Outstanding Student Chapter

The NPPA’s 2014 Student Chapter of the Year award goes to the University of Maryland.

The success experienced by the University of Maryland chapter led to its selection for NPPA’s 2014 Most Outstanding Student Chapter of the Year award.

The chapter is just 18 months old and in the past year it nearly tripled the amount of paid members and raised its new organization status to a permanent volunteer group. The chapter not only helps with journalism school events, but it also volunteers with campus wide events, like Maryland Day. 


The chapter’s biggest success has come from its professional headshot fundraiser. When the chapter was founded, the executive board developed an idea to take professional headshots for journalism students. The fundraiser was so successful that the chapter expanded its services to faculty and students outside of the journalism school.

Every semester, the chapter helps to sponsor and volunteer at numerous events like "Face Time with the Pros", freshmen welcome and career fairs. It’s been a goal to have professional journalists speak to all current members. This past fall, the chapter was very excited to have 3-time NPPA photographer of the year Darren Durlach join it for a fun evening of storytelling. The event was live-streamed for other student chapters to watch!

The chapter has set high goals for the future. One goal was to send all paid members of the chapter to the 2015 NPPA Northern Short Course - and 20 students were able to attend all or a portion of the event. In addition, five students attended the 2015 NPPA News Video Workshop in Oklahoma during spring break. The chapter was very excited to have such a high representation at both of these events.

The UMD NPPA chapter is now a successfully established student group and it is very thankful for the opportunities that NPPA gives it. The future is bright and the chapter looks forward to expanding its size even more.