Medill School of Journalism students will have another Teaching Media option next year — an opportunity to do a quarter-long internship in India.
India is an area rich in news and an important place for journalists to know about, Medill Dean Loren Ghiglione said.
“We have a lot of students coming to Medill and Northwestern who have roots or are from there,” Ghiglione said. “(India) is going to be the most populous country in the world in the 21st century. There’s a lot of news issues there with the threat of nuclear war, poverty, HIV/AIDS and religion.”
Last fall administrators announced a new program in South Africa, which will take a group of eight students to Johannesburg and Cape Town to work at local media outlets during Spring Quarter. To prepare, students are taking a course on African culture and relevant news issues.
“The idea (for India) would be to have a preparatory course, similar to what we’re doing with the South Africa course,” Ghiglione said. “There are a lot of reasons to reach out to India.”
The programs give Medill students a chance to study abroad — an opportunity many miss out on because of the TM requirement, which sends students to work at a media outlet for a quarter during junior year.
“I’ve always wanted to study abroad, but that’s difficult in Medill,” said Kristin McKee, a Medill sophomore who plans to apply to the South Africa program. “This will give a whole new perspective.”
The India program was made possible by an alumnus with a special interest in the country, Ghiglione said.
Generally, alumni have been supportive, but Brian Utley, Medill’s development director, said securing funding for overseas programs hasn’t been Medill’s top priority.
Outside support is necessary to make TM programs work because it is difficult to get news organizations abroad to help subsidize the costs, Utley said.
“The residencies and placements are in such demand that organizations often don’t feel the need to fund them — lots of people are willing to go and pay their own way,” Utley said. “Instances of support have been from smaller news organizations.”
Utley also said the price of a TM program in another country can vary from about $15,000 to more than $100,000 annually. The price depends on room and board but is heavily determined by what stipends the students might require.
Even with fund-raising obstacles, Ghiglione wants to add a third overseas program so there will be one for each quarter. South Africa is already set for Spring Quarter, and he said India has to be in Winter Quarter because of the weather during other times of the year. Administrators are brainstorming ideas for a Fall Quarter program, Utley said.
The interest in creating overseas programs for undergraduates is a recent development Utley attributes to Ghiglione, whose tenure as dean began in summer 2001.
“He wanted to make Medill a more global school,” Utley said.
The new TM locations also help students recognize the need to learn about other countries and cultures.
With the conflicts and changes in the world today, a new perspective will be important, said Julie Pace, a Medill junior who will go on the South Africa trip this spring.
“The world’s becoming a lot smaller,” Pace said. “The chances of working internationally are a lot greater than what they used to be.”
