UChicago Careers in Journalism, Arts and Media will host an inaugural daylong event featuring opportunities for UChicago students to interact with prominent practitioners on Friday, Oct. 24, from noon to 7 p.m. at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts.
Called JAMfest, the event will include panels and workshops on evolving outlooks in journalism, the arts and media, and how students aspiring to careers in those fields can best pursue them. It also will feature UChicago students who have successfully completed one of UCIJAM’s 185 internships, apprenticeships or independent projects since the program’s inception a year ago. Students can register here.
“This is a chance to convene community around mutually shared interests,” said Ben Waltzer, the Klingensmith Program Director of UCIJAM, who organized the event. “UCIJAM is a kind of engine of connection.”
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One of the day’s highlights is a panel discussion led by WGN-Channel 9 news anchor Robert Jordan, who in September was named UChicago’s first journalist-in-residence. The panel will focus on how to find jobs in print and broadcast media and is the first in a series of four workshops Jordan will lead this academic year. “We are thrilled to have Robert Jordan join us,” Waltzer said. “His residency will provide students the opportunity to interact with a veteran figure in Chicago journalism.”
Other JAMfest presenters include New York Times columnist and author Samuel G. Freedman; Brooklyn-based sculptor Simone Leigh; poet, journalist and author Ted Genoways; director of the Chicago Film Office Richard Moskal; and others.
A reception featuring student presentations and performances will follow the panels at 5:30 p.m. in the Logan Center’s Performance Penthouse. Waltzer, a pianist, journalist and former assistant director of the jazz performance program at Columbia University, will perform Chicago-themed pieces with Chicago trumpeter Marquis Hill.
JAMfest is co-sponsored by the Logan Center for the Arts, UChicago Arts, the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture, the Committee on Creative Writing, the Department of Visual Arts, the Department of Cinema and Media Studies, The Point magazine and UChicago Athletics.
—Prof. Jacqueline Stewart