Caleb Wilkerson is like any student at a typical university, juggling ten hours of classes, a job and extracurricular involvement.
One thing that sets this journalism graduate student apart from his fellow grad students – Wilkerson represents at least 1,500 students around the nation as a student representative in the National Association of Black Journalists.
“It feels good to be a leader and to represent the students and their needs in this business,” he said. “I get to talk about lots of issues in a student’s perspective.”
Wilkerson said NABJ is a group for any ethnicity geared toward networking and promoting diversity in newsrooms on a regional and national level.
He said one way he insures this is by getting businesses to hire NABJ members for internships and full-time jobs during and after college. Wilkerson said that just being involved with the organization brings exposure and connections to journalists.
“NABJ has ten regions, so there’s already so many different journalist involved,” he said. “I speak with vice presidents [of businesses] and editors-in-chief almost every day.”
Part of Wilkerson’s duty as a board member includes working with members and finding internships for them, he said. As a representative of one of the largest journalism organizations for African Americans, Wilkerson said giving members opportunities to work in media is an important aspect of his job.
NABJ also is involved with other minority journalism organizations, such as the National Association of Asian American Journalists and the National Association of Native American Journalists, Wilkerson said.
He said those groups get together every four years at a “Unity Conference” to discuss issues related to journalism and media.
Katrina Matthews, an NABJ member, said she is very proud to have Wilkerson represent students for the organization and the University.
“Some of the other students on the board have been from very prestigious colleges,” Matthews said. “I’m really excited to see him get LSU students involved in NABJ and in Baton Rouge to get connected with people in the [journalism] business.”
In her experience, the organization has let her take advantage of a list-serve to get in touch with young black journalists to talk about issues important to journalism, especially for blacks and minorities, she said.
As the only board member elected from the University and Louisiana, Matthews said she thinks Wilkerson is dedicated and will help students get representation in the organization.
Collins Phillips III, a speech communications junior, said having Wilkerson represent students in NABJ is monumental.
He said NABJ has shown him that there are many black professional in the media, as he came in contact with as many as 30,000 professionals at the last conference.
“With Caleb being in NABJ, hopefully he can seek out blacks in the Manship School [of Mass Communication] and get them with people,” Phillips said. “It’s not about what you know, it’s who you know.”