Allison Bennett Dyche
Appalachian State University
Why do you wish to serve on the CMBAM Board of Directors?
I would love to serve on the CMBAM Board of Directors because the organization is so important to student media operations and I would like to help spread that message. CMBAM is a key organization to helping student media operations of all sizes and types stay afloat and in business, and I believe we need to spread that message further. I first joined CMBAM when I was advising at Appalachian State back in 2014 or 2015, and I found the organization and the conference incredibly helpful to our operations. I continued the membership when I was advising at Virginia Commonwealth University, and recently rejoined again at Appalachian State.
Coming from the editorial side of the industry, I’ve had to learn everything about the business operations side on my own, and I found CMBAM and its members to be key to my education and success as a business adviser. I’m not alone in having to serve as both the editorial and business adviser, and I believe so many advisers simply don’t know about CMBAM or don’t know what the organization can offer to them, their students and their organizations.
I served on the CMA (College Media Advisers) board of directors for four years, in one of the Vice President roles. What I experienced there is that so many advisers need so much more help when it comes to the business side of their operations. CMBAM is so unique and there’s no other organization out there like it, and this is a need that I know CMBAM can easily fill. I would love the opportunity to help CMBAM grow and reach more people who really need the resources that the organization offers.
What do you hope to accomplish during your term if elected for your selected position?
If elected, I would like to build upon the success of Julie Salter and continue to find ways to celebrate and recognize the members of CMBAM. I love that CMBAM’s competition is expansive enough to include work created by non-newspaper outlets, with categories like Best Audio Ad or Underwriting Spot and Best Video or Underwriting Spot. I would like to poll student media outlets to find out if there are other award categories that should be considered in the future, to further expand CMBAM’s reach and to ensure it is serving student media organizations of all types. I would also like to look at categories in competitions entered by collegiate student media outlets — like ACP, CMA, SPJ, BEA, CBI and others — to see if there are any potential awards we could consider starting for CMBAM.
I would also like to find other ways to recognize members throughout the year, and to further support our membership. Perhaps something similar to the Meet a Member Monday initiative, but asking members to share good news, small wins, and the like. And then those can be promoted through the listserv, as well as on CMBAM social media and the website.
Creating a calendar of competitions relevant to CMBAM advisers would also be helpful. There are so many competitions out there that collegiate student media work may be entered into, that having a calendar of deadlines for these national competitions could be incredibly helpful for advisers and students alike to submit their work for more accolades.
I also want to say that I absolutely LOVE that the list of past winners on the CMBAM website also includes some of the winning entries from student media outlets. Having those examples available online is so incredibly helpful as a resource for student media outlets that are looking to improve their operations. I would love to build upon that and include other winning entries to be linked on the website in the future, as it’s so important for training students to see the successes from their counterparts at other institutions.
