CHICAGO, IL -- On January 2, veteran political reporter and Columbia College professor Suzanne McBride and her colleague, reporter and teacher John O’Neill, will be packing up a dozen students and crossing the Illinois border into Iowa for a hands-on educational experience.
“Covering the Iowa Caucuses," is one of Columbia’s special “J-Term” courses in which students can engage in intensive elective credit courses during the three-week break between fall and winter terms.
While some Columbia students will stay on campus to participate in an in-depth study of the representation of “Zombies in Popular Culture” and others will travel to Shanghai to learn about that city’s history, art and culture, McBride and O’Neill’s students will build their journalism and photography skills in an on-the-ground experience engaging with Iowa voters in Bettendorf.
Participating Iowa Caucus students will take their laptops, cell phones and digital recorders and make like real reporters as they meet local county chairs and grass-roots Iowans to produce stories, photos and blog entries that focus on the political priorities and decision-making processes of America’s Heartland voters.
On Wednesday, January 2 at 9 a.m. the class will meet on the Columbia campus to review their story assignments and discuss strategy. The schedule has the group arriving at the Bettendorf Holiday Inn by late afternoon that day, just in time to interview two local political leaders. Their field reporting continue to Thursday, January 3, when the caucuses will be held. They return to Chicago late Saturday night and reconvene on campus at 9 a.m. Monday January 7 for debriefing.
“We wish we could have taken this course when we were studying journalism,” says McBride. “These students will be developing practical skills that they can use years from now, whether they become political reporters or simply want to be engaged citizens.”
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