National Broadcasting Society, Region IV Convention

Having been an adviser to National Broadcasting Society student groups for many years at multiple universities, you'd think I might have made it to at least one NBS convention, yet this is my first. Honestly, educators have too many academic conference commitments in many cases to make it to this type of 'student-focused' convention.

This time was important though. First, having just gotten the NBS chapter going again at Texas A&M University at Commerce, it was important to me that we attended the regional convention. Plus, the host university, West Texas A&M has had a vibrant NBS chapter for some years, and they have great media production activities and facilities--all things our students needed to experience first-hand. Hats off to the four students from TAMU-C who made the drive all the way over to Canyon, Texas for the convention held at WTAMU.

Here's a summary of sessions. Nashville musician Lionel Cartright (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtxyxtUoVh8) gave an inspirational account of his career in offering advice to those pursuing mass communication careers.

Big Brother (CBS) Producer Matt Simms talked about producing reality TV and how it compared to scripted TV shows.

A panel of others from media careers --

(more to come)