January 9, 2012
Mr. Steve Taylor
Nominating Committee
Distinguished Service to Journalism Award
Society of Professional Journalists
Greetings:
Please consider this communication a nomination of Ms. Carol Y. Dudley for recipient of the chapter’s 2012 Distinguished Service to Journalism Award.
Ms. Dudley is coordinator of the office of career development in the
During her decades of service at Howard, Ms. Dudley She has served as mentor, coach, advisor and enforcer for scores of communications students who have graduated from Howard and gone on to pursue careers in our field of work. In the process, she has almost single-handedly taken a small college jobs fair at Howard and over the years turned it into one of the nation’s major career conferences. Today, on the strength of her dedication and persistence, dozens of recruiters converge on its campus each fall for a career conference that draws drawing hundreds of job seekers — students to early career professionals– to the school’s Northwest D.C. campus from as far as Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri
Ms. Dudley’s work has provided employers an opportunity to consistently feed their talent pipeline and students an opportunity to learn face-to-face what potential employers have to offer and are demanding of future employees. Her year-after-year success is legendary.
Here are a few observations for other colleagues that mirror what many have to say about Ms. Dudley:
From: Jeanne Fox Alston, vice president, Newspaper of American Foundation:
“I first met Carol Dudley more than 20 years ago when I began recruiting college students for summer internships at The Washington Post. I was aware of the annual Howard job and career fair at the
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January 9, 2012
“Overall, I was impressed by the number of students that attended the job fair each year as well as the quality of the students. As I got to know Carol better, I realized that she coordinated this massive event herself each year with scant assistance and resources. But Carol’s legacy extends beyond the job fair. She is responsible for numerous students of color finding internships and jobs in print, broadcast, advertising and public relations. All of our news organizations would be less diverse, and do a poorer job of covering our multicultural communities, if not for Carol’s efforts all these years.”
Phil Dixon, a former editor at the Philadelpha Inquirer and recently retired head of Howard’s journalism department, had these comments:
“She raises her own money – does whatever it takes to put on the job fair.
“She delivers a lot of tough love. She makes sure that students redo their resume or their appearance so they’ll be successful in interviews. As a result, she inspires confidence in students. She also does a masterful job of staying in touch with people in the industry. She serves as a clearing house, has a list serv. She connects the best qualified students with opportunities. The alumni stay in touch with her for years.
“We have a lot of prospective students and parents who come through to kick the tires and consider applying. She gives them her number and then calls to follow up. She also finds students to take them around campus. She is a tremendous advocate for Howard.“
I can easily provide you more testaments to the merits of Carol Y. Dudley and will, if you request. For now, however, please consider her for this honor. It would be most appropriate and warmly received by your colleagues.
Respectfully yours,
Reginald Stuart
President
SDXDC Foundation
My Direct Number is 301.879.0085
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