The summer high school workshop is as old as the School of Communication at the University of Miami. In its 31st year at UM, the program is primarily supported by the School of Communication and two local philanthropists committed to journalism and education. The workshop in 2007 adopted a new name: the Peace Sullivan/James Ansin High School Workshop in journalism and New Media, to reflect additio
nal support of former wire service journalist Peace Sullivan and James Ansin, the general manager of WSVN-Channel 7. The program also receives funding from the Dow Jones News Fund, along with small grants from a variety of local sources. WSVN and New Times host the students for a day in their newsrooms. Trend Offset, a printing facility in Jacksonville, prints the workshop paper at reduced cost during the weekly New Times press run. In addition to their support for the program, Peace Sullivan and James Ansin provide scholarship funds available to select participants who want to attend the UM School of Communication. The program started in 1984 as a one-week workshop with students writing stories exclusively for a tabloid newspaper that was published at the end of the workshop. In 2014, the program invited 20 high school students to the campus for three weeks. In addition to publishing a newspaper, the students also produced videos, photos and blogs that were posted on the workshop’s website. Over the years, various student participants have won top prizes for their work in video and photography from the Dow Jones News Fund, which funds dozens of similar high school workshops around the country. Professor Bruce Garrison was the original director of the program. He passed the baton to Professor Tsitsi Wakhisi, who passed it on to Yves Colon. Professor Sam Terilli from UM and Professor Fred Blevens from FIU currently lead the program. During the three weeks of the program, the students live on campus and are supervised by adult counselors. They are encouraged to minimize contact with home, all in an effort to give them a sense of what university life is like and what to expect. They eat breakfast, lunch and dinner in the campus cafeteria. They attend classes in the School of Communication and use the labs in the school to produce the newspaper and their videos. They have access to some of the most advanced cameras and computers to achieve professional results.
