A winning question sent North by Northwestern’s Editor in Chief Amanda Litman to Washington, D.C., last week.
NBN, which is a member of The Huffington Post College network, won a HuffPost College contest, which asked its affiliate campus news organizations “to engage their readers and find out what college students want to know-about the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act specifically and the Obama administration’s plans for higher education in general.”
Litman met with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Director of the Domestic Policy Council Melody Barnes on April 9 after Medill freshman Julia Haskins’ question was voted the best of 13 videos submitted by campus publications across the country.
“It was a very, very cool, once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Litman said. “I had a great time at the White House.”
The 13 questions readers voted on were selected by HuffPost College as the best submissions. Two of NBN’s questions were selected for the final 13.
“Julia presented a really compelling narrative,” Litman said. “It’s a question that reaches beyond just financial aid or college students. It talks a lot about the minority community, which is important to a lot of Huffington Post’s readers.”
Haskins asked how the White House planned to encourage minority high school students to pursue higher education. She said she was honored to have her question selected.
“I was glad that so many people supported what I had to say,” Haskins said. “I thought that maybe it would be a little bit controversial, but it was something that I thought really needed to be said.”
More than 20 schools submitted questions to the contest. Of those, HuffPost College selected questions from NBN and partner publications from Colby College, Washington University in St. Louis, Mount Holyoke College, the University of Texas, the Savannah College of Art and Design and The College of New Jersey.
NBN’s executive editor, Nick Castele, edited the videos. He said he would like to think the production influenced HuffPost College readers to vote for Haskins’ question.
“Our video definitely looked the most produced with the most editing going on,” the Medill sophomore said.
During the 20-minute meeting, Litman and Jose Antonio Vargas, who helps oversee HuffPost College, played some of the top videos from the contest while Duncan and Barnes answered the questions posed in them.
Haskins said she was satisfied with the answer Barnes gave her, though she said it could have been more in-depth.
“The problem I had was trying to condense all of these emotions into one question,” Haskins said. “The issue of increasing minority enrollment has a lot of different dimensions to it. I thought it was still well done.”
In answering Haskins’ question, Barnes said the U.S. wants to improve education by encouraging “college and career-ready standards” and offering college-level courses, such as Advanced Placement classes, in high school.
“It was very well prepared, but they also definitely avoided the brunt of the question at certain points,” Litman said. “I mean, they’re politicians.”[email protected]
