Students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities can now keep the world informed about their college experience thanks to a $250,000 John S. and James L. Knight Foundation grant. The grant funds a new news service, blackcollegewire.org.

The Knight Foundation was established to promote excellence in journalism worldwide.

The new Web site, which draws on student journalism from all HBCUs, gives viewers news, opinions and images.

It is a project of the Black College Communication Association, an organization of faculty members who teach communication and journalism at HBCUs.

The BCCA is a non-profit organization with 40 HBCU members. It was established by the Freedom Forum.

The goal of the BCCA is to strengthen communication and journalism programs at HBCUs.

The BCCA’s Student Media Institute operates the Web site.

“It’s a great opportunity for HBCUs to share news and information with other campuses — it brings about exchange of information between HBCUs,” said Pearl Stewart, chair of the BCCA. “Students are writing to a broader audience by using the Internet.” Stewart, the Director of Career Development Services at Florida A & M University in the School of Journalism, Media & Graphic, wrote the grant proposal that funds blackcollegewire.org.

The site is student based and very well organized. Its homepage is setup to show the viewer a feature story and the news of the week.

There are links to sports, culture, voices (or opinions), student life, images and projects.

The current edition of blackcollegewire.org has student-written articles about safety at Howard University, a serial killer in the neighborhood at Southern University in New Orleans, and a student protest about discount tobacco signs at Tennessee State University.

Currently the NCCU Campus Echo has a photo essay called “What is fashion#1?” running in the images section of the Web site.

The Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education helps operate blackcollegewire.org. Richard Prince, a journalist with the Maynard Institute, is the editor of blackcollegewire.org.

“I’d like to encourage students to participate in the site,” he said. “It’s a great opportunity to have your work read by professionals as well as other schools and anybody else who visits the site.”

The NCCU photo essay has an article by Carla Aaron-Lopez and photographs by Campus Echo photographers Aaron Daye, Leah McCullen and Mike Feimster.

“It feels great to have the exposure and to see my photographs on the Web,” said Campus Echo photographer Aaron Daye. Daye contributed eight photos to the fashion photo essay.

“It feels good,” says Daye, “to be in a situation where I can inspire other photographers at HBCUs.”

In the “About Us” section of the Web site there is discussion of how students can contribute to blackcollegewire.org.