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HOLLAND
COLLEGE • March 2003
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INSIDE |
ABOUT
THIS ISSUE
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memory lane: a glance back, then full-steam ahead By Wayne Young Class of '78 [Mine is just one of 500 stories that could be told by students who have gone through the Journalism program at Holland College over the past four decades. But since I've been here longer than most -- one year as a student and the past seven as an instructor -- I'll offer an introduction to this special edition of The Surveyor as we take a quick stroll down memory lane.] Time flies. Seems like yesterday but it's actually 25 years since I was a teenage student at Holland College bent on learning the craft of journalism well enough to land a job in the business. There were 19 others in my class, a few teens but mostly twenty- and thirty-somethings from across the Maritimes. The program was five years old and was directed by one of the finest newsmen -- and gentlemen -- I've ever known, the late Hartwell Daley. This guy could type 80 words a minute on a manual typewriter using only his index fingers. Copy was clean too, no built-in spell or grammar checks back then. Daley had a brilliant mind and a delightful sense of humour. In those days, the program served the interests of both broadcast and print journalism. It was initiated by Al Holman, the first instructor, and carried on by Daley, Don Cayo, the late Martin Dorrell and Sandra Devlin. I remember lunch hours in the broadcast studio of HCFM (the program's live radio station), spinning records and reading the news. • To paste or paginate? But the Surveyor was there as well to provide the early clippings we hoped would win us favour with editors who might be in the hiring mode. I talked recently with the first co-editors of the Surveyor, Blaine Corkum and Jean Kenny and collectively, we commiserated our "dinosaur" status as we attempted to explain to a new generation of student journalists just how we put our newspapers out. Cutting-edge technology it wasn't. It was razor blades carving up the stories and then pasting them to the pages. Pictures were still developed in darkrooms and headlines were frequently constructed using cut-out letters of varying sizes. But it worked and as far as I know, the papers always came out. And to this day, they still do. Today, students "paginate" the paper, laying it out electronically. Pictures are taken with digital cameras and downloaded directly onto Macintosh computers where they are electronically enhanced. In recent years, the Surveyor has grown to a 16-page tabloid published a dozen times a year. Thanks to The Guardian, 2,500 copies of the paper are printed and circulated. The Journal-Pioneer has also been supportive, publishing a 28-page special edition each year featuring magazine-length feature stories written by our graduating students. • Newspaper becomes sole focus There have been other program changes, of course, the most significant in the early '90s when it was expanded from one to two years. The broadcast component was also dropped along the way and a second instructor was added (1995) as the program's profile changed to newspaper reporter. In 1996, after 17 years in the field, I returned to Holland College as co-instructor and for nearly four years, shared the classroom responsibilities with the late Martin Dorrell. Others write more eloquently about Dorrell in this edition but suffice to say, the time spent with him was probably the most productive, and enjoyable, of my entire journalism career. Fittingly, awards of excellence in the memory of Dorrell and Daley are presented to deserving journalism students each year. Some of them are featured in this edition. • About this edition How do you begin to jam 30 years of college journalism into one small tabloid newspaper? Well, this is our attempt and at best, we've only scratched the surface. We've talked to the editors of the first Surveyor, as well as the first instructor and members of the advisory committee that sets the agenda for the program. We've also talked to as many award-winning students as we could contact, including five who won Atlantic Journalism Awards of excellence for college journalism students. There are dozens and dozens of other students who have gone on to successful reporting careers and with more time and pages, it would have been nice to share their stories. Still others completed the course and never stepped foot in a newspaper newsroom. Far from failures, they all enhanced their communications skills and perhaps more importantly, learned something about themselves and what they truly wanted to do in the future. • Flashbacks The back section of this special edition is devoted to flashbacks, full-page reproductions of Surveyors from yesteryear. The aim was to include as many bylines from previous classes as possible. The centre spread features the names of everyone who took the program since 1972. As I said at the outset, there's easily 500 stories and the pool of writers is increasing each year. What lies ahead for the program -- and the profession? My co-instructor, Rick MacLean, takes a look into the future in an interview. We hope you enjoy this quick stroll down memory lane, a small diversion from our agenda as we prepare for the next 30 years of journalism training at Holland College. |
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