Alicia Merrifield, CJE

Alicia Merrifield is a YERD [yearbook nerd] through and through! She teaches at The Village School, a private PK2-12 grade school in Houston. There she advises The Viking Press (online news), The Viking Yearbook (middle school and high school) and photojournalism. She brought a yearbook club of 10 to the ever-growing Viking Media program that Village School has now. Alicia is the TAJE Private School Liaison, a member of the JEA Mentoring Committee and a JEA Critique Judge.

What is your approach to recruiting students for your journalism program?

I feel we have a decent ongoing “advertising” campaign. We are in a premium spot on campus, and we make sure that people see us having fun. The room is inviting and a place kids just love to come hang out.

We not only build relationships with our staff, but the staff builds relationships with adults on campus. We hand write thank you cards for everything, we do faculty pumpkin patch photos and Santa photos, volunteer at events like Trunk or Treat and are visible at as many athletic events that we can get to.

We have built a great relationship with our marketing/admissions team, and we are always on their tours.

How do you go about making sure you recruit diverse students to make sure your program reflects your community?

With the strong diversity we have on campus, this actually is pretty organic. Where our diversity is lacking is gender. We are very heavy females with low males on staff.

How has recruiting improved your program?

As I said in my bio… we went from a yearbook club of 10 to a thriving program that includes both middle school and high school yearbook, online news, photojournalism and next year we will be adding a Digital Marketing team.

What challenges have you faced in recruiting students for your program?

While we are allowed to have an application process, the counseling team will see space in the roster and put kids in, not understanding that that actually is just as much a detriment to some of the kids as to our program.

What is your best piece of recruiting advice for other advisers?

Be visible! Everywhere!