OSMI 2017

The Oklahoma Scholastic Media Initiative (OSMI) is a grant program funded by the the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation. This grant provides monetary support to secondary school journalism programs across Oklahoma. Established in 2007 by a grant written by Kathryn Jensen-White, former director of Oklahoma Scholastic Media at Gaylord College, the grant was first written to support new media publications of any kind (or improve them), but in 2009 the grant switched focus to online publications.

In 2013 current OSM director Melanie Wilderman inherited this program. For 2017, the OSMI grants provided funds between $3,000 – $7,000 each to 15 schools to start or improve an online media publication, and those 15 teachers will receive training in online media subjects June 20-23 at a workshop housed in the Gaylord College. Their experiences and multimedia projects will be posted on this site throughout the training.

Workshop content includes general guidelines specific to creation of online publications as well as refreshers on more common topics in journalism education (writing, interviewing, photography, etc.). The grant program covers all costs of the workshop.

As soon as the applications for 2018 are available they will be posted here and at osm-oipa.org.

Contact Melanie Wilderman with any questions at 405-325-2453 or mgwilderman@ou.edu.

Melanie Wilderman is the director of Oklahoma Scholastic Media Initiative and heads up Oklahoma Scholastic Media housed in the Gaylord College. She is an assistant professor of journalism at Gaylord College, and also served at a past director and current instructor for Oklahoma Institute for Diversity in Journalism, a summer grant program for high school journalism students.

Contact Wilderman about any of these programs at mgwilderman@ou.edu or call 405-325-2453.