UTM welcomes SEJC

On Feb. 9, nearly 250 students and faculty from 27 Southeastern colleges and universities will assemble at UTM to hone their journalism skills and represent their respective communication programs.

The three-day 2012 Southeast Journalism Conference convention will feature competitive journalism contests that will test students' abilities and knowledge in news writing, radio reporting, photojournalism, public relations and more. Competitions will take place Friday, Feb. 10, with the winners honored at a luncheon on Saturday, Feb. 11.

Informational sessions and a media fair also will be held on Friday. Experts in news, photography, social media, public relations, interpersonal communications, sports, radio and politics will share their advice and experience with convention participants.

An awards banquet is planned Friday night, during which the winners of the annual SEJC "Best of the South" contest  will be recognized. WUTM campus radio and three Pacer staff members will receive awards.

A special session is planned for 9:30 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 11, in Watkins Auditorium of the UC. In keeping with the convention theme of "Countdown 2012: Crisis Journalism in the Year of Prophecy," a panel of students from the University of Alabama student newspaper, The Crimson-White, will discuss how they coped with and covered the EF4 tornado that ravaged Tuscaloosa on April 27, 2011.

The convention is being primarily sponsored by the UTM Office of Student Publications, WUTM FM 90.3 "The Hawk," and the Department of Communications.

UTM student media have been members of SEJC for nearly 15 years, and have won numerous SEJC awards in the past decade.

SEJC is composed of schools from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and North Carolina. This is the 26th annual SEJC convention, and the first time UTM has been the convention host. The 2013 convention is set for Union University in Jackson, with Florida A&M as the 2014 host.