Taylor students participating in the NYC Semester in Journalism

Three students from Taylor University are in New York City this semester where they are taking part in a unique program that allows them to learn from some of journalism's best-known practitioners and work in professional settings.

The students—Cassidy Grom, Annabelle Blair and Danielle Barnes—are all journalism majors and are part of a 15-member cohort that makes up this fall’s NYC Semester in Journalism (NYCJ). The overall group comes from 11 different universities. They arrived in August.

The semester-long program is operated by the McCandlish Phillips Journalism Institute at The King’s College in NYC. There, the students are taking three classes that include capstone courses with Professor Terry Mattingly, a syndicated religion columnist, and Professor Paul Glader, a former staff writer at The Wall Street Journal. Under the guidance of Professor Clemente Lisi (former deputy head of news at The New York Daily News), they also work 20 hours per week in a newsroom in NYC, earning six academic credits and pursuing at least one byline per week for their portfolios.

“I am most excited to learn from the professors here who have a vast amount of experience in the industry,” said Cassidy Grom one of the Taylor students attending the program. “I'm working at the [New York] Daily News and it is exciting to take what I am learning in classes and apply it here.”

Additionally, Blair is interning at The Times Ledger in Queens, while Barnes is working for DNA Info.

“I am very familiar and have previously worked with the Kings College New York City Journalism semester program, sending journalism students there,” said Dr. Alan Blanchard, Taylor Associate Professor of Journalism. “Some of my former students found the experience to be rewarding and stretching both professionally and spiritually. Two of the key instructors, Paul Glader, director of the program, and Terry Mattingly are committed Christian men with outstanding professional journalism experience. Glader is a former Wall Street Journal reporter who continues to do extensive freelance reporting for national newspapers and magazines. Mattingly is a nationally syndicated religion columnist published in hundreds of newspapers across the country. Each student participating in the NYC Journalism semester program experiences life in New York City, challenging academic courses and a media internship in the media capital of the world.”