Responsible for over 140 campers, students from the William Allen White School of Journalism work as residential assistants for Jayhawk Media Workshop, overseeing campers safety in the dorms and during their trips back and forth from the dorms.

Although it’s a majority of their job description, supervising students is not their only responsibility; the RAs, like Allie Fischer, are also expected to be a resource to get an idea of college life and a resource to answer questions about the KU experience.

“I didn’t even know this existed when I was in high school, so coming here I was like, ‘This is so cool. I would have loved it,’’’ Fischer said. “It’s really cool that I get to share, not only like my journalism knowledge with these high school women, but just like my life knowledge.”

Working with the RAs closely in coordinating the activities and keeping an eye on Self Hall, dorm director Tucker Love said that he has grown to have a lot of trust in and rely on when managing the campers even though the RAs are only college students.

“They’re super engaging with you all as students,” Love said. “That they are responsive and on top of the game with responding to things and being willing to step up.”

Since this is his first year as dorm director for JMW, Love said he was surprised to see a different side of student journalists from both the RAs who take on so much responsibility and the campers who seem so engaged.

“I love the camps that I’ve been to, but this is one that feels this experience has just felt like the group of students here is really, really passionate and want to learn and want to get something out of us,” Love said. “That’s been a refreshing experience for me as a journalism teacher, I don’t feel like I’ve seen this passion in a workshop setting in a while.”

Monitoring the students and seeing them work on their own projects, residential assistant Noorah Abdeljawad said talking to the younger student journalists has been inspiring. Looking back, Abdeljawad said she’s grateful she took the opportunity to be a part of growing “the next generation of journalists.”

“I love to grow the journalism school, because I am a student at the journalism school,” Abdeljawad said. “So seeing all of that happen—seeing you guys take those opportunities—and run with them is really exciting to see.”