National Student Electronic Media Conference 2022

November 17th, 2022 by Liz Kosik

---

by Ben Ostrowski ’24

From October 27-30th, the WLOY staff attended the highly anticipated National Student Electronic Media Conference (NSEMC) that took place in Baltimore this year! More than 300 students involved in college radio and TV stations all over the country came together to connect with each other and learn more about the TV and radio industry.

Thursday’s sessions and panels took place with topics ranging from navigating through the post-pandemic world, women’s sports, and how to better engage with your audience. Staff and station advisers also met in roundtable discussions to talk about different ways to improve their respective stations and get feedback from other admins. At the end of the day, all attendees gathered in the Diamond Tavern at the Baltimore Hilton Hotel for the swag swap, where stations traded stickers, t-shirts, tote bags, and every kind of merch you can think of with each other. The staff came back to the station with a whole box of merchandise from stations all over the country!

Panels, sessions, and roundtables continued into Friday, but the fun didn’t end there. While some students stayed behind at the conference center, the conference organizers arranged a tour of the WBAL studios in the morning. Later, in the day students got to visit M&T Bank Stadium for a tour of the broadcasting facilities and the field. Students got to see all the working parts of what goes on behind the scenes at a professional radio station, as well as all the technicalities that go into broadcasting huge live sporting events. Thanks to WLOY and Loyola alumni at M&T Bank Stadium for all the help in setting that up!

Saturday rolled around with a final round of panels and sessions in the morning, and the Baltimore Record Bazaar taking place all day long. Local vendors came by with their collections of CDs, vinyl, cassettes, and other collectibles to sell to attendees who might want to take a souvenir or two back with them. The day concluded with the highly anticipation awards ceremony and the awards were even presented by a WLOY alumna Sheila Watko of NBC10 Philadelphia!

WLOY was proud to have 8 alumni on panels discussing their career pathways, brand marketing, managing mental health, building your personal image and much more. It was a great chance for current and past staff to meet and learn a lot. Thanks to CBI and all the attendees that made this year’s conference such an awesome experience!

---

We grabbed a quick photo after the session with alumni on Friday mixing the current and future alumni together. (Back) Joelle Hernandez*, Jordan Hernandez*, Stephen Vanyo*, Eddie Fine, Matt Weitzel*, Sheila Watko*. (3rd row) Analia Cortez, Tara Howell*, Anna Markulis. (2nd row) Hope Johnson, Aliyah Smith-Bradley, Katie Kazmierski*, Ronnie Grusek. (Front) John Devecka.

* = Alumni as of this post 😉