The NASW Education Committee is again sponsoring its annual mentoring program at the AAAS meeting in Boston, February 14-18, and we need at least 30 volunteers to act as mentors. We match veteran writers with students in graduate science writing programs or undergrads who have displayed a serious interest in science journalism. We've had a lot of interest so far from students across the country!
If you would like to help, please fill out the form below, noting your availability at the AAAS meeting and your background, and we'll assign a student to you before the meeting starts. Then, all mentors and students who can make it will gather for an orientation session at the AAAS meeting on Friday, Feb. 15, at 4 p.m. If you can't make that gathering, simply contact your student in advance and arrange when to meet.
Mentors have traditionally had their students shadow them for day or half-day, showing them how they select talks and press conferences for coverage. But your involvement is totally up to you; if you prefer, you can have lunch or breakfast together and be available for questions throughout the meeting, or find some other way to help. We welcome staff journalists, PIOs, and freelance writers — careers of all stripes are useful as models for the students.
Many former "mentees" are now regular mentors because they found the program so inspiring. Please help NASW continue this valuable tradition.
We endeavor to match areas of interest as closely as possible. We'll make our pairings about one week prior to AAAS.
— Jeff Grabmeier and Rob Irion, Education Committee co-chairs
This brief form that will help us match you with a new science writer with similar interests to your own. Just copy it and paste it into a new email, fill it out and email it to mentor@nasw.org.
YES! I'LL BE A MENTOR!!
Name: _________________________________
Affiliation: _________________________________
Phone: _________________________________
Email: _________________________________
Website: _________________________________
My preferred days to mentor are: ___Fri ___Sat ___Sun
Current position and responsibilities:
Science field(s) of particular interest:
Will you be filing stories from the annual meeting or working media conferences?
Briefly, my background is (include educational training, a summary of positions held, etc.):
Have you been a mentor before? If so, when?
Please return your form to mentor@nasw.org. Thank you!
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