Feature Story: Camp Crimson: Is It Too Structured?

            In recent years Camp Crimson has overhauled their program and made a variety of improvements. These improvements have resulted in the student recommendation rating rising from 88.5% to 94.3%.

A campers mother, Michelle Cameron, even said “...going to camp allowed [my daughter] to get a preview of what she was going to be getting into once she was a freshman in college. She had a head start on where her classes were going to be held as well as the financial aid office, the health center, and the Union.”

But with these improvements to the activities campers have come to want more free time rather than activities.

            Garrett Vascil, a past camper, says “we kept having all these planned activities and all I wanted to do was hang out with the people I was meeting and get to know them better.”

Incoming freshman and future Camp Crimson participant Caitlyn Kayser says “the thing I am looking forward to most is meeting new people.”

            So this raises the question, is Camp Crimson too structured with the various activities, and should there be more free time for students to hang out with the people they meet?

            A large majority of incoming freshmen are nervous and feel uncomfortable within their new surroundings so icebreakers do have their place. According to past small group leader Bryan Johnson “the ice breakers help to ease tension in the beginning and help everyone to open up but eventually everyone does get tired of doing them.”

            Kayser says “she expects to have social activities and games” at Camp Crimson “but hopes that there is more than that so she can make deeper connections with the people she meets”.

            Is there a way to balance getting incoming freshman enough information about the campus and the various traditions, and to allow them the space they want to be able to make new friends?

According to Camp Crimson’s website, ou.edu/campcrimson, “Camp Crimson is OU's premier orientation camp for new Sooners. It is a three day/two night crash course on what it means to be a Sooner and how to succeed at OU. You'll get a jump start on your time here at OU by meeting other campers, student leaders, faculty and staff, and participating in a lot of fun activities designed to prepare and launch you into your time as a student at OU.”

Every summer Camp Crimson is attended by the vast majority of incoming University of Oklahoma freshman. These incoming freshmen, like Kayser, are hoping to make friends more than anything else, but Camp Crimson is intended to allow students to be introduced to the campus, the traditions, the dorms, and most importantly the students they would get to know in the coming years.

According to the numbers, Camp Crimson has been doing a great job at all these aspects including meeting other campers but students want more. They want to connect with more future classmates and on a deeper level.

The majority of a camper’s time is spent within their small group. While this group does allow them to interact with others, it does not create bonds outside of this very small group of students.

Students are unable to establish friendships with those outside their small group because they do not see those people for the majority of their day. Vascil says “I would meet people in other small groups but wouldn’t become good friends because I rarely saw them”.

Johnson says “I hope that since small group leaders are signing up now that they will have good ideas on how to make Camp Crimson an even better experience than the one that they had.”

Johnson’s stance may be the best possible solution. How better to fix a problem than to turn to the people who understand the issues and the relationships at stake. 

Camp Crimson has improved overall since it was started and it will continue to grow and adapt to the needs it must fill. One can only hope that this problem will be solved as soon as possible. It would benefit campers, as well as Camp Crimson, to have a first experience that guarantees a great four years to come. 

Difficult with writing in Journalistic Style

The difficulties I run into when writing in journalistic style, in comparison to academic style, occur mostly in my wording. I write sentences with a lot more fluff and wording in my academic writing than I should do in journalistic writing. I also put a lot more emphasis on what words I use in journalistic writing than I do in academic. I run into problems because I use words such as which and that interchangeably and according to AP style that is wrong. This has caused me to focus a lot more on the individual words as well as content not just the content of my papers.

