NSPA welcomes The Syracusan to the Hall of Fame
For nearly thirty years, the National Scholastic Press Association has recognized the outstanding achievement of student publications with the Hall of Fame. Student publications are inducted into the NSPA Hall of Fame if they earn 10 All-American ratings from our publication critique service within an 11-year span. The critique is a comprehensive, written evaluation of a student publication given by professional journalists, experienced media advisers and other professionals who serve on NSPA’s distinguished board of judges.
This spring, NSPA inducted three exceptional student publications into the Hall of Fame:
- The Syracusan (Yearbook), Syracuse (Kansas) High School
- Crag (Yearbook), Turner Ashby High School, Bridgewater, Virginia
- The Broadview (Newspaper), Convent of the Sacred Heart High School, San Francisco
These publications exhibited excellence in a broad range of categories including coverage, writing, design, and more.
NSPA contacted Rhonda Levens, adviser of Hall of Fame inductee The Syracusan of Syracuse (Kansas) High School for a Q&A. Levens has advised yearbook staffs for nearly 20 years, and has been at Syracuse High School since 2000.
NSPA: Tell us a little about the yearbook program at Syracuse High School.
Rhonda Levens: There is no basic journalism or intro class required to be on the staff. It’s the luck of the draw on who signs up, and I’ve been lucky to have such talented, hard-working students over the past 16 years. Students and their parents sign a contract concerning expectations, deadlines, and responsibilities.
They are required to be at the school a week after school is out to finish the last deadline, and sometimes on the weekends to meet a deadline. I currently have 11 staff members, with only three returning with experience.
Students learn every aspect of yearbook in a very short time frame. They master photography and photo editing in Photoshop, designing pages in InDesign, sell ads to businesses and seniors, interviewing and writing copy for their pages, as well as making corrections on paper proofs. The staff also works through theme, design, ladder diagrams as a group. There are no specialized staffers except for the editors, who complete their own pages, in addition to helping, fixing and critiquing others pages. It’s a team process!
NSPA: What have you done to ensure the success of the Syracusan for so many years?
RL: I think students who take yearbook understand that the book is a historical document of Syracuse schools for that year and they want to make the yearbook better than the previous year. They are open to trying new and trendy ideas out in the book.
Staffers understand I expect only the best and that every page in the book needs to be of the highest quality, something they will be proud of now and in 20 years.
The first thing the students master is photography. They learn about lighting, composition, action and reaction. They know how to set their cameras: ISO, shutter speed, white balance. Any time that I shoot an event, it’s for back-up purposes. Then we get on the iMacs and they learn lots of ways to correct photos: red-eye, blemishes, tone, and sharpen.
We strive to have interesting and captivating photos in our book. The last aspect is designing. The staffers work very hard on creating modules that tell many different aspects for the DPS. They do an outstanding job!
NSPA: What have been some challenges you and your staffs have had to overcome throughout the years?
RL: I’ve had a couple years of having a very small staff — only six to eight students—, which meant that those kids had a lot of pages to complete on a very tight deadline. But they always got it done on time and usually with a smile.
We did switch publishing companies a couple years ago and the students had to learn the ins and outs of InDesign, since there wasn’t a specialized toolbar to help them. They learned so quickly!
We’ve been very fortunate that the administrators and Board of Education have always supportive of the yearbook program by purchasing computers, software, printers or cameras that we need to produce our book.
NSPA: What does being inducted into the NSPA Hall of Fame mean to you and your staffs?
RL: Being inducted into the Hall of Fame is one of the highest honors in journalism! We feel very honored to be part of a small group of schools that demonstrate journalistic excellence.
It was a goal that I set for myself and my staffs when I become the adviser at Syracuse. I have been blessed to work with so many amazing students and it is their hard work that’s been passed down through each book that is reflected in this award. When I sent texts out to previous staffers, they were so excited to know they were a part of Syracuse yearbook history.
New Hall of Fame inductions are made twice per year and are honored at our JEA/NSPA High School Journalism Conventions. See the full list of NSPA All-American Hall of Fame inductees here. The other two spring Hall of Fame inductees are featured in other posts.