Knight Volunteer Network

The Cronkite School utilizes the skills of media professionals who volunteer through the Knight Alumni Network.

The network, established in 2008, enlists the expertise of alumni from various journalism training programs sponsored by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The alumni mentor students and citizen journalists, help journalism scholastic organizations, promote freedom of information and participate in other activities aimed at fostering journalists and journalism in the 21st century.

At the Cronkite School, these alumni are invited to:

• Mentor Native American students who are trying to launch a Native American Journalists Association. The volunteer would help Native American journalism majors form a viable student group affiliated with the national organization. The volunteer would visit the students on campus at least once to launch the project, meet the students and form relationships. Continued mentoring and advice would then be provided online and through phone contacts.
• Provide feedback and mentoring to five high school journalism advisers around the state of Arizona who are affiliated with the Cronkite School’s Stardust High School Journalism Program. The Cronkite School is installing multimedia newsrooms in five high schools with largely underserved student populations that have not had viable journalism programs in the past. Students enrolled in the program will produce Web sites featuring their multimedia work. The volunteer would critique the sites and provide advice to the teachers and the director of the Stardust program as well as serve as a resource on site development and content.
• Write a blog on First Amendment values that would become part of the required reading for a freshman seminar on journalism history and principles and possibly other classes. The blog would reflect real-world lessons in applying free speech principles and would be used as the basis for class discussions. The blog would point out current issues related to the First Amendment and relevant historical and legal perspectives. It would speak directly to students with real-world examples, pose questions and provoke comment and discussion. A thoughtful, once-a-week entry would be sufficient.
• Provide expertise and advice to the National Center on Disability and Journalism, a new national center that is moving to the Cronkite School. A volunteer with expertise or interest in this area would contribute to short- and long-term planning and goal setting for the center, help develop up-to-date resources, advise on the redesign of the center’s Web site and help develop a network of interested persons.

To volunteer for any of these activities, please contact Kristin Gilger, assistant dean of the Cronkite School, at 602.496.9448 or at Kristin.gilger@asu.edu.