Cover Letter for KZSC Advisor Position

I'm writing to apply for the job of KZSC advisor. With my passions, experience and skills, I think I would be a great fit for the job.

I've worked in and around since I started on my college radio station, WEOS FM, as a freshman. I've hosted and produced shows and I've been a nationally-published radio columnist.

I had the radio bug from the time I was young. I'm one of the rare breed who love the medium and always have. But I didn't choose it as a full time profession.

Instead I focused on journalism and teaching, both of which gave me skills I would bring to UCSC.

I've been a reporter and editor for three decades and a teacher for half that time. I worked at the Santa Cruz Mercury News for 22 years and was a radio writer for much of it. I studied the industry and wrote columns critiquing it. During that time I got to know many people at all levels of the business and appeared on media outlets from Howard Stern to Nightline.

I've also taught at Cabrillo and De Anza Colleges.

I am currently the Chairman of the Journalism Department at Cabrillo, where I've gotten experience that would help at KZSC. I've dealt with hiring and firing; I've taught some 200 students a year; I've managed the department's budget; and I've been the advisor to the school's newspaper.

I manage a radio course through the school where students produce a show on KSCO-AM in return for time as interns at the station.

(As an aside: my journalism career and KZSC intersected last year when I wrote a cover story for Santa Cruz Style magazine about the future of radio in the area, which featured the KZSC student managers (see it http://www.santacruzstyle.net/spring_2013/online_mag.html))

At Cabrillo, I have staved off cuts to the Journalism Department and found grants and internships for the students. I've managed a grant from the Rebele Foundation that pays students to do internships at media organizations in Santa Cruz. We pay them $10 an hour to get professional experience. In turn, I've had many students hired full time from it.

The result has been phenomenal: Two top editors at the Watsonville Register-Pajaronian got their jobs after doing the internship; several members of the KSCO news staff started through the grant as did several writers at the Sentinel. I've sent students to Univision TV and CTV as well. And I've got some at UCSC's .

It takes fundraising and politicking to keep campus organizations going and I have done that at Cabrillo in enterprising ways, many of which could be adapted at UCSC.

One of my greatest accomplishments has been saving the Cabrillo Journalism Department and guiding it through a budget crisis. Three years ago it was on the chopping block. The thought was that there were no jobs in the field and, despite increasing enrollment, it wasn't a core field for students.

I gave presentations around the campus and got students and faculty involved and with their help, kept the 50-year-old program alive. Now it is thriving, students are getting jobs, and we are going to hire more staff.

Anyone who works at a college knows the tricky waters I had to get through on that one. The KZSC job holds some of the same challenges.

I enjoy teaching and feel like I learn as much from my students as they do from me. At the Cabrillo Voice, the campus paper, I've learned what it takes to be an advisor. They run the paper and I give them advice and guidance. I can't give orders or censor their work, but have to show them how they can do things better and convince them to take the high road. It's a tightrope walk I've mastered, I think, that would help at KZSC.

Thanks for your time and I hope to hear back from you.

Best,

Brad Kava