The Michigan Interscholastic Press Association has honored Lansing Everett High School teacher Chad Sanders with its 2018 Golden Pen Award.
Sanders was honored at MIPA’s Spring Awards event on April 23 in Lansing, along with hundreds of student journalists who won awards in the organization’s statewide scholastic journalism contest.
The Golden Pen is the highest award MIPA bestows on a student media adviser and has been bestowed continuously since 1952. Teachers must be nominated by their students, who assemble an extensive portfolio showcasing the teacher’s involvement in scholastic journalism activities and the impact he or she has had on current and past students.
The recipient is chosen by a committee of previous Golden Pen honorees.
“For most of his teaching career, he has worked tirelessly and humbly to make journalism happen at Everett High, one of Lansing’s secondary schools,” former MIPA executive director Cheryl Pell wrote in supporting Sanders’s nomination. “While his journalism colleagues at the other schools in Lansing have come and gone, Chad has remained a constant in this urban environment for 25 years, helping to enrich and change the lives of everyone who had the opportunity to be a part of his journalism program.”
Sanders has advised Lansing Everett High School’s student newspaper, The Viking Voice, since 1993. He also has been the director of the MIPA Summer Journalism workshop at MSU for six years. The program draws about 350 students each summer to campus to be immersed in different areas of media for five days.
He is not only a teacher to the staff but he is also a friend and someone who we all look up to and aspire to be like,” Viking Voice staff members wrote in a letter nominating their teachers.
This is a man who puts family first, but because he’s Chad, his students become his family,” his former high school journalism teacher, Betsy Rau, wrote in supporting Sanders’s nomination. Rau also was Sanders’ predecessor as director of the MIPA summer workshop. “Thus, he is tugged from all directions to do wake up calls, food delivery, crisis management and publications advising. … He gets those kids to buy into creativity and journalism and coming to school — and caring.”
ABOUT THE MICHIGAN INTERSCHOLASTIC PRESS ASSOCIATION
Founded in 1921 and housed in the Michigan State University School of Journalism, the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association is a nonprofit organization composed of scholastic journalism teachers and publications advisers and their students. MIPA is committed to promoting and recognizing excellence in scholastic journalism at all levels through education, training and support of student journalists and their advisers.