SIPF representatives aggressively marketing on college campuses.

If you've been wondering just which constituencies the newly "expanded" Specialized Information Publishers Association is targeting, one answer is the SIPA foundation's efforts to lure college journalism students into the field.

The SIPF's Campus Visit Program aims to correct the perception that newsletters and specialized-information publications are the "neglected stepchild" of the journalism field.

SIPA's director of publications, Harry Baisden, has made presentations at career days and in classrooms at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism; the University of Maryland's Phillip Merrill College of Journalism; West Virginia University (Harry's alma mater); the University of South Carolina; Bowling Green State University in Ohio; Loyola University of New Orleans; Roosevelt University in Chicago; Albright College in Reading, Penn. (one of whose professors offers a newsletter writing and editing class); Florida Memorial College in Miami; and Shippensburg University and Gettysburg College, both in Pennsylvania.

Student interest high

Harry reported about his visit to tiny Gettysburg College, which doesn't even have a mass communications or journalism program: "Here it is, after regular class hours on a nice spring day, and about 16 students showed up to hear me talk about newsletter journalism."

Harry also found that the name Specialized Information Publishers Foundation seems to attract more students.

Contact Harry Baisden if you're interested in inviting him to a college near you. After all, SIPA member or not, we need to nurture the next generation of newsletter reporters and editors--spes gregis, as the Romans called them, "the hope of the flock."

SIPF, 8201 Greensboro Drive, #300, McLean, VA 22102, 703-610-0260, fax [phone], www.sipaonline.com