Woo-hoo! SJSU is (back) in the house!

Just moments ago, SJSU PJ Department head Dr. D. Michael Cheers, and this summers fellow at National Geographic, sent me an e-mail that our project, formerly under wraps, had a new national backer. National Geographic.

He asked me to pass the word, so, here we go: National Geographic has joined The San Jose Mercury News as the national and local partners, respectively, for a series of summer multimedia workshops over the next couple years.

From Cheers' e-mail:

National Geographic Magazine just agreed to be the national media partner on the three-year round the world student documentary multimedia expedition! That means that they will supply us with a photographer or editor for one week during the summer school course(s)....for the next three years beginning summer 2008.

Each year a select group of students and professionals will travel abroad and spend a week to two weeks producing stories employing every form of media under the sun.

Excited? You should be.

More details and formal applications will be coming soon, but if you really want to know more about it, ask us in person at the west coast stop of this years NPPA Flying Short course.

We've been working on it behind the scenes for a while and couldn't really talk about it, but with the last issue of News Photographer, the cat was out of the bag, San Jose State University will be hosting the last leg of the one of NPPA's biggest events.

Oct 27, mark your calenders now! (If you have suggestions or ideas for things to do/ pitfalls to avoid, let me know. Please!)

In a couple weeks SJSU will also host Gordon Parks: Crossroads, a traveling exhibit of the late master's work.

A personal source of inspiration in my early development, I've long turned to his pictures, films and writing for that extra oomph when needed.

On display will be his work from Life magazine, personal projects and there are plans for a screening of "Shaft", his cop drama that introduced the blacksploitation sub-genre.

And if you think all we're doing is scoring events and putting on workshops, think again.

Of course Daniel, Lauren, Hanna, Fang, Felix, and Jordan (who am I forgetting?!) have or are just about ending their summer internships, but that's not all, the internship love continues as San Jose State University students continue to make new strides in the fall.

Lawrence has something cooking, Diana is in the midst of something big, Neal is going to Russia and Germany, and Kyle Hansen just scored himself the dream job with Rob Curley and company at Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive. (Yes, that Rob Curley.)

I was also up for it to for a while, I think I went through two, maybe three, rounds of interviews before I got the sad news (but it's cool, Curley still answers my calls).

I know what Kyle will be up to, having talked to so many people, but they always told me we can't talk about it (there's a lot of fear that other papers will catch wind of it), so all I'll say is, it's really really awesome, a lot simpler and useful then you might think, the thing that will prove newspapers will never die and I'm very very VERY jealous.

Kudos Kyle, it's going to be a great four months.

As for me, I've got a few things cooking, but more about that in another post, this one isn't about me.

Evening update: Well it appears the early bird gets the worm. I had started writing this post just before I forwarded Dr. Cheers' e-mail with the National Geographic news to the rest of the SJSU PJ crew, but had to cut and run when pre-internship errands proved more pressing. Well it looks like where I dropped the ball, Daniel and Ryan picked it up, I not so sure about the headline however... I almost doesn't make sense to post the same thing again, but well... I already started the post so... meh.