About - History
ThreeSixty Journalism serves more than 400 high school students each year from throughout Minnesota via after-school classes, weekend workshops, career fairs, teacher training, coaching and the intense summer journalism camp. Over the past five years, more than 30 graduates of the summer workshop have entered college journalism programs. Six are working in newsrooms across the country. Many have earned journalism scholarships and awards and work as interns in professional newsrooms and as college newspaper editors.
The program was originally called the Urban Journalism Workshop when founded at the University of Minnesota in 1971. UJW provided basic journalism training to Minnesota high school students, particularly low-income and minority students who are interested in journalism careers. UJW was part of a nationwide effort to increase the presence of minorities in newsrooms in order to better reflect and serve increasingly diverse communities. From the beginning, the program was a collaborative effort by the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the Star Tribune, which supplied funding and volunteer staff and published students’ articles. Twin Cities’ television stations also contributed funds and volunteers.
Until moving to the University of St. Thomas in 2001, UJW’s work was limited to a two-week summer camp funded by local media companies and staffed by newsroom volunteers. With the help of grants from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Star Tribune Foundation, in 2002 the program was able to hire a full-time director to develop year-round programming and outreach. The University of St. Thomas contributes funding, in-kind support and training by the journalism faculty to support the program. It also offers a full-tuition, four-year scholarship each year for one high school senior who completed the journalism workshop.
In 2006, the program’s name changed to ThreeSixty to reflect it programmatic and geographic growth. We are interested in telling stories from all parts of our community, using a variety of media tools.
Widening the Circle Award
The Widening the Circle award is given annually to honor individuals
who have made extraordinary contributions to the next generation of
journalists. Past winners are:
2006
Dave Nimmer, emeritus journalism professor at University of St. Thomas
2007
Denise Johnson, Star Tribune editorial writer and UJW alumna
2008
Neal Justin, television critic for the Star Tribune
2009
Stanley S. Hubbard, chairman and CEO of Hubbard Broadcasting,
and Ruben Rosario, columnist, St. Paul Pioneer Press
ThreeSixty Journalism timeline
1971
The Urban Journalism Workshop, a two-week residential summer camp for teens, is created by the Minneapolis Star Tribune and St. Paul Pioneer Press in response to the small number of minorities in newsrooms and to criticism of the media’s performance during the urban unrest of the 1960s.
2001
Program moves to the University of St. Thomas with foundation support to create a year-round program. Pioneer Press political editor Lynda McDonnell is hired as executive director.
2003
The first ThreeSixty scholars — Laura Lee and Hlee Lee — are awarded four-year, full-tuition scholarships to study journalism at the University of St Thomas. By 2009, Hlee is an assistant producer at TPT-TV and Laura is a production assistant at KSTP-TV.
2006
Program name changes to ThreeSixty to reflect the use of multiple media to tell stories from varied vantage points. First annual Widening the Circle award is given to David Nimmer to honor extraordinary contributions to the next generation of journalists.
2007
ThreeSixty launches a monthly online magazine produced by an editorial board of teens. A summer day camp is added to the residential camp.
2009
After-school journalism classes are launched at the Star Tribune and Pioneer Press. ThreeSixty alumni are working in newsrooms in Virginia, Arkansas and Minnesota.
