DEI certificate
If DEI is a priority for you and your staff, prove it!
Earn JEA’s DEI certificate by attending four out of six special breakout sessions geared toward diversity, equity and inclusion. Take the lead and put these sessions on your schedule so you can come away with new strategies and insights. Below is information for all six sessions in the special DEI strand. If you attend at least four, you’ll earn a certificate from JEA based on your participation. Sessions — and the certificate — are open to all! Those earning the special DEI certificate will receive it by April 13, 2024.
There are more than 70 sessions in the program that incorporate diversity, equity and inclusion, but only these seven comprise JEA’s DEI certificate.
DEI certificate sessions
General Audience
Serving people with disabilities – in your stories, on your staff
How are you covering students with disabilities? In this interactive, student-led DEI session, we’ll see what you know about this type of journalistic work. Editors will share resources and best practices while facilitating discussion so we can improve representation and inclusivity — in stories and to support students with disabilities in our student media programs.
Sarah Nichols, MJE; Desiree Montejano and Isabella Tomasini, Whitney High School, Rocklin, California
9 a.m. Friday, Century Ballroom A, Westin Ballroom Level
Newsgathering
See us, hear us
Intentional inclusion means broadening the focus beyond those most visible in your school. Finding the silent/hidden voices and making sure they are a part of the story provides a more complete story of your community. So how do we bring them in? It’s time to rethink our approach toward diversifying coverage so that all voices are represented equitably in your media.
Sergio Yanes, MJE, Arvada (Colorado) High School
10 a.m. Friday, Century Ballroom A, Westin Ballroom Level
General Audience
What does DEI look like?
DEI work is complex and unique (and even confusing) to each community, and often we lack models for how to make progress. This panel provides a glimpse into advisers’ and student editors’ experiences with guiding their staffs toward building more equitable practices within their program and throughout their media coverage and storytelling.
Sarah Nichols, MJE, Whitney High School, Rocklin, California; David Ragsdale, CJE, Clarke Central High School, Athens, Georgia; Sergio Yanes, MJE, Arvada (Colorado) HS; and Jumana AlSaadoon and Jiayi Li, Harrisonburg (Virginia) HS
11 a.m. Friday, Century Ballroom A, Westin Ballroom Level
General Audience
Understand the Black-white wealth gap
All journalists should know and understand data on the issues in the communities they cover. Ebony Reed is an expert on the Black-white wealth gap and has taught on gaps that impact women and all people at the Yale School of Management. She is the coauthor of “Fifteen Cents on the Dollar: How Americans Made the Black-White Wealth Gap.” She will share data to help all student journalists understand this economic issue and all the areas it impacts.
Ebony Reed, The Marshall Project, Kansas City, Missouri
1 p.m. Friday, Century Ballroom C, Westin Ballroom Level
Advising
Unified yearbook: Creating inclusive environments
This session will offer advisers insight and advice to create an inclusive yearbook program that invites students from general and special education to partner and create a publication. Using the same tools of traditional yearbook with adaptations and modifications, the session will showcase collaborative work of students with and without disabilities.
Brandi Benson, Lincoln (Nebraska) Southwest High School
9 a.m. Saturday, Pershing Place North, Westin Ballroom Level
Leadership & Team Building
We’ve always been here. Haven’t you noticed?
Women, LGBTQ+, immigrants and journalists of color have been telling groundbreaking stories within mainstream newsrooms for more than a century. See their inspirational work, and bring it to your own campus. Learn how to include diversity as a core element of journalism instruction.
Paul Niwa, CJE, Emerson College, Boston, Massachusetts
10 a.m. Saturday, Pershing Place North, Westin Ballroom Level