Professional Reporting Fellowships
Big Money, Big Data and You
A bicoastal Datafest to track money’s political influence from sea to shining sea.
REGISTER NOW
What will 2012’s political spending spree mean for policy in 2013 and beyond? Help us find insights and answers in data. Thanks to the generous support of the MacArthur Foundation, you’re invited to meet journalists, scientists, engineers, data experts and developers for a cross-disciplinary and bicoastal weekend of brainstorming, data-diving, story-telling and civic action, not to mention prizes, food and fellowship. Do you write code or work with data? Do you want to learn how or enhance your skills? Join us Feb. 2-3 to mine data for stories and visualizations that will help explain how money affects the issues that Congress and state legislatures will be taking up this year. Showcase your skills and knowledge and compete to win prizes.
This event is sponsored by the bicoastal Brown Institute for Media Innovation, and by the Columbia Journalism School and the Stanford University Graduate Program in Journalism in partnership with the Sunlight Foundation and Teresa Bouza, deputy Washington bureau chief of the global news agency EFE. Google, along with Maplight, and the Center for Investigative Reporting and Code the Change are also supporting the event. It will be held on the campuses of Columbia University and Stanford University.
Can’t get to New York City or Palo Alto? No worries: You can still participate. The Sunlight Foundation will use its open-source tool, Sunlight Live, to create a video bridge that will allow anyone to join virtually from a computer screen anywhere. You can interact with participants in both sites via live chat while watching a stream of the event. You can also brainstorm ideas and collaborate using the event’s Google Moderator site.
You can get started right away. Use the Moderator to find data, project ideas and teammates. We’ve suggested some potential hot topics for project ideas and collaboration. But we invite you to add your own, as well as to your suggestions and comments. Our Datafest is driven and fueled by the participants.
We’ll bring the food, prizes and some ideas. You bring the brainpower and the enthusiasm. Register for the event here.
December 9-10, 2012
Columbia Journalism School & The Mailman School of Public Health
Aging agenda updated
Arlene Morgan, associate dean of prizes & programs
am494@columbia.edu
Covering Youth Violence:
Lessons from the Front Lines
October 25-26, 2012
University Center, Chicago
Sponsored by the McCormick Specialized Reporting Institute program
Youth Violence Agenda
The city of Chicago has made national headlines in the past few months because of an alarming epidemic of gun violence involving young people. Community leaders, educators and police officials have been trying to stem this violence with innovative approaches both inside and outside of schools. This two-day workshop will look at some of those efforts and talk about how reporters can cover youth violence in a sophisticated way. Speakers include Alex Kotlowitz, producer of The Interrupters, a film about gang violence; Carl Bell, M.D., of the Institute for Juvenile Research at the University of Illinois at Chicago; Jens Ludgwig, director of The University of Chicago Crime Lab; Theodore Corbin, M.D., co-director of the Center for Nonviolence and Social Justice in Philadelphia, and John Sullivan of the Medill School at Northwestern University, the lead reporter on The Philadelphia Inquirer's Pulitzer Prize-winning series about violence in the Philadelphia schools.
This Columbia Journalism School workshop is intended for justice, mental health and education reporters based in the U.S.
Hotel rooms provided for 20 out-of-town applicants.
For more information:
Barbara Kantrowitz, associate director, continuing education
bak34@columbia.edu
Unfinished Journey:
Why do so many low-income students drop out of college?
The U.S. used to lead the world in the number of young people with college degrees. Now, we rank 12th among 36 developed nations, according to a recent study by the College Board. The problem is not getting into college; almost 70 percent of high school grads enroll in college within two years of graduating. But staying in long enough to get a diploma is becoming more and more difficult, especially for low-income students who are a rapidly growing segment of the population. Only about 8 percent actually graduate from college. The rest are left with crushing debt and no degree. This Columbia Journalism School workshop, intended for education and business reporters, will include presentations by researchers who have studied the problem and site visits to organizations that are offering solutions.
May 4-5, 2012
Sponsored by The Edwin Gould Foundation
Hotel rooms provided for 20 out-of-town applicants
For more information:
Barbara Kantrowitz, associate director, continuing education
bak34@columbia.edu
Workshop on the coverage of aging
The Age Boom Academy:
Covering the myths and realities of aging in America
A joint program by Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
and the Graduate School of Journalism’s Continuing Education Program
March 21-25, 2012
Sponsored by the Atlantic Philanthropies, AARP and The New York Times
Tentative Agenda
Barbara Kantrowitz, associate director, continuing education
bak34@columbia.edu
Workshops on urban education from
The New York Times Institute Fellowship on Education Reporting
Pass/Fail: The Truth About Testing
October 28-29
A New York Times/Atlantic Philanthropies Workshop for Education Reporters and Editors
Fights over high-stakes standardized testing of students continue around the country. Now, a new controversy rages: the use of student scores on standardized tests to grade the performance of individual teachers. Based on scores, students can be held back, teachers can be fired and schools can be closed. Yet profound questions plague unfettered testing. Are the tests statistically reliable? Is high-stakes testing politically feasible? And are the tests educationally sound?
The two-day intensive workshop will tackle these questions and more. Educators, testing experts and veteran journalists will gather to discuss how to report on test design, innovation in testing and cheating, and whether widespread use of standardized tests can trigger reforms that will eventually narrow the achievement gap between rich and poor.
Hotels and workshop admission fees for 15 participants are covered by the grant.
Apply now to be a New York Times Fellow
To apply, email a one-page statement explaining why you want to attend, along with three examples of your work to: Barbara Kantrowitz (bak34@columbia.edu). The application deadline is Oct. 17.
Private Money, Public Schools
May 14-15
A New York Times Institute Workshop on Education funded by a grant from the
Atlantic Philanthropies
Workshop agenda
Thank you for your interest in this workshop. The application deadline has passed.
Private foundations contribute only a small fraction of the more than $500 billion spent annually on America’s public schools but they have come to exercise a new level of influence on public education policy – from Washington on down to local districts. Many of the education “reforms” currently pushed by the Obama administration were initially promoted and popularized with the help of foundation money. On the local level, many districts that receive foundation help find their curriculum and hiring practices shaped by their funders’ goals. With a few exceptions, journalists have not done much to examine how well this critical connection functions to improve education. This workshop will give reporters the tools to cover these stories. Presenters will include representatives of foundations, schools and the educational research community.
Hotels and workshop admission fees for 15 participants are covered by the grant.
Good Schools/Bad Schools?
Too many urban schools fail the students they are supposed to help, but a few educators are showing that reform can make a huge difference.
How can journalists report on the often contentious debate over the best way to improve education for poor kids? That was the theme of “Good Schools/Bad Schools: A Workshop on Urban Education” held at Columbia Journalism School from Sept. 29 to Oct. 1, 2010.
Nearly four dozen reporters from news organizations around the country – including USA Today, ABC News, The New York Daily News, and Patch – listened to researchers and practitioners comment on federal education policy, the future of teaching, the racial achievement gap, the importance of preschool, the influence of charter schools, ways to help drop-outs and how to analyze educational research.
The workshop, known as The New York Times Institute on Education Reporting, was funded by the Atlantic Philanthropies and the Spencer Foundation.