Board Blog: The New CBI Year Starts Now

It’s a great time for college students, finals are wrapping up, summer plans have been made, and now its time for a break. However, now is the time to be thinking about what you will be doing with CBI through the end of the calendar year, and some of those things need to be done soon.

John Morris, CBI President

First is to enter your best work into the CBI 2018 National Student Production Awards. Your audio, video, web and social media entries must be submitted by the end of the day on Friday, May 11^th. Winning a CBI award is meaningful on many levels. First, of course, is the pride of knowing that your work is seen as the best in the nation. That plaque or certificate on the station’s wall will be a source of pride that you will carry for years (I took my family to my alma mater and showed them my name on the wall many years after graduating). The award is also meaningful for your station. Your school’s administration take notice when one of their student’s win national awards and it is always good to have your administration think highly of your student media outlet. As for those schools that rely on student fees for funding, awards can go a long way in showing that the money is being used well.

Once you’re done working with your advisor to submit your entries, it’s time to think about what part you will play at the CBI 2018 National Student Electronic Media Convention in Seattle, Oct. 25-27. You will attend sessions and network but think about the knowledge and skills that you’ve gained at your media outlet. Now, think about the type of session you can propose so that your wisdom can be passed on to other students. If you’ve been with your station any amount of time, you have learned things other’s wish to know. Perhaps it is in management, leadership, training, programming, production, scheduling (both personnel and music), social media, web management or any of the numerous jobs that must be done for your station to run properly. Now, organize a team of students from other schools to put on a first-class workshop at the convention. Use the CBI listserv, and perhaps the help and guidance from your adviser, to find other skilled students to join you. Don’t forget about the CBI Seattle 2018 Planning Facebook page to make contacts as well.

And finally, if you are a new student media manager, be sure to attend the College Media Mega Workshop in July. The Radio Management track, along with the breakout sessions with students from other tracks, will prepare you for the challenges and opportunities that will face you in a leadership role. This is the second year of CBI’s involvement in the College Media Mega Workshop. We took what we did last year, added in student feedback and made this year even better and more focused. The workshop is held on the beautiful University of Minnesota campus. We’ve kept the cost low, transportation is very affordable into Minneapolis, and there’s a light rail to take you from the airport to the campus.  Really, don’t miss this.

Once you’ve gotten this done, do enjoy the summer, be it while working at your station or perhaps tanning while at the beach. Remember, it’s a great time to be in student media.