Angelica Sanchez, a reporter for Fox6 News in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, says she’s grateful for the opportunity to tell the stories of her Midwest television and online news market audience.
As she puts it succinctly, “I love what I do.”
Indeed, by the measurement of any alumni office, Sanchez is a success.
A few months after graduating from Columbia College Chicago, Sanchez landed her first job as a reporter for the Fox station in Champaign, Illinois. At that station, she covered high profile visits of former Vice President Joe Biden in 2015 and President Barack Obama in 2016 to Springfield, Illinois. In Milwaukee, she continues to report on breaking news and other key issues.
But as a teacher and researcher, I was interested in a different measurement – the long-term impact of a Columbia College service-learning course upon Sanchez. Specifically, I wanted to learn in what ways, if any, my 2014 service-learning course had affected her career.
To determine the impact of that course, I developed a questionnaire for Sanchez to complete as part of a pilot case study. I believe it’s important to study this issue because service-learning courses have the potential to strengthen learning outcomes across academic disciplines. Also, there is a dearth of research about the long-term impact of service learning on journalism students.
In service-learning courses, students work on projects in local communities that apply their classroom learning. Students produce critical reflection papers or engage in other reflection activities to analyze their experiences.
