Por EDUARDO GARCÍA
EL NUEVO SOL

As part of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ board of directors, the NAHJ Student Representative will be the voice of all NAHJ students across the United States, including Puerto Rico. 

This person will be responsible for being aware of student members’ concerns and activities and relay them to the board, as well as advising student members on programming and other courses of action, according to NAHJ.org. Voting starts Sept. 28 and ends Oct. 2. If elected, the candidate will serve a one-year term.

All three candidates running for NAHJ Student Representative voiced their proposals in a virtual meeting Friday evening with NAHJ students about what they will do for them if elected.

Luis Joel Méndez González, Kimberly Cruz and Kate Sequeira opened the floor to each NAHJ student attendee for comments and questions, addressed each concern and created an environment to connect and network.

Here is what each candidate proposed in order of presentation at Friday’s meeting with NAHJ students.

Luis Joel Méndez González called his 18-page proposal “La Meta” to explain each mission and initiative in English and Spanish for NAHJ students. It was created as a result of students answering survey questions (turned in earlier in September) in the past few months. He said he will take action on La Meta (literally translated as “The Goal”) to fight for and benefit all NAHJ students. 

Missions

1. Working together as a team. He said there are about 800 student members, which represent 25% of all NAHJ membership. He said that is a lot of power in the association, but teamwork is needed to accomplish the initiatives.
2. Strengthen communication between all student members. He said that NAHJ needs to communicate more with its student chapters, student members, and professional members. He said that sometimes, the NAHJ board of directors makes decisions that affect them.
3. Have more inclusion and more visibility for all student members. He said he strongly believes everyone needs to be a huge group, no matter if anyone faces language barriers in English or Spanish. He said that at the end of the day, everyone is a journalist. He said everyone needs to use their power and strength in the association.

Initiatives

1. Gonzalez wants to have one regional student representative per NAHJ region. He said each regional student representative’s mission is to keep open communication between the chapters in their region and the NAHJ Student Representative. He said it’s essential to divide the power to expand communication between student members and student representatives. He emphasized that each decision the board of directors makes affects student members.
2. Gonzalez wants to have monthly meetings and open communication with all the NAHJ student chapters’ presidents to listen to their comments, needs, and achievements. He said he needs to listen and understand what is going on in each student chapter. He also wants to organize one meeting per semester with all NAHJ students to network and listen to each one. He believes all student members have the power and the needs to be heard by their NAHJ Student Representative.
3. Gonzalez wants to offer content and opportunities without restrictions in English or Spanish. He wants to remove the language barrier in NAHJ so that all scholarship opportunities are more inclusive for students. 
4. Gonzalez wants to find more funds and scholarship opportunities inside and outside of NAHJ so that more students can attend the annual NAHJ convention. He would also like for student members, no matter if they’re from other student chapters or other associations, the chance to attend the NAHJ convention. He wants more students to attend the convention to network, go to workshops, and more. He said that given the pandemic and the association’s status, he wants to find more funds through new sponsors, crowdsourcing, and more.

Read Gonzalez’s 18-page proposal called “La Meta” here:

https://gofile.io/d/3CPxM2

Be sure to hear him talk about his proposal on YouTube here:

https://youtu.be/VzmEiRhPJdQ

Kimberly Cruz has three goals for NAHJ students:

1. Cruz pledges to be as accessible as possible to all student chapter members. She said she wants to be there for everyone by communicating with chapter presidents and attending meetings with members. She wants to create relationships to have students feel open to ask questions, direct their concerns, or talk about their achievements. As for newly established student chapters, she would like to help them promote NAHJ or even help them get more members to join. She wants to be a resource for all NAHJ students.
2. Cruz wants to ensure that there is transparency between students and the national board. She said the decisions from the board of directors impact students. She wants to make sure there is communication and that the national board knows what the student chapters are doing. She also said it’s essential the board knows to continue supporting the next generation of journalism students with mentorship and things that impact students.
3. Cruz’s goal is to help Latino and Latina students find their voice and own the power their voice brings to the journalism community. She said students’ voices are essential and that their perspectives are needed in the newsroom. She wants all students to feel empowered in any form of journalism, and she wants to support them on their journey. She wants to get rid of the idea of “competition” in journalism and instead support each other and boost relationships. She gave an example where if she and a student are applying for an internship opportunity, she would ask that person how she could help, including reviewing their resume. The support also includes boosting relationships with other NAHJ student chapters by collaborating. She said collaboration can allow the student chapters to know what each other is doing to adapt and grow. She wants to add a monthly newsletter with NAHJ highlighting student chapters and members to allow for collaborations and networking opportunities.

Be sure to hear Cruz talk about her three goals for NAHJ students on Twitter here:

https://twitter.com/kcruznews/status/1309297191043833856?s=20

Kate Sequeira wants to build a pipeline between students and working journalists by having a strong peer support system. She has three initiatives, as part of her platform, for NAHJ students:

1. Building a strong support system
2. Ensuring equal access to opportunities
3. Highlighting student work

First, Sequeira wants to make it easier for NAHJ student chapters and their students to connect. To accomplish this, she wants to create a Slack workplace for students to connect, share internship and career advice, brainstorm story ideas, and circulate each other’s work. She gave an example where if an NAHJ student has an issue at their student media outlet, they can contact another NAHJ student at another media outlet to connect and help each other. She also wants to facilitate more interaction through cross-meetings with NAHJ student chapters. She said cross-meetings allow students to join virtual events to watch a guest speaker, attend a workshop, and build a community. 

Second, Sequeira wants to expand support to students of all levels in their intended careers and ensure equal opportunities for them. One of the ways she would accomplish this is by increasing outreach and support for community college students. She believes these students deserve the same opportunities, workshops, mentorship and resources as university students. She said that she wants equal access for community colleges, state schools and other lead schools to have the same support for internships and programs. The second way is by creating a centralized hub for each organization that’s providing internship or other programs. She said that in the hub would be NAHJ members who would be open for students to message them and ask questions. Lastly, she wants to expand career-based and skill-based workshops to support student interests in reporting, applying to internships, interviewing, career and more. She wants to support and give advice to students.

Third, she wants to highlight students’ work by adding a student spotlight section to the NAHJ newsletter. She wants to highlight the work students have been doing on their own, at their internships, at their media outlets, and more. She wants students’ work to be brought with more attention to other NAHJ members who may not always see the work the students produce. She said Slack could help students seek feedback, share their work and have a support network. 

Be sure to read Sequeira’s platform for NAHJ students on Medium here:

https://medium.com/@katesequeira/building-a-pipeline-kate-sequeiras-platform-for-nahj-student-representative-545f2cb53e50

Earlier this month, NAHJ posted the candidate forum on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Dp8AaGWd458

Get to know all of the candidates’ statements and bios at the NAHJ website here: https://nahj.memberclicks.net/2020Candidates

Per current bylaws of NAHJ, only students with NAHJ membership can vote for a candidate for NAHJ Student Representative in an election. Certain non-student NAHJ members can only vote for candidates running for other board positions.

The recently proposed updates to NAHJ bylaws will be on this year’s NAHJ election ballot. 

The NAHJ elections will end on Oct. 2., and ballots will close at 8:00 p.m. eastern time, according to NAHJ. The results will be announced by 9:00 p.m. eastern time that same day, NAHJ sent in an email.

Check your email used with NAHJ to view your ballot. To vote, you must have already paid your dues by July 30, 2020.