Leadership/Team Building
As the leader of The Tower newspaper, and the Associate Editor last year, I have lots of experience running the class and paper and being the face of The Tower for the community, administration and students/staff. I work with every member of Tower's 69-person staff, in person and over text and calling, and answer questions and coach people through their stories and pages daily. I implement new ideas to make our paper run more smoothly and our staff work together better. When something goes wrong, I am the one making the final decisions-- whether that be about pushing back a print because of snow days, cutting a story, figuring out how to deal with an administrator who is unhappy with the paper. I am so privileged to be able to lead The Tower and form a relationship with everyone involved.
Leading each class hour
I am in The Tower room two hours a day--- for my class hour and tutorial (study hall) so through that and stopping into the third class of Tower, along with texting and communicating with everyone and seeing others at after school deadlines, I work with and have some sort of relationship with all 68 members of The Tower staff.
I make slides for what we will be doing in class each day, what deadlines are coming up and make all announcements. I let all three classes know when we have big overarching issues with getting content in or producing quality content. I dismiss the class to work on their stories and pages, and during the class hour when people are working, I am running around to each person answering questions and coaching them through their stories and pages (I am the one they even ask to leave to go to the bathroom or their locker sometimes).
For the past two years, I have established myself as the leader of the class hour and worked with each member of staff there.
Organizing Tower bonding
As a first year copy editor on The Tower staff, some of my favorite parts of the year were the Tower bonding events we did, which brought us closer, but I felt there weren't enough. When I included that on my application at the end of sophomore year, it became part of my job as the Associate Editor my junior year. I organized several group events such as Tower tie-dying, a trip to the cider mill, making paper plates and wrapping the Christmas gifts, planning and hosting the Christmas party, volunteering at Cass Community and more. This year, I continue to help plan those events and other ones such as skating and laser tag.
It is extremely important to me that the staff bonds and grows closer. It helps us produce a better paper more efficiently, motivates us and makes the entire experience of being part of this publication more memorable and enjoyable for everyone involved.
Running Leadership meetings
Leadership meetings with our top editors have always existed to some extent, but htis year I saw the importance of them and have used them to make our leadership team and staff as a whole stronger. In the summer, before our first deadline I held a leadership meeting and 'cleaning day' in The Tower room to start off the year strong. We went through our goals for the year, what we learned from MIPA and what we expected from each other and everyone. I am proud this year of how well our leadership team gets along, loves to be together and all work together, which I have seen improve from the past two years I have been part of The Tower. It creates a strong, cohesive presence in the other hours and lets our goals be carried out by the rest of staff more.
Throughout the year, I have called brief leadership meetings after school to check in with what we think needs to be worked on, what we and the rest of the staff is doing well, etc. I have also called a meeting when I think our page editors need to step up or that each member of leadership needs to be on the same page more. Each of these meetings, and the open communication this year's leadership team has, has made us stronger as a group of leaders and staff overall.
Running page editor meetings
The Tower's page editors work hard planning out and desigining pages every week. It's tiring. Producing strong, clean, creative design for a broadsheet every week is not an easy job, so sometimes our page editors have needed a boost. I have called a few page editor meetings this year-- once at the very beginning and a couple throughout the year-- to rejuvinate them, explain what is expected and give them inspiration. I run the meetings with the print leadership and they are effective because we are able to sit, look at what we have done this year, look at what The Tower and some other award-winning broadsheets have done in the past, and talk about where we want to go from here. This open communication and chance to regroup gets brings us together as a team, which is invaluable.
Professionally working with administration
Grosse Pointe South's administration has changed several times in the past few years (we have had six different assistant principals under our current principal who has been here for five years), which has changed our school's atmosphere, and we have not shied away from writing about that. Additionally, our current administration has made it clear they do not appreciate when The Tower publishes content that reflects negatively on the school or the district, which makes our lives harder when we publish controversial content and interview our principal and higher administration for these articles. I personally have had experience with our principal snatching my questions from me and shaking them in my face during an interview, and he and our deputy superintendent of educational services dodging our questions and asking them back to us.
I have set an example for the rest of the staff not to back down no matter what administration's reaction to our coverage may be. I have tried to constantly educate the staff about our rights as student journalists, and have continued to professionally speak to our administrators about difficult issues while still standing up for our rights and beliefs. I hope this is something that carries on in years to come.
'Family Dinners', fun at deadlines
The tradition of having 'family dinners' once a month during Monday deadlines has been part of Tower since I joined, but is an important one that brings leadership, page editors, copy editors and everyone at deadline closer, and is something I have upheld. We put our phones in the middle of the table and just talk. We take a break from the often hectic atmosphere of trying to get pages finialized to get to know each other better, and have talked about our first impressions of each other, embarrassing moments, etc.
These dinners are important because they bring everyone together. My favorite part of Tower is how people from all grades and groups and backgrounds are able to come together, so calling ourselves a family and being able to spend time talking together is special to me.