250- word Media Website Writing

UNITY Journalist of Color, Inc. is an advocate for accurate news coverage about people of color.  Started in 1994 by two rival journalists in Philadelphia. Juan Gonzalez and Will Sutton, members of National Association of Hispanic Journalists and National Association of Black Journalists respectively, were the two behind the idea of forming and organization to represent all journalist of color. They have challenged the journalism industry to staff their organizations with diversity employees at all levels to match the diverseness of our nation. It is their belief that to achieve the journalist obligation to complete a fair, and representative picture of the communities and world we live in, we must have diversity in the newsroom and in coverage. Their website, www.unityjournalists.org, says, “ We envision a nation in which newsrooms are inclusive and reflect the communities they cover, and where people of color hold positions of influence.” Some of their goals are to raise awareness and participation, to increase representation of people of color, to increase and broaden news coverage focusing on people of color, to become recognized as the principal national alliance of journals and to crate a self-sustaining organization. UNITY, as outlined in its goals, is important because they are striving to allow not only journalist of color but also anyone of color involved with the journalism process to gain jobs in the field. On their website journalist can find stories about journalist of color and many diverse media stories. These stories could help journalist to see common things that these diverse groups are sensitive toward and how to avoid doing the same.

Sensitivity and Respect for Those of Different Cultures and Communities.

When writing for different culture and communities one may run in to many different challenges. I have the most difficulty realizing what may offend someone even if it doesn’t offend me. Being a middle class white American male, I fall into a category that doesn’t have many hot button issues. Thusly it is hard for me to realize when I am being disrespectful to others even though I may not take it as disrespectful. I need to try to be more conscience of what topic may be sensitive to some particular ethic groups or cultures. If I am able to do this than I should be able to avoid offending any audience members.

Rachel Bryn Wilson Character Sketch

Ryan Kitchens

Interview

Rachel Bryn Wilson is a nineteen-year-old Sophomore At the university of Oklahoma.  Rachel recently switched her major from Engineering to Professional Writing.

Rachel was a home-schooled student in her hometown of Dallas. Her mom, who was a nurse, did the majority of the teaching but once a week she would attend a co-op. Co-op is a program where home school parents get together and teaching classes they specialize in. For example Rachel’s mom taught biology, and anatomy.

Rachel enjoys writing for its expression and emotion. Rachel has written a few horror stories based on online prompts she has found. She says she enjoys trying to convey the emotions and tensions of a horror story to the audience through words. She said writing comes easy to her until the editing portion, at that point she begins to question her words and “which one she loves the most.”

Outside of her major she enjoys being a part of the anime club. Her favorite anime is Shohe, which she compared to a Japanese version of “Dr. Who” or “Blade Runner”. She informed me that anime can come in many different forms such as comics, DVDs, and TV shows.

She also enjoys art, in particular painting and drawing.  She prefers to do portraits because they are so personal with the person you are drawing.

Rachel is an all-around artistic person from her writing to her art. The difficultly of capturing emotions is something she finds to be very interesting and enjoyable.

High School Grammar, Spelling, and Punctuation

My high school education centered on passing the TAKs test. The TAKs is an exam in Texas that judges how much a student learned throughout the year. Thusly, teachers began to teach strictly to passing the exam.  The writing section is all about writing to fulfill the prompt. This caused students at my high school to be taught more about structuring their writing rather than grammar, spelling, and punctuation. I am the worst at grammar. This is primarily due to the fact that they’re a so many different nuances in the English language. Before this class I had not realized how many mistakes I had been making. 

Overview of JMC 2033

Writing for mass media is a course that provides students with an overview of the various mass media fields. The class is provided through the Gaylord College of Mass Communication which is a facility located on The University of Oklahoma's Norman campus. The university grants students who complete the course three hours of credit. Many students take this course to fulfill requirements for one of Oklahoma's numerous communication degrees. To get into the course students are required to pass a language skills test, or LST. When student go to sign up for the course they will find that the class is divide into a lecture and a lab portion. These portions are taught by separate instructors.
The lecture portion provides students with an arena to be spoken to by the head professor Dr. Steyn. This is also a time where students will take their daily quizzes. These quizzes will be over many topics such as a chapter from one of the class texts or the syllabus. For attendance purposes there is assigned seating in this portion of the course.
The lab portion is used to instill the knowledge taught in lecture further. Since the lecture portion of the class is large and has various time constraints the lab portion will be used for students to ask question. Lab instructors will help student with assignments and with understanding of what was taught in the lecture portion. Some of the assignments done in this lab portion include creating a blog.