A shout-out to the sleepy at MSCNE

The country’s foremost college editor training program is going on this week at the University of Georgia. Sixty-four top editors from 30 states are spending all day in classes at the Management Seminar for College News Editors. And judging from the #mscne12 Twitter hashtag, they’re spending most of the night hanging out.

Which brings me to a fond MSCNE memory.

When I arrived as the new media adviser at Georgia Perimeter College in fall 2009, the one and only student working to revive the student newspaper was Nathan Guest. Nathan had attended MSCNE09. At some point, Nathan said a student at MSCNE had brought a copy of a book about news design. “It’s amazing,” Nathan said. The MSCNE crowd was so covetous of it that the owner wouldn’t let anyone take it out of his sight. And that’s how I learned that students love “The Newspaper Designer’s Handbook” by Tim Harrower. Nathan and I got a copy and learned from it, and we brought Tim to Atlanta the following year for a seminar to kick-start big improvements in our design.

So three cheers for the sleep-deprived students in Athens. Take good notes all day — and all night — and share it all when you get home.