Prior to starting my junior year, I had landed a part-time job working at a radio station in Clovis. I thought this would help my status in the Radio/TV Department.
Dr. B, who had been the backbone of the Radio/TV Department for more than a decade, left for another school. Dr. B had been my faculty advisor, so this meant I was going to have to deal with someone new. He was replaced by Dr. E. I believe Dr. E was from India. I didn't really get to know him very well. I only met with him once during the Fall semester to figure out my classes for the Spring semester.
In the fall, I took the Audio Production class. It was taught by Dr. G, who had taught my Beginning TV Production class the year before. A few class sessions in, she took the class into the radio production studio. However, she told some of us more experienced students to go into the main FM studio and the staff would show us some more advanced stuff. Since I was working part-time at the radio station in Clovis, that qualified me as "more experienced." After the class, she told the four of us that we were too advanced for the class and she wanted to set us aside in an unofficial "Advanced Audio Production" class. We would have to do five audio projects, which were to be aired on the FM NPR station. We would only have to show up on class on Mondays, when she would be lecturing. We would spend the other two class sessions working on our projects.
For my projects, I did a series titled "Backstage," which focused on the productions put on by the Theatre department. In addition to the two mainstage productions that semester, I did shows on a senior's recital and the Evening of One Acts. I thought they turned out very well and I enjoyed actually doing a series. Everyone else did one-off projects that weren't connected to each other.
So, all and all, it was a decent, but not groundbreaking semester. Even though the radio station I worked at changed owners and format and became the talk of Portales and Clovis, I still was not well regarded in the department.
I had signed up for the Advanced TV Production class for the Spring semester. Dr. E was teaching it. In Beginning TV Production, we learned how to use the equipment in the studio. I knew that students in the advanced class learned how to use the field equipment. I was looking forward to this. However, on the first day of the class, Dr. E spelled out what was going to take place during the class. He said there was going to be a lot of lectures and discussion of theory in television production. For our final project, we would produce a five minute news magazine-type segment, which would include an in-studio interview and film footage. I was stunned. This was not the class I was expecting. We were not going to learn how to use the field equipment. I did not feel like I was going to get the experience I needed to work in the television industry. I was strongly considering dropping the class.
Two days later, Dr. E did not show up for class. Dr. G was there instead and announced that Dr. E had left his position the day before and wouldn't be returning to teach at ENMU. She then asked about his plans for the class and if we had any comments. I spoke up right away and told her that I thought the class would be about creating projects with the field equipment. Everyone else chimed in that this was what they also wanted. Dr. G agreed to this lesson plan. Since she had to pick up a lot of his classes, she agreed that we would meet in class once a week and spend the rest of the time working on our projects.
During my sophomore year, the faculty announced that students in the department would only be allowed to take four Broadcast Workshops in their degree plans. They were having a problem with too many students signing up for the workshops and not enought space to place them. This ticked me off at the time because I felt like I had wasted one of my workshops on TV Ops during my freshman year and that I hadn't really learned much of anything in the TV Newscast.
I took the request to heart and did not sign up for any Broadcast Workshops during the 1984 Spring semester or the 1984 Fall semester since I only had one left. I really felt like I was losing ground. However, I noticed that all the other students did not abide by the request. They still kept taking the workshops and there were no repercussions.
I decided to use up my "last" workshop in the FM News department during the Spring 1985 semester. I had to go through an audition. The News Director, Ms. K, who was a graudate student, went ahead and approved me. She told me that one of the things I needed to do was read the paper on a daily basis.
Everything was fine the first few weeks. I came in twice a week, two hours a day. I was learning the ropes, how to write news stories and conduct interviews to get soundbites. We were about to get to the point where I was going to do live news announcements. However, there was a change in command. A Radio/TV student, who had graduated in December 1984, came back to ENMU to work a full time position in the FM News department. After he graduated, he had gotten a job with the station KRSY in Roswell doing the news, but he was only there a couple of months before he quit. I think they were making him sell advertising while he was out covering stories. I don't think he was Ms. K's boss, but it was definitely a two-boss situation.
For some reason, he didn't approve of anything I did. And this carried over to Ms. K, who actually seemed to like me before. I think the main problem was that I was only in the program as part of the Broadcast Workshop. One of the things the advisors told us was that, under no circumstances, were we to work more than four hours a week in our workshops. I guess there were liability issues. So, a problem would arise when I hit my two-hour mark. There was always work that needed to be done and they only seemed to have those assignments available when I was about to leave. In addition, if I came to the station early to read the Albuquerque Journal before my shift started, they would express disbelief that I wasn't helping out right away. I think Mr. S and Ms. K were used to students who were on work-study gladly volunteering to stay extra and help out. I was not on work-study. (In a future post, I will go into detail about issues with the Radio/TV department's work-study program.) Pretty soon, all I was doing was filing stories away and they would send me home early. I didn't get to write any more stories and I didn't get to announce.
Once, I came in and they weren't around. I took initiative and called out and got an interview for a story. They came back and I told him I had done the interview. Without really looking at me, he replied, "That's great, can you file these stories?" A few days later, he asked about that story. I told him that I had previously informed him that I had conducted the interview and handed the tape to him. I also added that he basically ignored me. He said I should have tried harder to communicate with him.
I got a D for the Workshop. I got the grade during the summer and called up Ms. K. She told me I got that grade because it seemed like everything they told me went in one ear and out the other. I told her that they weren't letting me do anything. She also told me I didn't try hard enough to do more. At this point, I realized I had wasted another Broadcast Workshop.
So, yeah. My junior year in Radio/TV was pretty terrible. However, I was able to scavenge something out of it. Twenty years later, I was living in San Jose and looking to get back into radio. The local newsradio station had a part-time position available. I knew that my actual experience at ENMU wouldn't really qualify me for the position. However, I also knew that the person doing the hiring wouldn't be able to verify anything, so I lied on my resume. I put down that I wrote the stories, conducted the interviews and announced the news. Only the third part was an actual lie. (However, I did announce wire copy while at the college AM station.)
I actually got that job and it turned full-time within six months. In 2009, I was contacted by ENMU regarding its upcoming Alumni Directory. I was told that I could write an essay explaining what I had been up to. I used that opportunity to gripe about the way I was treated in FM News and bragged about how I was working in the 10th largest city in the United States. However, before it got published, I was laid off from my full-time position and shafted back to part-time doing overnights on the weekends. I suddenly remembered the essay and was able to change it before the deadline. It was not quite as harsh, but I still still able to make a few jabs.
I know that Ms. K went on to work for some women's academic foundation in its PR department in Albuquerque, but I'm not able to find anything solid that she has done lately. As for Mr. S, I was aware that five years ago, he was working in the academic world teaching college journalism. At first, I thought that he never really had a job in the real world, but I recently found out I was wrong. He did work for three news outlets in New Mexico, including at KOB-TV in Albuquerque. However, each position only lasted about a year. He has spent way more time working in academia. I should also add that he got a doctorate in education.
But I still don't feel like either one ever accomplished what I was able to. It's too bad I never got to rub it in their faces.
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