Second-year Digital Communications and Media (DCM) student Chase Chambers will be learning from some of the best in the business thanks to a story proposal he submitted in competition for this year’s Troy Reeb Internship offered by Lethbridge College.
Chambers penned an in-depth article on the gender inequality of Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) cross-country races – men run eight kilometres while women only run six.
The story idea he says, stemmed from one of his early observations as a rookie member of the Lethbridge College Kodiaks cross-country and indoor track teams.
“I was entirely new to cross-country running this academic year, and I was slower than a lot of the women on my team,” says Chambers. “So, when I went to my first meet and found out they ran a shorter distance, even though they were more capable than me, I wanted to know why.”
Chambers interviewed student athletes and coaches in the Alberta Colleges Athletics Conference as well as a former Canadian national team coach to try to get a better understanding of the distance discrepancy. He says he found out the CCAA follows the lead of the World Athletics organization’s competition guidelines for the under-20 division; however, his pitch notes that some progress has been made by the CCAA in recent years to close the gap on men’s and women’s cross-country distances. Up until 2016, women only ran five kilometres.
This is the second time Chambers has made it to the final phase of the Troy Reeb Internship selection process. As a first-year DCM student, he was selected for the interview round based on a story he had written about farming technology.
The annual internship, sponsored by Reeb, has been available to Lethbridge College DCM students for the past 18 years. A 1988 graduate of the college’s Broadcast Journalism program, Reeb is now Executive Vice President, Broadcast Networks for Corus Entertainment. He was also named a Distinguished Alumni in 2003 and received an honorary degree in 2019.
"In addition to a unique and well-researched story idea, Chase has demonstrated a strong work ethic and willingness to learn that makes him an ideal candidate for this year's internship,” says Reeb.
As part of his internship experience, Chambers will take an all-expenses-paid trip to Toronto and Ottawa where he will spend 10 days getting hands-on experience with Global’s online news platforms, television and radio stations. Chambers will also work on Parliament Hill with the Ottawa bureau of Global National. Past winners have gone on to achieve great professional success in the media and communications industries.
Chambers says he’s excited for the opportunity and is eager to learn new skills that he can use during his summer internship at RealAgriculture in Lethbridge and in the fall when he begins the Film and Video Production program at SAIT.
“I really enjoy visual storytelling,” he says. “The DCM program here at the college gave me a strong foundation for the media industry and a lot of experience in writing and in journalism. Now I’m hoping to really hone my film and video capabilities to round-out that skillset.”
Chambers says he also plans to try out for the SAIT cross-country team.
More information on the Digital Communications and Media program is available on the Lethbridge College website.