Inspire Future Media Professionals, Speak at Mass Communication Week

Join the list of notable media professionals who have shared their experiences with mass communication students at Texas State University by speaking at Mass Comm Week. Each October, the School of Journalism & Mass Communication hosts this event that covers the various issues, trends and careers in the modern communication landscape. Over the years, our students have had the privilege of hearing from professionals across all media industries like social media expert and best-selling author Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO and editor-in-chief of Texas Tribune Evan Smith, former Bush presidential press secretary, Scott McClellan and Burnie Burns, founder of Rooster Teeth Productions, the makers of the popular Web series Red vs. Blue. These experiences have been extremely valuable in introducing students to innovative people and organizations, encouraging networking and exposure to the newest topics in communication.

In addition to attending panels, students cover the event on this blog, interview panelists on video, tweet about the topics and participate via other forms of social media promotions, like the Gowalla check in promotion we held last year. Many of the panels are live streamed and archived on the site. In every way possible, we try to engage students by incorporating the newest social media techniques in our coverage just as they are being discussed on the panels.

We'd love for you to be a part of this. We’re looking for speakers for the 2011 Mass Comm Week, Oct. 17-20. If you are interested in speaking, email croyal@txstate.edu with your ideas for a topic or panel. We are interested in single or dual presentations as well as panels or other creative presentation ideas. You can see the topics from last year on the 2010 Schedule or throughout this blog.

Please include:

• Your name and the name of any other panelists for your presentation
• Topic and title of your presentation
• A brief (1-2 paragraph) synopsis of your presentation
• If you have specific day/time preferences (sessions are usually between 9:30-4:50)
• Finally, please let us know if you or one of the people on your program is a graduate from the journalism program at (Southwest) Texas State. While not a requirement, we do like to bring in as many alumni as possible.

The deadline for speaker proposals is August 19, 2011. Selected participants will be notified by Sept. 9.

Please know:

• Sessions are 75 minutes in length and can be a panel, an individual or duo.
• All rooms will be fully equipped with full multimedia, including computers and Internet access.
• There are generally between 50-100 students attending each session, but depending on where the session is, we could have up to 250 students.
• In addition to Texas State students, high school students from media programs in Laredo and San Antonio often attend Mass Communication Week.

Finally, while we realize you are a professional giving of your time, please know we are an academic department at a public university and cannot pay for speakers. But we hope this will not discourage you from sharing your valuable experience with our students. In some instances, if the speaker lives outside of a 150-mile radius of the university, we may be able to reimburse for travel. If this is something you request, please let us know in your proposal.

Updated by Cindy Royal on May 24, 2011