NEWS
Expo to help diversify media industry
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by Pedro Oliveira Jr.
Monday, November 5, 2007
A Madison-based advertising company will host a career expo to connect minority students with opportunities in communications careers later this November.
The Ad2 Madison Career Expo will bring together UW, Madison Area Technical College and Edgewood College students of diverse backgrounds to participate in a two-hour event featuring speakers from different sectors of the media industry.
Invited speakers include representatives from television, advertising, public relations, media sales, graphic and web design, media buying and radio.
Milele Chikasa Anana, the publisher of a Madison monthly journal focused on African- American news and social justice issues called Umoja Magazine, will be the keynote speaker. Other confirmed guests include George Johnson, the sports director at WISC-TV, and UW journalism professor Dhavan Shah.
Irving Chung, general manager of Waldbillig & Besteman and the Madison Ad Federation’s diversity committee chair, said the communications industry environment in Madison “lacks a lot of diversity.” As an Asian-American, he said, he’s the only minority working in his agency.
“This program in our committee is trying to encourage and increase diversity in the communication industry, trying to reach out to college students who are near graduation to get a full understanding of some of the career opportunities that are available to them,” Chung said. “Our feeling is that it starts with awareness about what career options they have. Ideally, this program is just the very first of several elements of this program.”
After the career expo later this month, Chung said students will have the opportunity to participate in a job-shadowing program followed by internship openings for spring and summer 2008 in Madison media companies.
“We’re going to find a diversity of positions within the communications field,” Chung said. “There are various positions in ad agencies — art directors, copywriters, account managers, television sales and radio sales.”
Amir Zaman, public relations director at WEA Trust, a company that provides insurance and financial services to public school employees and families, said it is important to create events like the Ad2 Madison Career Expo because Madison’s students of color “don’t know enough about opportunities in the communications field.”
Other event sponsors include Ad2 Madison, the Madison Advertising Federation, SupraNet Communications, WEA Trust, Keva Sports Center and Mid-West Family Broadcasting.
Brian Lee, communications specialist at Putnam Roby Communications and a UW alumnus, will be one of the guest speakers presenting on public relations.
“When I was in the J-School, there weren’t many other ethnic minorities, so hopefully this will be the first step in changing that,” Lee said in an e-mail to The Badger Herald.
The career expo is free and will take place at the Fluno Center, 601 University Ave., at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 14.
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