers from restaurants around campus. Lauren Royston, spokeswoman for Housing and Food Services, said the reusable containers were considered a big hit, and around 50 to 60 units were sold in just a few weeks after they were first implemented. R oy s t o n s a i d Ho u s i n g a n d Fo o d Services is very interested in making the campus more environmentally friendly through reducing, reusing and recycling techniques. The new steps that are being taken to make the university more ecofriendly have been thought up by different university employees and some have been taken from some students through their opinions in the Kitchen Comments, she said. “We have had a very equal opportunity stance with the changes that have been made on campus,” Royston said. “Students’ comments and ideas are looked at, and if they are something that can benefit the university, then they are put forward as an idea.”
An employee who recently learned he will be laid off by the University of Oklahoma Press criticized the layoff procedures and a lack of help in finding new employment within the OU system. “The reason I got laid off was because when our sales started dropping, you know,” said Jack Williams, a shipping and receiving technician at the OU Press. “I asked a couple of questions and it made them mad in a meeting. And, they were legit questions, I mean, they weren’t bad questions.” Williams said he questioned marketing decisions made by the OU Press. “We haven’t made any gross changes [in marketing],” said B. Byron Price, director of the OU Press. “We’ve streamlined the way we’re doing things. We may not be doing things on the same scale, but we’re still doing the things we’ve always done.” Williams said he had been at the OU Press “a long time,” and that seniority was not considered when the layoffs were issued. “They didn’t do it by seniority, they just went and done it, who they liked and who they disliked,” Williams said. The University of Oklahoma staff handbook states that in the event of a reduction in force, “Employee retention will be based on both performance and seniority. Seniority will be considered as total seniority with the university. In the event performance is determined to be equal among employees, seniority will be given weighted consideration.” Price said decisions regarding which individuals would be laid off followed the procedures laid out in the guide. “The process is pretty much dictated by the OU Press staff handbook,” Price
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said. “There are certain processes you have to go through to provide the kind of you know, to look at issues related to the kinds of jobs and job classifications, the years of service. There are a lot of different elements to that and there’s a prescribed method of going through it, working with human resources and so forth.” Catherine Bishop, Vice President of Public Affairs at OU, denied that the layoffs targeted specific employees. “In a reduction in force, individuals are not targeted, rather, duties are either collapsed or consolidated, impacting individuals who are responsible for those duties,” she wrote in an e-mail. Williams also criticized the support he’s received from the university in finding a new position. He said that he’s applied for at least five positions at OU, in both Housing and Food Services and at the Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City, but that he’s yet to receive a call back from those positions. Williams said the positions he’s applied for have been minimum-wage jobs, which is currently $6.55 an hour, but will increase to $7.25 an hour July 24. Williams makes $11.95 an hour at the OU Press. According to the OU Staff Handbook, “It will be the responsibility of the budget unit head or dean to work with Human Resources and the Affirmative Action Office to expedite the procedures as defined. The purpose of this coordination is to ... place those employees designated for layoff in other positions within the university for which they qualify or assure their continued consideration for other positions as they become available.” Price said he did not know what priority those employees that have been laid off had been given for other positions. “I know that human resources has been and continues to work with all of the staff that has been impacted in this layoff,” he said. “And I know that some have been interviewing for positions. I have served as a reference for staff. Some have informed me of positions they are interviewing for and others have been more private about that.”
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