A group of six students from the IV Leader newspaper staff attended the annual Illinois Community College Journalism Association Fall Conference on Oct. 5 and 6.

The two-day conference took place at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Ill. and presented a variety of program sessions about journalism, design and legal issues. Sessions included “Design Essentials,” “Developing, Maintaining a Web Presence” and “Writing Columns.”

For IV Leader Culture Editor Summer Hoagland-Abernathy, this conference was the first journalism conference she has ever attended

“I actually really liked the ‘Improving Copy Editing Skills’ program session because I feel like copy editing may be a career that I want to pursue,” Hoagland-Abernathy said.

“Without the conference, I would never have realized that copy editing may be a possible career choice for me.”

In addition to this conference, the IV Leader staff will have the opportunity to attend another ICCJA conference in the spring hosted by Lincoln Land Community College.

This conference will offer more in-depth sessions about journalism and will distribute awards to deserving community college newspapers.