While leadership and our adviser do want to go home before 8:30/9 p.m., so we try to make sure everyone is efficient, we have lots of fun every deadline. Music is always playing in the background, and one of our editors makes a playlist for each month this year. We are always making fun of ourselves and each other and laughing with each other, and have people assigned to bring food each Friday and dinner each Monday. My first year as a copy editor, I stayed late at deadline and did my homework because I liked being there, and I feel each year I have contributed positively and helped build a balanced fun and hardworking environment at deadlines.
Christmas Party
I have hosted the annual Tower Christmas party the past two years at my house. I have organized making the paper plates, picked up the gifts for each staffer and wrapped them, organized our annual Secret Santa and delegated who would bring which food items to the party. This event is so special because it really brings every Tower staffer together outside of school. We are all split up into three hours, and while there are Tower bonding events outside of school, not everyone comes to them, so having the majority of the entire staff come to this event is special and always fun for everyone. We hand out paper plates leadership makes for everyone, have dinner and dessert and pass out gifts, along with revealing who everyone's Secret Santa is. While it may only be one night for just under two hours, this event is able to bring our staff together and is a positive part of the Tower experience for everyone.
Leadership dinners
A tradition I have carried on from last year is taking our leadership team to fun restaurants in downtown Detroit or neighboring cities we all agree on every five issues we publish. This gives us all something to look forward to and is rewarding after we have worked hard to print five issues of The Tower. Each of these dinners brings us closer together and is a fun tradition that fizzled out toward the end of last year when we got busy that I have kept up and hope will be carried on in the future.
Brownell Presentation
Last year I organized and executed was the trip to Brownell (and Pierce) by contacting all of the English teachers in the school, and then the principal to come to the all school meeting, since there was a very short time between when we were able to come and when the eighth grade scheduling forms were due. I emailed the teachers and principal, and when they did not get back to me on time, I called and left messages for them. I also created and sent Brownell Principal Mr. Hunwick two slides to present at the meeting, brought three people with me, and made a script outlining information each of us should say. I am very happy with the results of this meeting. Even though it was short, it was a brand new experience we have not run into yet and the presentation touched a lot of people, not just eighth graders like it has in the past.
This year I helped my Associate Editor organize the trip, and went to Brownell for the day giving a 20-minute presentation to each eighth grade English class about why journalism is important and why they should join The Tower.
Brownell Package
Brownell Package
Another example of leadership I've shown is when I organized the content for the Brownell journalism package. After the content was not published at the end of the previous year, it was pushed to the back burner. However, I wanted to make sure all of our hard work was put to use, and that everyone knew the Brownell Middle School journalism program was dying. I proposed the idea of publishing that content several times last year, until I sat down with Liz Bigham, the previous Editor in Chief, and we discussed which future issue it would be published in. I decided to write the feature about it, and delegated who would cover which other content. I helped the page editors for that issue (which turned out to be a bit of a hectic issue, because it was also the “Towergate” issue) and took initiative setting up the package because it was important to me. Writing the feature and organizing the package involved me calling some of the sources our Editor two years ago had previously interviewed, so I reached out to her again and trying to collect all of the content from last year, and the project gave me experience delegating and setting up part of an issue.
Auto Show Application and Organization
Last year, I was in charge of getting a group of Tower staffers to report on the Auto Show during press day. The Auto Show application process was long and had many challenges, but it taught me an enormous amount about persistence, communication, and staying calm. The initial application process was not too difficult, it just involved me making a business card, writing a letter, compiling some of The Tower's best published works, etc. However, mixups on the dates, the number of passes we were mailed, calling several times to get eight instead of four of us in and allowing us to go during the media day instead of industry day like we had the year before arose. I was able to work through them and plan the entire event, communicate it to the team and delegate who would cover what-- adjusting based on what was found at the event-- and looking back I wouldn't change a thing. It made me a better journalist and much stronger leader, and helped me learn to stay calm in tough situations this year.
Field trips, journalism camps/conferences
In the past three years, I have attended the MIPA summer conference three times, the MIPA fall and spring conferences three times, the JEA/NSPA conferences in Dallas and Chicago and the CSPA conference in New York (which I plan to attend again this March). Each of these experiences has brought me something new, and every time I leave I cannot wait to go back; I'm sad I will not be able to attend MIPA again next year. I highly encourage every member of staff-- no matter what position you hold-- to attend any and all of these conferences as possible. Not only is there a special, educational experience for everyone inside the classroom, but it undoubtedly brings everyone there together, and allows us to make connections with journalists from other schools and other advisers.
I first started loving Tower so much during my first time at the MIPA summer conference, when I initially was hesitant to go because I didn't know many people and was coming into my first year on staff, but as soon as I walked through the doors, I heard, "Alyssa Czech?" called by a senior boy I had met only one time at a deadline. I was welcomed and included the rest of the weekend there, which led to me feeling comfortable at deadline and my attendance at all the other conferences, strengthening my bond with the rest of staff even more. I strive to make the conferences as positive and pivotal for others as they were for me.
Just as the older members of staff led the group during MIPA and the other conferences my first year, I now take the lead, organize events we do as a staff during the summer camp, where we go to lunch during the conferences, etc. I have learned and grown tremendously as a journalist, leader and member of The Tower through each of the conferences I have attended, and hope others have and continue to do so as well.
