Uptown Exchange Staffers Win Awards at ICCJA Conference

Truman’s Uptown Exchange Staffers have won several awards at the Illinois Community College Journalism Association’s (ICCJA) 36th Annual Spring Conference held at Moraine Valley Community College (MVCC) at Palos Hills, Illinois on Thursday and Friday, from Apr. 7 to 8.

Uptown Exchange staffers arrive at MVCC

The awards presented on the last day of the Conference recognized students for excellence in various aspects of their school newspapers.

Oliver Hunt and Andrew Murray of The Uptown Exchange had won first place for Arts and Features in Division II category respectively while David Palm and Ben Heimer both got an honorable mention in the Editorials.

The Uptown Exchange Staffers pose for a group photograph

Melissa Brand received an honorable mention in the News category while the staff of The Uptown Exchange garnered third place in Overall Excellence in the Layout section.

 Current ICCJA President, Brenda Protz, speaks at the Awards ceremony

Journalism Professors from various participating Community Colleges, including ICCJA Executive Director John Ryan and the current President Brenda Protz, offered free workshops on Lead writing, Freelancing, Feature writing, and interviewing techniques.

The 36th ICCJA conference attracted, according to the organizers, 17 schools and more than 140 participants.

Is Out of Service Enough of an Explanation?

Front lobby TV set out of order

If you have an insatiable appetite for news of what happens at home and around the world, you must have realized that a black, flat screen television hangs up in the front lobby.

If you were laid off or your hours cut down due to the recession of the last few years, you might have disconnected your Comcast or AT & T Cable Service to save money. If that is true, then one of the places to catch up with your favorite, live newscast would be at the school.

A students accesses his laptop below the blank TV screen

However, if you really paid attention to the goings-on on campus the last two weeks, that flat screen in the front lobby was blank. The only explanation I received when I bothered to ask was that it’s out of order.

Interestingly, today is Saturday Apr. 9 and there are no repair guys working to fix the problem, not to mention tomorrow, a Sunday, when I don’t expect them to be there either. As it appears, it will take three weeks in the least or even longer to repair the problem.

If anything, students must have received a communication of some sort why this service is not available. That didn’t happen either. So what? Don’t you think at least we owe the school an explanation?

If the school had paid the bill in full, then either our Cable TV company is doing disservice to Truman community or whoever in charge of repairs has slept on the job.

Last but not the least, how many such TV sets does Truman has if I may ask? So far, I had only seen two, the one in the front lobby and another in the Student Lounge. For a school of Truman’s size, two TVs is just a drop in the ocean.