A teacher leaves her mark on Cal Poly Television

Patti Piburn doesn’t go home at 10:30 a.m. after working for nine hours, but instead heads to her second job.

Piburn, a morning news anchor and reporter for KCOY-TV in Santa Maria, Calif. has also been teaching the Cal Poly Television (CPTV) course at California Polytechnic State University since 2006 to satisfy a passion for sharing her journalism skills with students.

While she will be leaving her position as course lecturer in the spring, she has helped CPTV grow into the credible news source the program is today.

A desire to teach

By trial and error, Piburn learned skills after her first year of reporting she thought she should have known before taking her first job.

“I couldn’t believe the stuff I didn’t know and I realized I wanted to be a teacher to try to equip students for being in a real newsroom,” Piburn said.

In the spring of 2006, Piburn had the opportunity to help a professor in the Cal Poly Journalism Department by taking over CPTV.

From there, Piburn learned that her desire to teach held true when she actually stepped into the classroom.

“Oftentimes I love the classroom more than the newsroom because I work with students who are passionate which energizes me,” Piburn said.

 

CPTV lecturer Patti Piburn oversees the production of each live CPTV broadcast in the studio every Friday afternoon.

Piburn believes that broadcast students need access to people in the industry to help them network and gain real-world experience.

Since Piburn works in television and co-anchors the local radio show Eat Drink Explore, she contains a wealth of knowledge for her students.

“Patti is qualified to teach CPTV for sure,” Eat Drink Explore Media Executive Producer Randol White said. “She understands that multimedia is important and journalism is an evolving craft which is great for students to learn.”

Making changes

In the past, CPTV relied heavily on content generated by news sources such as CNN.

While CPTV is now live every Friday for one half-hour newscast, the show used to be pre-recorded in multiple takes due to lack of equipment and students in the class.

“The professor who taught CPTV before me was John Soares and he really built the foundation that we are now using to be successful,” Piburn said. “We now have better equipment so we were able to capitalize on the old system and dedicate our time to producing content.”

Piburn now requires CPTV shows to contain only student-generated content to help students work hard to prepare for careers in broadcast journalism.

Seeing success

Piburn has been in newsrooms for the past 20 years and can identify the students in CPTV who will be successful after college.
 
“There are plenty of students who are enterprising hard-news stories that I think will impress news directors,” Piburn said.

Students who have maximized their CPTV experience and have gotten jobs in broadcast journalism include:

Former CPTV student Nicole Powers (bottom) and CPTV lecturer Patti Piburn (top) both work at the radio show Eat Drink Explore. Piburn helped Powers, who is still in school, get the part-time job.

“Patti told me about Eat Drink Explore while I was in CPTV and thought I’d fit in well there,” Powers said. “I interned in the summer and was offered a job and that door would not have been opened if it weren’t for Patti and CPTV.”

Looking Ahead

Winter quarter of 2013 will mark the end of Piburn’s time as instructor of CPTV.

She is making a strong effort to ensure that future students will have the tools needed to succeed.

“I think there are so many things that have been put into place that will make it easy for the next instructor to step into the roll,” Piburn said.

This year, Piburn and the students have created tutorials to be used in the future for:

The person taking Piburn’s place next quarter will be Cal Poly journalism professor and KSBY anchor Richard Gearhart who has been helping out recently in CPTV.

“Richard has a similar background to me being that he has been in the business for over 20 years and still anchors the news and I wish him luck,” Piburn said.

Cal Poly journalism professor Richard Gearhart (top row, far right) will be taking over CPTV in the spring of 2013 for current CPTV lecturer Patti Piburn (top row, far left) and teaching a new group of broadcast students.

Piburn said she wants to stay involved in the class so she can be a resource to Gearhart to ensure the success of the class, and the students, continue to grow.

“CPTV really is a great experience and students learn a ton about things that will serve them well in anything they do,” Piburn said. “You have to learn to work with other people as well as work under stress and CPTV gives students these success skills which I hope will stick with them forever.”

Tags: Patti Piburn, Richard Gearhart, Hope Hanselman, Nick Emmons, Randol White, CPTV, Eat Drink Explore, Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo

 

 

©Joseph Corral, This website was produced in a class at California Polytechnic State University