The Scroll

I don’t know how the other five Catholic universities that hosted the Opus Prize Foundation awards did, but I can’t imagine that any one pulled it off with more spirit, sensitivity and sentiment than the University of St. Thomas Wednesday evening.

St. Thomas hosted the 6th annual awards ceremony to honor the work of three social entrepreneurs around the world – unsung heroes who are working to solve society’s most vexing and persistent problems. The winner, Aicha Ech Channa of Morocco, received $1 million and the other two, Sister Valeriana Garcia-Martin of Columbia and Father Hans Stapel of Brazil, each received $100,000.

The crowd at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis was large and enthusiastic; people got to their feet for a half-dozen standing ovations.

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Posted by Dave Nimmer at 01:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In less than two weeks, St. Thomas will play host to a very big deal: the Opus Prize Foundation and the awarding of $1.2 million to three social entrepreneurs from Brazil, Colombia and Morocco. The winner will get $1 million in a ceremony Wednesday, Nov. 4, at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis.

Other schools that have hosted the foundation include Marquette, the University of San Francisco, Notre Dame and Catholic University. So it’s an honor for St. Thomas to be chosen by Opus as a partner in recognizing unsung heroes who deal with society’s most persistent social problems.

What I don’t want you to forget is a campus organization that also is dealing with a persistent social problem: the lack of people of color working in newsrooms, public relations and ad agencies across the country. Trying to raise those numbers is the goal of ThreeSixty, the fledgling non-profit that’s been at St. Thomas since 2001. Its annual fundraiser comes two days after the Opus event – Friday evening, Nov. 6, in Binz Refectory.

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Posted by Dave Nimmer at 08:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I am trying to be a modern media consumer: reading blogs, checking e-mails, browsing websites, seeking links and checking “tommiemedia.com” – daily. The student website looks good, particularly when student journalists climb on a story quickly and smartly.

They did exactly that on a couple of breaking stories recently. The first was a lockdown at St. Paul College after a student reported seeing a man with a gun. It happened late in the morning, and at 12:55 p.m., tommiemedia.com posted the story. The other example of perseverance and awareness is the updating of the cases of H1N1 flu on campus; Brent Fischer reported that the number doubled in a week. The 90-second video updates look crisp and clean, but they’ll be more interesting when the students roll in video to go with the pictures.

So, I am trying to get with the new media flow. But this past week also has been an opportunity to revel in slow-and-old television – with Ken Burns’ documentary, “The National Parks: American’s Best Idea.”

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She was there in front of me, maybe four or five years old, when I walked out of the adobe shack with the tin roof in the middle of a slum in Casablanca, Morocco. She was wearing a pink, floral-print dress, stained with dirt.

She was too thin. But her brown eyes sparkled and a broad smile creased her face. We just stared at each other, neither saying a word.

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Posted by Dave Nimmer at 08:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I say it every year in the middle of our ThreeSixty Journalism Workshop at St. Thomas (concluding last Friday) for high school students who come here to try their hand at reporting, writing, photographing, editing and designing:

I’m getting too old for this stuff. It’s like trying to herd cats.

“Nim, No one’s calling me back.”

“I don’t how to get started with this story.”

“Nim, I didn’t know the sound wasn’t on.”

“No, I didn’t get his last name. Do I need it?

“Nim, I think I left the tripod at Lake Harriet.”

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Posted by Dave Nimmer at 07:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

With the class of 2009 graduating on May 23, I’m curious about what the graduates took with them – lessons, experiences, insights – as they encounter these challenging times in the “real” world.

What I recall when I left the University of Wisconsin was that I wouldn’t have to struggle through a poem whose meaning eluded me, nor would I be expected to stick my hand in the air to answer a question about the required reading, at least not at 8:30 on a Monday morning.

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Posted by Dave Nimmer at 01:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In the past two weeks, I’ve heard a few squeals of protest from former Aquin editors lamenting the planned disappearance of the hard-copy newspaper – this Friday’s edition will be the final one – in favor of the “all-digital student media convergence” at TommieMedia.com beginning this fall.

They argue that a newspaper distributed around campus attracts readers not likely to go to a specific website and provides a permanent record, holding student reporters accountable for the stories they write.

I am as traditional a journalist (and news consumer) as you can find. I spent 26 years chasing news stories. I can’t imagine eating breakfast without a copy of a newspaper in front of me. And I don’t want to think about taking a computer screen into the john.

But I am also a realist and, my friends, this train has left the station. The ship has sailed. Web-based journalism is here to stay and the evidence mounts daily, from Seattle to Denver to the Twin Cities.

»Read more of "A fond – but necessary – farewell to The Aquin"

Posted by Dave Nimmer at 10:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)

For almost 40 years, between 25 and 65, I rarely read a poem – except perhaps a verse or two I came across in The New Yorker. I’m not proud of that; in fact, I’m a little chagrined, but my life was busy with chasing stories, teaching classes, managing calendars and, well, feeling important.

So when I stood on the patio of the O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library Center on Tuesday in the noon sun and read a poem by Mary Rose O’Reilley, I was kind of proud of myself. It was all part of Poetry on the Patio, first held at UST in 1997 as part of National Poetry Month. Eleven of us read favorite poems, from William Wordsworth to Ogden Nash.

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Jim Shoop, a former newspaper colleague and fishing buddy, and I were at breakfast the other day, sipping coffee and eating a heart-healthy bagel with low-fat cream cheese. We talked about whether our shrinking retirement annuities would last as long as we will.

