Stardust High School Program

Over the next two years, the Cronkite School will create multimedia newsrooms at 10 underserved Arizona high schools under a grant from the Stardust Foundation.

Students and journalism teachers and advisers at the schools also will get training and mentoring in the skills and values of journalism.

The Stardust High School Journalism Program is believed to be the first university-based initiative in the country to create newsrooms in high schools, according to Cronkite School Dean Christopher Callahan.

The grant targets schools with large minority populations that do not have school newspapers or viable journalism programs. Those are the schools that often don’t have the resources to publish school newspapers, Callahan said.

Students who get involved in high school journalism learn valuable writing and communication skills – and ultimately graduate from high school and go on to college in greater numbers, he said.

High schools accepted into the program will be provided with all the necessary equipment to create multimedia newsrooms for their students. Equipment will include computers, scanners, video cameras, digital cameras and software necessary for publishing an online newspaper that can also be published as a print product. The Cronkite School technology staff will manage servers that will host schools’ Web sites.

Students will learn such skills as writing, reporting, grammar, editing, page design, Web production, videography and photography. They also will participate in a conference each summer at the Cronkite School to further develop their skills and expose them to a college environment.

Teachers also will get support. The Cronkite School will offer an in-depth training course each summer for the teachers, as well as help develop journalism curricula for their schools, arrange for professional journalists to come to their classes, and help them train students in technical and journalistic skills.

The Stardust Foundation is a non-profit corporation founded by Jerry Bisgrove in 1993. Headquartered in Scottsdale, the foundation is designed to selectively provide grants to organizations that impact the linked concepts of family and neighborhood stability.

“Stardust values the opportunity to expose more students to careers in journalism,” Bisgrove said. “The communication skills they will learn in this program will be useful to them, regardless of their chosen profession. In today’s fast-paced, information-driven world, effective communication is vital to achieving success in all facets of one’s life.”

Schools interested in participating in the Stardust program should contact Dave Cornelius, program director, at david.cornelius@asu.edu or by calling 480.965.9710.

Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication
Stauffer Hall A 231, P.O. Box 871305, Arizona State University, Tempe AZ 85287-1305 | 480.965.5011 phone | 480.965.7041 fax