Thank you, FAMU

It is an invitation that I am glad I accepted.

Dr. Pat MacEnulty, an adjunct professor at Florida A&M University in the College of Journalism & Graphic Communication, wrote to me in August of last year, asking if I would be interested in speaking to her senior-level magazine writing class.

I told her, without hesitation, that I would be honored to do so. Indeed, I had long believed that Rowland Publishing should cultivate a relationship with FAMU, given the presence of a journalism school there. My own experience with FAMU students or alums had been limited. As a newspaper editor, I once hired and had a good experience with a FAMU grad who was assigned to cover the Florida Legislature.

Encountering Pat’s students, I encountered the same quizzical, skeptical looks that I had on the first days of classes during my teaching career but soon established a good rapport. I tried to introduce myself and talk about my experience efficiently and then moved into challenges faced by print publications in an era of shrinking attention spans and innumerable digital distractions.

Not surprisingly, Pat had told me that the majority of students in her class were broadcast track majors.

I had come to class with copies of Tallahassee Magazine and with an exercise for the students in mind. I divided the class into three groups, introduced them to the template for the magazine as represented by its table of contents and challenged them to write a story list for a future edition of the publication.

That is, they were to come up with feature stories; stories for the 323, Expressions, Gastro & Gusto, Abodes and Panache sections; and an idea for a Postscript column. Mind you, the students only had a little more than an hour to complete this task, whereas at Rowland Publishing, we might kick around story ideas for days before a lineup is finalized.

Pat, perhaps in the interest of managing expectations, had told me, too, that students had been asked to write a pitch letter proposing a story to an editor and had struggled to come up with good ideas. But the students proceeded to surprise and delight her with the story ideas they generated for me.

One bit of guidance from me may have helped bring about that welcome outcome. I asked the students to suggest story ideas born of their own experience.

“Give yourself the freedom to propose stories that you would like to write and that people who look like you would like to read,” I said.

That they did.

Moving from proposal to the printed page, five of Pat’s students — Jaden Brown, Kaila Priester, Rich Brown, Chelsie Ross-Grigsby and Brendan Brown — have written stories that appear in this issue of Tallahassee Magazine.

Their stories are well researched, reported and written, and I thank these fabulous five for their contributions. I am hopeful that by stopping by Pat’s class, a relationship between FAMU and RPI with the potential to grow and become increasingly meaningful has been kickstarted.

A footnote: Rich Brown let me know that the story he wrote on the B Sharps Jazz Club helped him land a job this summer at the Miami Herald. I had a teacher’s pride in hearing that.

Be well,

Steve Bornhoft, Executive Editor
sbornhoft@rowlandpublishing.com