The only thing scarier, we agreed, is to be a graduating college senior, with a load of debt, trying to find a job – particularly in a newsroom. That’s probably already dawned on the 1,000 St. Thomas seniors set to graduate in little more than a month.

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Posted by Dave Nimmer at 09:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Go to enough award ceremonies and you can get pretty blasé about the awards and the people who get them. I have a good reason to be jaundiced, given my background in broadcast news, where the local Emmys have an award category for everything but cleanliness of the newsroom.

That’s why St. Thomas Day (March 7) stands out as a refreshing moment of clarity and candor: The awards – and 2009’s were no exception – mean something and the people who get them deserve them. I know because I get to do video profiles about their lives and times.

»Read more of "St. Thomas Day winners leave one inspired"

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Somewhere in the middle of the rain storm last week. I got to thinking that maybe spring isn’t far away. The thought of people unbundling, ice melting and robins returning made me almost giddy.

But I know when spring officially begins its entrance: Steve Trost starts roto-tilling his campus flower beds. Trost is my harbinger of spring and has been for 18 years, ever since I saw him on his hands and knees planting geraniums. Put it this way: His face wasn’t the first part of Trost I saw.

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Watching the inauguration of President Barack Obama Tuesday in Scooter’s – packed with students, staff and faculty – I couldn’t help recalling my experience 48 years ago in Madison, Wis., when John F. Kennedy swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States, so help him God.

The moment was more poignant and powerful today, and the St. Thomas family seemed to grasp its historic nature – a half dozen times they broke into applause – as they listened to the new president call for an end “to petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.”

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Posted by Dave Nimmer at 06:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

The prospect of a new year generally prompts some reflection upon the passing one and a wish list for the one to come. Over the years, my reflections have been more generous than grumpy and my wishes more modest than magnificent.

The year 2009 is likely to be challenging for governments, companies, families . . . and universities: Make do with less. Plan ahead. Get used to sacrifice. Learn to live with uncertainty.

With these admonitions in mind, I harbor a few hopes and homespun notions for St. Thomas in the year ahead.

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With Christmas just two weeks away, I am reminded that I’ve never been lucky in receiving or giving Christmas gifts. I get something I don’t need or want and turn around and do the same for a friend.

But two years ago, I gave the perfect Christmas gift. I bought it on the spur of the moment at a convenience store. It was not wrapped. Most of it was hazardous to health. The rest of it would disappear in a couple of days. But I never felt better about a gift, and I would be repaid – in full.

The recipient was Betty, a welfare mother and sometimes crack cocaine user who died three months ago – one month after her 50th birthday. She’d been homeless. She’d been helpless (suffering from bone cancer). Some would call her hapless.

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Two-dollar-a-gallon gasoline and a new Honda Civic prompted me to hit the road last month to see an old friend in southwest Oklahoma. Something about a trip alone in a car, rolling down that ribbon of highway, listening to your music, tends to bring a little perspective on people, politics and passages.

»Read more of "Oklahoma road trip provides perspective on people, politics, passages . . . and home"

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When I was teaching, I loved having students in my reporting class who reacted to the world around them with a sense of urgency and intensity: Let’s do it, and do it now.

No wonder, then, that the Aquin made me smile last week. The editors, reporters and advisers were up as late as 3 a.m. Wednesday, preparing a print edition that had to go to press at 9 a.m. and an online edition that was posted by 11 a.m., less than 15 hours after the last votes were counted.

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Posted by Dave Nimmer at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

When my retired journalist friends and I get together, especially in light of the stock market collapse, we yearn for the “old days” and grouse and grumble about the “younger” generation: They won’t know how to sacrifice. They can’t deal with hardship. They don’t work as hard as we did.

Maybe we should invite St. Thomas senior Chris Hansen to our next coffee klatch – that is, if he can find the time to join us.

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Posted by Dave Nimmer at 01:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The election is three weeks away and I would like to see the level of passion and pique among St. Thomas students ratchet up – dramatically. If you can’t get excited over the presidential and U.S. Senate races this year, you’ll have trouble fogging up a drinking glass.

What I’m missing on campus is some rambunctious rhetoric over the noon hour in The Grill, with an arm-waving, table-pounding intensity that only the self righteous can muster.

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Posted by Dave Nimmer at 10:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Fall means football and, although it’s early, the 2008 brand at St. Thomas has a new dimension: Intensity.

Describing St. Thomas Coach Glenn Caruso as intense is akin to calling Bill Clinton loquacious. I met Caruso months ago when the snow was still on the ground. Within five minutes, he’d shaken my hand, told me he loved being at St. Thomas and gave me the names of the two high schools in my home town of Fond du Lac, Wis.

»Read more of "A football coach and the importance of passion"

Posted by Dave Nimmer at 08:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When I was teaching at St. Thomas, an old newspaper colleague - then the college relations director at Carleton - would regularly give me a not-so-gentle shot about how much smarter he thought the Carls (students) were than the Tommies.

I’d counter that while Carleton students were congratulating themselves about how smart they were 10 years after graduation, my Tommie students were out in the world kicking butt and taking names – trying to make the Republic a little better.

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Posted by Dave Nimmer at 07:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)

The first week of class in the fall never fails to provoke a vivid memory of my initiation as a fledgling journalism professor at St. Thomas. I’d left my job as a reporter at WCCO-TV in 1989 to come here, knowing I wanted to be a teacher and suspecting I had a lot to learn.

»Read more of "Teaching Each Other"

Posted by Dave Nimmer at 09:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)