Board member blog post: Paying it forward

By Judy Miller, JAWS Board Chair for the Legacy Fund

For three decades, our members have continued to define the mission of the Journalism and Women Symposium by mentoring and supporting each other with love, respect and laughter.

The result? JAWS has become a unique and, in some ways, indefinable journalism organization out there. Sort of—you have to come to the Conference and Mentoring Project (CAMP) to get it.

Now, thanks to the JAWS Legacy Fund and our own Nancy Day, JAWS is taking it on the road.

While the Legacy Fund was looking for an outreach project, Jackie Jones, chair of the Multimedia Journalism Department at Morgan State University’s School of Global Journalism & Communication, expressed interest. Morgan State is a historically black university (HBU) in Baltimore.

A collaboration was born. The Legacy Fund covered the cost of the Morgan State training. The school provided housing for the trainers and equipment.

Nancy brought in a group of diverse multimedia trainers to Baltimore for a weekend in August.

The mission? To have faculty members find a story, shoot it, edit it, and produce a video so they, in turn, will be able to better guide their students. The Legacy Fund training in its first round emphasized teaching members of the journalism faculty newer technologies and techniques, including using smart phones to shoot and edit photos and video. Faculty learned the Storehouse application and video editing in Adobe Premier, all in a collaborative day and a half.

The Legacy Subcommittee is so proud of being able to honor Joan Cook, Eileen Shanahan and Kay Mills whose work, beliefs and passions continue as their legacy, promoting journalism and diversity.

Please consider donating to honor a past or present member and to think of the JAWS Legacy Fund when doing your estate planning.

JAWS women know that when we share power, power grows.