Spring SPJ Conference is Here!!!

All of Saturday's panels and sessions are held at the University Marriott Park Hotel.

Check out the About page for more packages about businesses and places to go around the University and Downtown areas

To see the topics, times and speakers go to Schedule.

Parking Information

Parking is available in University of Arizona garages. The closest garages are the Main Gate garage (Euclid Avenue and 2nd Street, directly across from the Marriott) and the Tyndall Avenue garage (between Euclid and Tyndall avenues, south of University Boulevard). Cost is $7 a day. Note: Zone 1 parking, which is dark blue on the parking map, is free on weekends.
University of Arizona parking map: http://parking.arizona.edu/pdf/maps/campus.pdf.

Metered parking on the streets around the UA is free on weekends. Also, there is a pay lot directly east of the Marriott, which charges $3-$10 a day, depending on the attendant's mood and/or instructions that day.

Build Skills in a Multimedia Bootcamp
Friday Bootcamp has 1 space left, Sunday has only 6 remaining seats!!!

Optional pre- and post-conference one-day bootcamps on how to tell stories using multimedia. You pick a Friday or Sunday bootcamp. There's room for only a dozen people in each one, so best to register early!

Each bootcamp will be from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and will be held in the University of Arizona Department of Journalism's Marshall building, right next to the University Marriott hotel. Plan to attend the whole day, not a portion. After completing some reading and homework ahead of time, you will receive training in shooting video, story planning, storytelling, and project editing in Final Cut Express. We hope you'll get enough done that you will leave with your story on a DVD.

Attend Dazzling Reception on Friday Night

Mingle with fellow journalists and enjoy drinks, hors d'oeuvres and light jazz at the SPJ opening reception to be held 6-8 p.m. at the world-renowned Center for Creative Photography on the University of Arizona campus. The CCP is an archive and research center established in 1975 that today retains the archives of Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Garry Winogrand, Harry Callahan, and other greath 20th century photographers. The current exhibition, "Debating Modern Photography: The Triumph of Group f/64," explores the controversy of "straight" photography versus the manipulation typical of pictorialists. Group f/64 – named after the camera's smallest aperture – included Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, Willard Van Dyke, Alma Lavenson and others. See more on the exhibition at the CCP's Web site.

To read more about the exhibit, check out this recent story from UA News.

The reception also will feature the saxophone and guitar music of Elevation Duo, performing a repertoire that is both smooth and subtle, and includes such styles as Bossa Nova, American jazz standards, ambient, blues, and original.

Enjoy Edifying Panels for Reporting Smarter

Our panels are still evolving, as we confirm speakers and put the puzzle together of who can speak at what time. Check out the Schedule page to see what we have so far. We’ve pulled together excellent sessions on environmental reporting, covering people of faith, multimedia: the disappearing border between print and broadcast, and an extraordinary roundtable with leaders in the field on journalism’s challenges for the future. We’re putting finishing touches on those and other sessions, including a couple on public records, racial profiling and other topics.

All of the sessions are designed to be practical; they will teach you to be a better journalist. This year’s conference will be one you don’t want to miss! Keep checking back for additions and the final time slots for each session.

Get Sage Advice From the Pros

Students will be able to sign up for one-on-one sessions to have their clips, tapes, cover letters and/or résumés critiqued by either Mark Casey, vice president for news at Phoenix's KPNX-TV/Channel 12, an NBC affiliate, or Dennis Foley, the internship, recruiting and training director and reader innovation editor at the Orange County Register. Take advantage of this excellent opportunity to make your package shine. Sign up sheets will be available at registration tables at the conference.

Casey and Foley will be available for appointments all Saturday morning. To have your broadcast work reviewed, bring your stories on a DVD.

Dine and Dish for Mark of Excellence

Hilarious newspaper cartoonist and stand-up comic Dave Fitzsimmons, of the Arizona Daily Star, will emcee the event, when student journalists are honored for their excellent work over the past year. Lunch time will be your last chance, too, to bid on fun items in the silent auction.

Saturday Night in the Old Pueblo!

Eat and play in two of Tucson’s most fun districts: University/Main Gate Square and Fourth Avenue. Explore campus, take in a baseball game, go to Spring Fling (the annual largest student-run carnival in the nation).

University/Main Gate Square. While staying at the Marriott you’ll be in the thick of things in the University/Main Gate Square district. Stroll down University Boulevard, enjoying the sidewalk cafés, shopping, restaurants, patios, live music, people watching and more. Chill at popular college hangouts like Gentle Ben’s and Frog and Firkin, or dine on Afghani, Thai, French, Indian or Middle Eastern cuisine, or settle in for good, old-fashioned American at Johnny Rockets; all these options are within a two-clock radius of the Marriott hotel.  For listings of shops, restaurants and attractions, check out the Main Gate Square.

University of Arizona campus. Runner, walkers, joggers, skate boarders, wanderers: you can’t beat starting from the western edge of campus at the University’s lava-rock Main Gate at University Boulevard and Park Avenue, then shoot a mile east right through the center of campus, past the fountain at Old Main, past the Student Union, down The Mall, over the underground Integrated Learning Center, to Campbell Avenue — and back. You won’t regret it. “Juno” will be playing April 10-12 in the Gallagher Theatre in the Student Union at 7 and 10 p.m. To find out what else is going on around campus, go to the UA Calendar.

Funky Fourth Avenue. To get there, you can stroll through West University Neighborhood, an historic neighborhood developed between 1879 and 1930 and once “the first major suburb north of the Southern Pacific Railroad,” according to the West University Neighborhood Association. Or for a dollar, take the Old Pueblo Trolley from University Boulevard and Tyndall Avenue (right in front of Gentle Ben’s) to Fourth Avenue.

The Avenue is still captures some of its Sixties hippie roots, but it now has something for everyone from dive bars to bistros. The Avenue has is home to college nightlife, bookstores, boutiques, second-hand stores, restaurants, live music, lounges, cafés and more. Get some treats at Chocolate Iguana, have a lovely repast at Delectables or The B Line, or put your elbows on the bar at Bison Witches Bar & Deli or Che’s Lounge. Find live music at Plush or The Hut. There’s so much more; we can’t cover it all. Check out Fourth Avenue.

Spring Fling. Spring Fling, said to be the largest student-run carnival in the nation, is running April 10-13. It’s a UA-Tucson tradition, with rides, games, music and fun. The event is held a few miles from campus, at the Rillito Downs, 4502 N. First Ave., but a shuttle leaves from Old Main on the UA Mall every half hour. Band performances aren’t listed on the Web site yet, so check back later to see who’s providing the music. To find out more go to Spring Fling.

Make Your Plans Now!

Go to the Hotel page to book your double occupancy roomsat the University Marriott Park hotel. The rates are $129 a night for conference attendees. The conference rate will be available for three days before and after the conference, so you might want to schedule extra time to visit the Arizona-Sonoran Desert Museum, the U.S.-Mexico border, Mount Lemmon, Kitt Peak, the dozens of fabulous Mexican restaurants and more.

The Marriott is located in a bustling university district, with lots of shopping, restaurants and coffee joints, and it’s right next door to the UA journalism department, where we’ll hold one round of sessions on Saturday.

Go to the conference registration page to register. Registration will be $100 per person. And the optional bootcamps (Friday, April 11, and Sunday, April 13) will cost $50.

We are excited and hope you are, too!