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SEEDS Succession Program
By philobean | July 13, 2009
Objective: To establish a succession program for the SEEDS Student Publication of SHS-J.
Why is it important? We cannot achieve our long-term vision of turning SEEDS into a feeder publication for journalism talent in the top universities in the
How would you describe the current system? The faculty adviser of SEEDS is highly involved in the publication process. You could say she acts as the de facto editor-in-chief, playing a major role in both managing the production and editorial processes of the publication. This is because student editors-in-chief have an average of only 1 year of previous experience in journalism either as a SEEDS reporter or editor before taking the EIC position. Section editors, on the other hand, usually have no previous journalism experience and are recruited based on interest rather than skill. This has resulted in (a) a sick-cycle of ever increasing dependence upon the faculty adviser, (b) high incidence of “reinventing the wheel” within the organization as learning is not passed on from one generation of editors to another, and (c) inconsistent publication productivity and quality across school years.
How will a succession program help? By developing a succession program, we enable peer-to-peer mentorship across generations of editors; thus, fostering organizational learning. Would-be section editors will start as section writers (e.g. news reporter or feature writer) and section editors will vie for the position of EIC. On average, EICs will have between 2-3 years of previous experience in SEEDS while section editors will have 1-2 years of experience. The overlap allows SEEDS editors and writers to not only share what they’ve learned (i.e. soft skills) but also institutional assets, such as logos, typefaces, layouts, etc.
Two Key Interventions:
In order to establish a self-reinforcing succession program, the following interventions are recommended:
1. Editorial Buddy System – Currently, the faculty adviser bears the brunt of the mentorship work of SEEDS editors and staff. This is overwhelming. The editorial buddy system will assign a ‘buddy’ from a pool of alumni mentors who are active writers in college papers (college writers) or in industry (freelance or full time journalists) to each SEEDS editor. These alumni-mentors will help their mentees improve both their writing and their publication management skills.
2. Recruitment Program – It will be impossible to have a succession program if there are not enough members in an organization, especially if most (if not all) members are from the graduating batch. It becomes important, therefore, to actively recruit ‘young blood’ from among the first and second year students. This gives the editors, alumni-mentors and the faculty adviser enough time to groom these young recruits to become well equipped section editors and editors-in-chief in their third and fourth years. This also enables these would-be editors to pass on their honed skills to new recruits as they approach graduation. A good place to start recruitment is among avid book readers as they already have an appreciation for the written word.
Key Metrics to Measure Success:
|
|
Current Situation |
Bridge |
Succession Program |
|
Faculty dependency |
High |
Editorial Buddy System |
Medium to Low |
|
Peer-to-peer mentorship |
Low |
High |
|
|
Institutional assets |
Low |
High |
|
|
Member Recruitment |
Low |
Recruitment Program |
Medium to High |
|
Membership Turnover |
High |
Low |
Topics: Personal |