The Daily Plan-it / Dean of Students Blog, Columbia J-school

Two young Americans are heading to India to write a book on chai wallahs and would like to meet with experts on various India themes before they head out in August. If you can help, please get in touch directly and copy Sree Sreenivasan (ss221[at]columbia.edu) know they got some leads).

Zach Marks zach.marks@gmail.com
Resham Gellatly resham.gellatly@gmail.com

Zach and Resham lived in India from 2010-2011 on a Fulbright Fellowship. They are returning to write a book on chai wallahs around India. In a country with tremendous diversity, chai wallahs are a constant presence, from urban slums to rural villages to the call centers and factories driving India’s economic rise. The same way New York City cab drivers might be able to tell the story of the city through their interactions with customers, chai wallahs can tell the story of India in all its diversity and complexity.

They will be traveling around India for a year beginning in August. While they are still here, they are hoping to meet people who have studied and/or written on South Asia in the following fields:

• Sociology
• Anthropology
• Cultural / Diaspora Studies
• Economics
• Political Science
• Food
• History
• Others with connections to South Asia!

Zach graduated from Yale University in 2010. Since returning from his Fulbright, he has worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Co., where he has focused on international development and social entrepreneurship. Most recently he has been working in South Sudan, helping develop the world’s newest nation’s agriculture strategy. He helped write a McKinsey report on social impact bonds, an innovative finance mechanism for scaling social programs. He has written for the Huffington Post and was featured in The New York Times for his culinary creations in college dining halls.

Resham graduated from Boston University in 2010. Since returning from her Fulbright, she has been conducting psychiatry research at New York University and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Resham worked with survivors of torture seeking asylum through a joint Bellevue/NYU program and currently mentors high school refugees at the International Rescue Committee. She recently co-authored a paper on cultural comparisons of mental health in Argentina and New York. Her fiction and non-fiction pieces, including one about Hawaiian food culture, have been published in her hometown of Honolulu, Hawaii.

GRANTS: CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH AWARDS

DEADLINE: All proposals must be received no later than March 1, 2013

The Dirksen Congressional Center invites applications for grants to fund research on congressional leadership and the U.S. Congress. The Center,
named for the late Senate Minority Leader Everett M. Dirksen, is a private, nonpartisan, nonprofit research and educational organization devoted to the study of Congress and its leaders.

Since 1978, the Congressional Research Awards (formerly the Congressional Research Grants) program has invested more than $881,041 to support over 414 projects. Applications are accepted at any time, but the deadline is March 1 for the annual selections, which are announced in April. A total of up to $35,000 will be available in 2013.

Complete information about what kind of research projects are eligible for consideration, what could a Congressional Research Award pay for,
application procedures, and how recipients are selected may be found at The Center’s
Website:http://www.dirksencenter.org/print_grants_CRAs.htm

PLEASE READ THOROUGHLY.
Frank Mackaman is the program officer - You may send the application as a Word or PDF attachment to an e-mail directed to Frank Mackaman at
fmackaman@dirksencenter.org. Please insert the following in the Subject Line: “CRA Application [insert your surname].”

Panel: How to Cover the Biggest Police Force in the Nation: Tips on Reporting on the NYPD and other Law Enforcement Agencies From Some of the City’s Top Police Reporters

Date: Thursday, Oct. 6, 2011
Time: 7 - 9 pm
Location: NYC Seminar and Conference Center, 71 West 23rd Street, New York, NY 10010
Cost: $5 for club members; $15 for non-members; $10 for students

RSVP: Please visit the club website for bios of panelists and to purchase tickets.
http://www.newswomensclubnewyork.com/panels/

From reporting the details of the NYPD’s work thwarting terrorist threats here and abroad, to getting the details of the city’s latest high-profile arrest or murder, to exposing ongoing allegations of ticket-fixing scandals within the department, reporting on the largest police force in the US can be a daunting task. Hear from the reporters assigned to the Police Headquarters beat, or the “shack,” about what it takes to get reliable, timely information out of the department,
handle sensitive information appropriately, and build sources. Panelists will include Murray Weiss of DNAinfo.com, Colleen Long, of the Associated Press, Lorena Mongelli, of the New York Post and John Doyle of the NY Daily News. Our moderator is club member Nicole Bode, a senior editor at DNAinfo.

Many journalists use what’s known as “tagging” to keep track of sites they find during their online travels. Sites such as Furl.net, Digg.com and Del.icio.us. See a useful tip on how to use del.icio.us below, sent in by Erica Berenstein, J2007, ericaeve[at]gmail (many of the others work the same way). Post your own comments below.

Del.icio.us - http://del.icio.us - is a website where you can post links to articles, blogs, and websites on your own personal page. I’ve found it very helpful as I do internet research on my beat, since it can be hard to keep all the web resources/sites/articles organized in my
notes. If I find an article that might be of use later, I post it to my del.icio.us page, tag it and add a note to remind myself what it is about. Later I can search my pages and articles by tags or the search option.

From Deborah Wassertzug, Journalism Librarian

For those who will not have my research training session until next week or
the following week, I’d like to turn your attention to a few links on the
Student Resources page (http://www.jrn.columbia.edu/students/) which will
help you get a jump start on beat research and on using LexisNexis.

On the Student Resources page, look for the “Libraries and Research”
section. In particular, take a look at the guide, “Scoping Out Your Beat,”
a selective list of helpful resources for getting to know your beat
neighborhood. Also, the guide “Getting Started with LexisNexis Academic”
will help you start using the web version of LexisNexis (which can be a
little tricky if you have not used it before).

Finally, for those who *have* had my session and have misplaced the
materials, the “Nexis and Factiva Cheat Sheet” which I distributed to you is
also available on the Student Resources page, so you can just print yourself
a new copy.

Deborah Wassertzug, Journalism Librarian
Columbia University Libraries
dw242@columbia.edu
212.854.3916 fax 212.854.24