By Kayla Brown, Staff Writer
Susquehanna senior Lauren Gooch is in the process of implementing a new broadcasting and public relations initiative on campus called “Community Connections.”
The program aims to better the relationship between the university and surrounding town and help students broaden their skill sets.
Through this program, students of all majors can become news correspondents in the community. They will write articles, shoot and edit videos, but mostly bridge the gap between students and the community.
Students of all majors, grade levels and experience levels are invited to join as Gooch will provide all the necessary training. She has already held one session for prospective participants and plans to hold more training sessions as people show interest and get in touch with her.
During the training, groups of students will learn how to be a correspondent, including learning how to interview and how to talk to the community members.
Students will then meet individually with Gooch regarding their stories and she will help them practice. Then the students will contact the community members and set up interviews.
Gooch will accompany and guide the students throughout the interviews and she will hold a debriefing session afterwards, before sending the video off for the video students to edit.
Gooch said, “Everyone is benefitting…video students are getting experience…the community is gaining free advertising…it’s also helping us because we can put that in our portfolios and say ‘look at this story that I did.’”
The project began as Gooch’s year-long communications honors project, and ultimately was looking for something that would benefit more than one business.
After months of thinking, Gooch decided on something that had significance to her. In her hometown, Wellsboro, PA, Gooch works for The Homepage Network which shares news and information that impacts the region, according to the website.
Everything the network posts is positive, which allows less conflict, a concept Gooch plans on applying in her own project.
Gooch tried to implement a similar project in her sophomore year. It was a partnership with the Kind Cafe that included t-shirts and a “Be Kind” campaign that never panned out.
During the Fall semester, Gooch worked on surveying the Selinsgrove community and businesses, creating an information packet for them and working on her own example stories.
She completed two stories during the fall semester and will have completed at least one more by the end of this semester as part of the project. During this semester, Gooch has focused her research on information and feedback from the students rather than the businesses.
Gooch hopes that this will count as practicum for any major, but more specifically for public relations majors as it is set on building relationships with the community, while providing advertising.
