ACE Spectrum
ACE Spectrum
Ace Spectrum is about you — the ACE Learning Centers.
It’s a quick sharing of ideas, inspiration, opinions and best practices among our continuing education organizations.
Please join the conversation.
Audio Academy Honors, Outreach and Partnerships Help Build KALW Audience
By Guest Blogger Ben Trefny, News Director, KALW Public Radio
It’s been a few weeks since I shared what’s been going on at KALW, so let’s get started!
Honors
Angela Johnston (’14), Jasmin Lopez (’14), and Leila Day accept awards from the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists.
As I noted in an earlier blog post, several people associated with our Audio Academy were recently recognized for their work by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. On Tuesday, November 10, we got to celebrate. Audio Academy graduate and current mentor Angela Johnston (’14) was named “Emerging Journalist of the Year” for excellence shown in her first five years of work. A story called the problem with ‘sounding white’ by mentors Jen Chien and Leila Day received the award for “Best Commentary/Analysis.” And Jasmin Lopez (’14), who went on to work for the nationally syndicated show Making Contact, won “Best Radio Feature” for Deadly Divide: Migrant death on the border. Congratulations!
Outreach
In mid-November, I traveled to Dayton, Ohio, to visit the Kettering Foundation and sit at a roundtable with journalistic leaders from around the country along with community reporters to talk about how we can more effectively bring the voices of real people into the media. Much of our two-day conversation had to do with the Voices program launched by the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. I also had the chance to discuss the Audio Academy, generally with the big group and in more detail with several individuals, and we were roundly applauded for the work we do to train a diverse cohort of community members and help their authentic voices get heard by larger audiences. I’ll be following up over coming months with the executive director of the Maynard Institute, Evelyn Hsu, along with media specialists from Kettering.
Listenership
Back home, we’ve been partnering with other media organizations from around the Bay Area with the idea of getting great content before the eyes and ears of larger audiences.
A story considering how homeless women deal with their periods by Liz Pfeffer (’14) was featured on the San Francisco Chronicle‘s website, resulting in thousands of additional online reads and listens.
A series of stories by mentors Leila, Angela, Audrey Dilling and Liza Veale (’15) about people displaced from San Francisco’s Mission District was picked up by Mission Local, again dramatically building our audience.
This has had a really significant impact on our listenership – our latest numbers show that the number of clicks of Crosscurrents stories at KALW.org have more than doubled, on average, over this time last year, and as we build more partnerships, they’re trending upward.
Trainees
Several of our summer trainees have continued contributing to our show with meaningful stories.
Lezak Shallat and Emma Nobel partnered to create a story about why so many more men than women bike in urban areas.
Catherine Girardeau made a very useful, and funny, story about finding ways to save water around the house.
Jessica Placzek created a sound-rich profile of a post office in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District.
And Berenice Freedome interviewed students from Oakland International High School (another group supported by ACE) as part of this really fun, and timely, story about the power of emojis.
Also, our current Audio Academy class had work reach the air, last week, when Geraldine Ah-Sue and Shereen Adel teamed up to present this deeply moving Storycorps piece about how a friendship between immigrants endured through distance and time.
(Clockwise from left) Audio Academy membersTruc Nguyen, Geraldine Ah-Sue, Shereen Adel, mentor Audrey Dilling, Eli Wirtschafter, engineer James Rowlands, Ian Lewis, Tammy Drummond, Edwin Okong’o, and Luisa Cardoza gathered for a listening sesson at the Oakland Tribune.
One of the most wonderful things about this Audio Academy class is the way they’ve come together, on several occasions, as a group. The way our program is structured, members are paired up for in-studio shifts one day a week, distributed throughout the week, and so there are not too many opportunities to interact with classmates. But our current bunch clearly has a social bent, and they’ve found ways to get together many times. In November, the entire class met up at the offices of the Oakland Tribune for a listening session to hang out and hear what they’ve each been working on. What fun!
To close this week, here are some brief thoughts from my mentee, Edwin Okong’o:
Edwin Okong’o, Audio Academy (‘16)
Audio Academy member Edwin Kong’o.
I have have studied news gathering, writing, and editing up to the graduate level. But the Audio Academy is the first time I have felt treated like an adult. At Crosscurrents I feel like a student, but also like an expert. They are as eager to learn from me as I am from them.
Alpha Parent Center Teachers Share Some Results of Their Learning Center
By Guest Blogger Sergio Carreon and Other Alpha Parent Center Teachers
At the end of the Quarter 1 celebration, students proudly show their diplomas awarded by Senator Jim Beall.
As an instructor, I feel fortunate to witness how parents acquire such an important tool, which is education. They constantly attend class, always motivated and willing to learn something new. Being an instructor at Alpha Parent Center has inspired me to provide meaningful lessons that will empower my students. Thank you ACE for your support.
Here’s what other Alpha Parent Center instructors have to say:
Merary Lopez
I feel great satisfaction helping students learn how to speak English and
On Technology Day, students created their email accounts and sent emails to one another.
seeing how they dramatically improve their reading, writing, and speaking skills in English. I am extremely grateful for the experiences I have had as an ESL instructor at Alpha Parent Center. I definitely would not trade those experiences for anything. Thank you very much for your support!
Ignacio Morales
Teaching at Alpha Parent Center has been an extraordinary experience. Students who never had the opportunity to learn how read and or write back in their countries are becoming an example for their families and the whole community. They are also becoming aware of how important it is to obtain an education.
Thank you ACE for supporting us to create a strong community. By helping these students to reach their goals, you are also impacting students’ families.
Eva Cruz
As a final project, students created a visual for their family tree presentation. This project was very meaningful to the students because their entire family was involved in the creation of their visuals.
Being part of the Alpha Parent Center community makes me feel committed and happy about contributing to its improvement. Helping parents to become educated to better protect, guide, and support their children is a way to invest in the future of our community.
Thanks ACE for opening the door of education to our parents and for providing a brighter future for our parent community.
Martha Sessums
On behalf of ACE, we are honored to be a part of this special Learning Center that is making a difference in the community. Thank you Alpha Parent Center!
Positive Role Modeling Makes San Francisco International High School Alumni Mentoring through SPAN Program a Success
By Guest Blogger Amanda Chui, SPAN Program and Senior Seminar Coordinator, San Francisco International High School
This is the second year San Francisco International High School (SFIHS) is running Alumni Mentoring through the SPAN program.
Coach Carlos (back row, second from right) with some of his runners and mentees.
The great power of alumni mentoring is that the mentors recently overcame many of the same challenges as their mentees. Overseeing the mentor program, I am incredibly proud of the work that our mentors are doing and the command and initiative they take to ensure that their mentees are successfully progressing.
One of our mentors, Carlos, has spread his wings and talent by supporting the school community in every way possible. Carlos is an SFIHS Class of 2014 graduate. He is currently attending SFSU, and this is his second year mentoring at SFIHS.
Carlos – SPAN scholar, coach and alumni mentor.
Our students look up to him as a strong and positive male role model, and his mentees have found inspiration in him to keep working toward their goals. Carlos is a definitely a growing community leader, and we are lucky to have him return to the community he is from.