Eighty-four stations responded to a September, 2010 station-to-school interaction survey. This survey was distributed to over 200 university, college, school district, and state agency licensees of public radio stations.
Station – School/Department Involvement
51.1% responded that their stations are involved with their licensees’ communications schools/departments. 38% said their stations work with the licensees’ journalism schools/departments. 36.9% responded their stations are associated other academic schools/departments ranging from media arts to theater. 21.4% indicated their stations are not involved with any schools or departments.
51.8% responded that their stations are involved with schools/departments in informal/ad hoc projects. 45.7% are associated with schools/departments in collaborative formalized projects. 21.6% of the involvement with schools/departments ranged from student workers and internships to courses taught by stations’ staff members. 18% responded that there were no projects that link with schools/departments.
Student Involvement at Stations
83.1% of stations responding offer unpaid student internships. 67.4% offer paid student work study. 54.2% provide practicums for credit. 32.5% have paid student internships. 14.4 % offer “other” options for students, including volunteering, hired employment, and paid part-time positions. 3.6% of stations have no student involvement.
Regarding working on the air and/or with station websites, 91.5% state that students are supervised by station professional staff and 12.0% by school faculty. 4.8% responded “other”. Comments included, “Since the student station began operation, we have not had any student interest,” and “They may be a student, we don’t care. They must be qualified and professional.” No stations allow unsupervised students to work on the website and/or on the air.
Station Staff Teaching
As to station staff involvement in teaching courses, 59.0% said staff do not teach classes, 21.6% responded that staff teach on-site, and 16.8% indicated that staff teach off-site. 9.6% offered comments like “…supplement faculty instruction,” “Not a formal program at the station, but we do have relationships,” to “occasionally courses are taught and station staff are paid for it.”
Joint Fundraising Activities
85.5% (71 stations) are not involved with joint fundraising activities with licensees’ schools/departments. 8.4% have common fundraising activities for capital needs, and 6.0% have cooperative fundraising activities for programming needs. 3.6% responded “other” which included comments like “joint grant proposal,” to “There are two separate University Foundation accounts: one for the Department of Radio-TV and one for the public radio station. Never the twain shall meet.”
6.0% (five stations) have had fundraising activity goals of $50,001 to $250,000.
4.8% (four stations) have fundraising activity goals of $1,000 to $50,000.
Three stations (1.2%) had goals of $250,001 – $500,000, $500,001 – $1 million, and $1 million plus.
Joint Fundraising Appeal
To the question of “How appealing is a joint fundraising effort involving the station and the journalism/communications school/department?” 65.5% said a joint fundraising effort has no effect to strongly detracts from donor appeal. 33.2% said a joint effort moderately to strongly enhances the donor appeal. 1% (one station) had no response.
Sharing Space
65.4% said they do not share space and 29.7% share space with a school/department.