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ALSO
IN THIS ISSUE In His Element College for Kids Parking 101 Go With the Flow Close Encounters Chancellor's Page Development News Factoids Newsmakers Accomplishments
of faculty and staff… |
Ex-reporter
Virginia Escalante shows fledgling journlists how to write the news, and
in the process they have created an award-winning college paper. “I had a wonderful adviser and mentor who was a Cuban exile,” says Escalante, who is now the Mesa College journalism professor and adviser to the student newspaper. “He paved the way, taught me not to be afraid, and to trust myself.” Escalante majored in education and English and minored in journalism at the University of Arizona, then taught small-town high school for eight years before realizing she needed a change. “I started teaching at 21, and at the time didn’t know how to pace myself,” Escalante says. “I was burned out, but the experience was tremendous. It was time for me to get a job where I could write everyday.” Escalante attended a training program for minority journalists at UC Berkeley, then worked for the Stockton Record for 16 months. Her next job was reporting for the southeast edition of the Los Angeles Times, where Escalante was part of a team that won the Pulitzer Prize for its reporting on current Chicano issues and lifestyles. Escalante’s contribution, a first person account comparing her own memories as a child field worker to those of modern field workers, was singled out in the nomination. “My family
worked in the fields because that’s how we survived,” Escalante
says. “We were all very proud of the series, feeling it had served
as a real community service.” “Spanish-language press has a long history dating back to when the Southwest was part of Mexico,” she says. Her firsthand experience plus more recent research are the essence of the dissertation she is writing on Spanish-language media for her doctoral program at UCSD. “I’m happy to contribute something to journalism with history that isn’t as well known, or even compiled on this side of the border.” At The Mesa Press, Escalante runs the journalism workshop like a newsroom. On a recent visit to the newspaper office, students were working quickly and professionally on deadline, writing and editing stories, going over photo assignments and handling production questions. “We maintain a core group of students every year, with that core group changing a little every year, learning everything from writing and reporting to editing, design, photography and advertising,” Escalante says. “Our students have gone on to internships in local radio, television and the Union-Tribune. We try to train professionalism, how to carry themselves as journalists, and how always to remember to keep the reader first.” Some of the students have already taken the beginning journalism class on campus, others are first-timers. Everybody learns on the job, under Escalante’s careful guidance, producing a campus newspaper that has won 10 awards during the past three years. “There are some good, talented students who come through this program,” she says. “When they go out into the professional world, they are well prepared, because all media require good writing. One of our students began an internship at Channel 10, and said she felt prepared because she was familiar with news routines.” Escalante invented a new paper when she arrived four years ago, and it now boasts a dynamic design and crisp reporting. Hot issues such as parking and politics make for good reporting topics. Plenty of other stories emerge on a college campus, giving the student staff an introduction into what it means to report on a variety of issues. The administration, she says, has been very supportive. “They may not like everything they see in the paper, and sometimes the students do push things,” she says. “But they promised me when they hired me that they would not subject us to censorship, and they have been true to that promise. They respect and understand the role of a newspaper and my role here, and we can work comfortably.” If there is a mistake in the newspaper, Escalante turns it into a lesson on the importance of accuracy. “Virginia has essentially tuned the newspaper into an excellent product,” says Joel Perez, chairperson of the campus English department. “She has created an award-winning newspaper of quality, and extended the department by bringing in ideas that translate to every aspect of newspapers.” Escalante, who also teaches a class in English composition from a Chicano perspective, presses her journalism students to seek minority viewpoints. She stresses that diversity — in the newsroom and in news coverage — is an issue of national importance in mass media. “The issues are how to recruit reporters, and how to make pages more representational of society,” she says. “A good reporter should be able to navigate those issues. New ways of looking at the world need to be implemented in journalism programs.” In fact, diversity played a key role in her joining the faculty at Mesa. “One of the reasons I decided to come here was the integrated campus,” she says. “I didn’t want to be the only brown person in the classrooms, whether behind the podium or sitting in a chair. I wanted to be in a learning environment that represented society. That was one of the big attractions to me.” Escalante not only teaches, but also learns from Mesa College’s students. She wasn’t familiar with all of the modern computer equipment and techniques used in newspapers when she arrived, but she chose to go with new systems rather than what she was comfortable with, and students have helped her better understand. Now, she is able to teach new students what she has learned in the past few years. “We’re building a foundation here,” Escalante says. “It’s an exciting time for us.”
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