Virginia State University professor Carol Wilcox works with her student, Patrice Rivers. (Photo courtesy of HBCU Journal)

At the invitation of Brian Henderson, of the Baltimore Sun, I joined the print/online newsroom at the National HBCU Media Conference in Baltimore as its managing editor. With only a week’s notice, I had to pull together a staff, determine the publishing platforms we would use, obtain a server and a domain name, and build a Web site. Doing this from scratch in less than a week is a lot of work.

Let’s just say, I was sleep deprived for several days. But the effort was well worth it.

I, along with a dedicated staff of professionals — Madia Brown, of The Washington Post; Amy Adkins, of washingtonpost.com; Kasey Jones and Bebeto Matthews, of The Associated Press; Gary Kirskey, of Ohio University; Karlayne Parker, Steve Bien-Aime and Laura McClandlish, of The Baltimore Sun; Joe Smith, of WJZ 13; and Will McKinley, a student at Morgan State University, who ran the radio program for us — coached and pushed the young journalists beyond what many of them thought they were capable of.

Cara Anthony, a student at Tennessee University, came back to thank me on the last night of the student newsroom operation. Cara said she found the experience invaluable and learned so much. “I never thought I would be able to produce three articles in less than 48 hours,” Cara said.

Aimena Lipscomb, a student at Morgan State University, landed the hottest news story during the conference. The workers at the hotel we were staying at were protesting by slipping fliers under hotel room doors, urging guests to check out. Aimena approach the topic with lots of trepidation and lots of questions for me and her other mentors, but in the end, she overcame her fears and delivered a solid article.

I asked Aimena to write an essay about her reporting experience. I thought it would help other students who had a fear of writing and reporting understand that they, too, could overcome their fears. This paragraph from Aimena’s essay made my time in the newsroom more than worth it:

Sitting at a roundtable meeting with writers, editors and managing editor Ju-Don Roberts, who saw something in me I didn’t see in myself, I heard the words: “Aimena, we want you to cover the hotel boycott story.” It was the phrase heard ‘round the newsroom.

Aimena and Cara were just two of the talented students I had the pleasure of working with during the conference. I would be remiss in not naming each and every one of them. So I’ll just point to the staff list, so you can see for yourself who the students are.