montanajournalism Awards, Events, Student

How I almost missed the plane that could take me to my first big break in journalism…

(Recent UM J School grad Madelyn Beck is on her way to the national finals of the Hearst Journalism Awards.  Here’s an update on her travels to the San Francisco event.  She shows true journalistic ingenuity as she overcomes obstacles at the airport.)

 There’s a point in every great journey, just after taking off, when any sane person looks around and thinks: “What the hell have I done?”

Breaking into a cold sweat, the realization comes that you’re too far to go back. For me, it came shortly after the plane took off from the Bozeman airport.

The day had started with a bang after I nearly missed my first flight. Apparently, printing a boarding pass for Alaskan Airlines is actually impossible within 45 minutes of boarding time. It’s not like I over-slept. If anything I under-slept as I got up at 3 a.m. after tossing and turning most of the night as the drunk people upstairs kept pumping music and arguing over dumb things.

In my ignorance, I had merely decided to let my sister sleep until 5:15 before forcing her to drive me to the airport for my 6:10 a.m. flight.

One woman from the United Airlines told me that since I missed the time limits and hadn’t checked my large bag, I was out of options and would have to wait. I asked if there was anything at all I could do. Anything. At all. She said no, and if it was with her airlines, she’d make me wait. So, I fought the man and ran upstairs to security.

Once upstairs, I pulled some technological magic. I used my phone to take a picture of a PDF of the ticket I had saved on my laptop’s desktop. Then, using my phone’s picture of the barcode, I was somehow able to scan in.

But what about the massive bag? Well, luck and kindness helped there. I threw out my shampoo and conditioner, acted really panicked, and they just let it slide (though I did end up having to pay a checking fee at the gate…it was a really big bag).

And then the plane took off, and I was faced with the fact that I was going to San Francisco by myself to compete as a radio broadcaster for a possible $5000 prize. All the stupid mistakes I had ever made popped into my head and I thought: “Man, why am I here? These guys who are rooting for me are going to be so disappointed when I fail. I couldn’t even make it to the airport on time!”

But, once I actually got into the city and had to work out the subway system and the hotel room and finding food completely on my own, I realized that I had as good a chance as anyone else. And hey, if nothing else, it’s a free trip to San Francisco.

montanajournalism Feature, J-School, Student

Foreign Flavors: Mealtime in Vietnam

I stopped mid-bite and put down my chopstick.

“You’re eating rat?!” I stared at the meat-eating table next to me.

For the past week our group of 13 UM students had been sitting at segregated tables during lunch—vegetarians and non-vegetarians. In the past five days, the vegetarian table had almost doubled, swelling from five to nine. It was our final week in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam, day 21 out of 24 of our course with UM’s climate change studies program. Our palates had been tested to the max.

Since landing in Ho Chi Minh City on Dec. 28th, 2014, all manner of dishes had graced my plate. So far, I had eaten catfish-head soup at a shrimp farmer’s house—when I dipped the ladle into the steaming pot, I came up with a severed head with eyes, whiskers, teeth and all. I had taken a huge bite out of what I thought was a sweet pastry, only to come away with a mouthful of preserved egg swathed in bean paste. Pregnant shrimp and egg-laden crabs had passed across my tongue. Spicy peppers had left my mouth singed and eyes watering for hours

Many of the dishes were actually quite good—if I could forget what I was eating. But that didn’t always work out. The mental image that I was eating crab eggs superseded the fact that they reminded me of scrambled eggs, both in texture and taste. And having a fish stare back at me didn’t exactly boost my appetite. Meal time was always an adventure. It was as if those meals represented a microcosm of my entire trip: uncomfortable, foreign, yet surprisingly good.

Now, at the table next to me, another adventure awaited: a plate of whole-roasted rats. The claws were still there. The whiskers were still there. The eyes were still there. They had not been gutted, just skinned and skewered. These rats were a local attraction. The open-air terrace where we were eating was deep within Tram Chim National Park, a wetland preserve near the border of Cambodia. In order to attract more Vietnamese tourists, the park administers were developing new ecotourism opportunities. Visitors could spend a day with a rice farmer, they could go fishing, or, as of this year, they could hunt mice and rats in the fields nearby.

Judging by the size of the rats on the table next to me, rodent hunting looked exhilarating. Naturally, I wanted to see what rat tasted like—and I was in a prime position. As a member of the vegetarian table, I could snag a bite of rat and duck back to my table, without any obligation to finish the creature.

I leaned over, “Can I try just a bite?”

The meat table generously passed over one of the roasted creatures. I grasped at a piece of the rat’s muscular leg. My chopsticks slipped on the greasy meat. I finally tore off a bite-sized piece and popped it in my mouth.

The flavors of fried chicken and intense grease exploded in my mouth. Like so many of my experiences in Vietnam, I was pleasantly taken aback, my horizons forever expanded. Rat was delicious.

Journalism graduate student Shanti Johnson spent the winter session in Vietnam, conducting research for her master’s project while taking two courses with UM’s Climate Change Studies department. She will be returning to the Mekong Delta later this year to finish reporting.

– Shanti Johnson

montanajournalism Dean Abramson, J-School, Student

Inside/Outside

As a reporter, I covered higher education for years.  I always felt like I was peering through smoky glass at a strange world.  That world seemed hidebound by rules from another era, encased in proud traditions that made little sense.  Now that I’m inside the ivory tower, the tables are turned, somewhat.

As a reporter, one of my pet peeves was the low success rate at many colleges and universities.  At many schools, only 10 percent of students can be expected to graduate.  I found this fact a shocking waste of talent and money for students, for hard-pressed families, and for the governments that fronted the money for these half-finished degrees.  I pushed administrators hard to explain why they could not improve those numbers.  Many shrugged their shoulders and said, they could only do so much, that student’s lives and lack of preparation simply get in the way of their studies.

Now, I’m a college administrator.   Our university is facing a decline in enrollment, thanks in large part to demographics we cannot control.  At the same time, the state is pressuring us to improve outcomes, just the sort of thing this reporter wanted to see.  But to this college administrator, that laudable goal seems a lot further away.  We know the easiest way to ensure that more students stay in school and graduate is to raise our standards, and recruit students who are better prepared.  Doing that, however, might cut our enrollment, because many students would not have the grades qualify.   So we’d get more money for retention numbers, but then lose it on enrollment.  It turns out, there are only so many ways to squeeze the balloon before it pops.

This is an old story—reporter gets a real job, and learns life ain’t as simple as he thought.  But that doesn’t meant those questions I used to ask were unfair or off base.  Now, it’s my job to help fix the problem, no matter how hard it is.  And I hope some reporter is out there staring at the numbers and putting pressure on people in higher ed—including me—to do a better job.

Dean Larry Abramson