Last week I had the opportunity to tour the Herff Jones
plants in Edwardsville, KS and Montgomery, AL.
My Editor-In-Chief was asked to be the voice of a video tour, which will
be used as an educational tool, about what happens when the pages leave your
school.
The tour was fascinating!
I felt like a kid in a candy store versus standing amidst
machinery. I had no idea how much work
went on behind the scenes to execute and deliver our yearbooks. Quite frankly, it is remarkable that yearbook
companies are able to print our books so economically.
One thing that stood out to me throughout the tour is
something that cannot be taught. It is
the passion and pride that I saw in each and every employee. At first I thought, well maybe they only have
their happy employees working while we are here. However, we met dozens of employees at each
plant and the average employee had worked there 25 years, if not more. (What was most impressive was the woman who
has been an employee for 48 years and is hoping to make it to 50 years so she
can retire at age 90.)
You cannot teach that kind of dedication or pride. It was at that moment that I thought to
myself that this is their corporate culture.
This is the same culture I try to instill in my students in the
publications classroom. But, how do you
teach that? How do you find and breed
that dedication year after year?
Well, I believe it all starts with us as advisers. When we are happy and enjoy what we are doing
we can share that enthusiasm with our students.
I truly love what I do and hope that my positive energy is
contagious. I can’t win 100 percent of
my students over, but it’s certainly worth a try. Much like our yearbook company, we too are in
the people business.
Debra Klevens
Parkway West High School
Ballwin, MO
Dean Callahan mentioned that passion and pride as one of those things that we need to find and encourage as advisors at the talk yesterday, and I think you are both right when you say that some of that energy is transferable but some of it must be present in a student before they start the program as well. In that respect, I think your theory of a happy and excited advisor's influence also relates to recruitment of staff as well. Like Dr. Bramlett-Solomon encouraged, we need to go out and show owe students who might not necessarily know what journalism is about how interesting and rewarding it can be as we recruit.
ReplyDeleteCarver Weakkey
Cosby High School
Midlothian, Virginia