By Jorge Casuso

November 10, 2011 -- What a lesson in promotions! What started as a way to train 25 at-risk Santa Monica College students from the inner city for lucrative jobs in television promotion is garnering national attention.

Less that one year after in was launched in January, SMC's Promo Pathway program has a new high-profile partner -- The Aspen Institute's Skills for America's Future, a non-partisan effort launched by the White House that pairs businesses with community colleges to provide hands-on training for lucrative jobs.

"The Promo Pathway program is exactly the type of partnership Skills for America's Future seeks to highlight," said Penny Pritzker, advisory board chair of Skills for America's Future.

The program, Pritzker said, is "offering underrepresented youth the opportunity to achieve industry-recognized skills and providing businesses with a pool of creative talent."

The program -- which trains students to create promotional spots for television shows and films -- is a unique partnership between the college; PromaxBDA, an association of broadcast promotion and marketing professionals, and the non-profit South Bay Center for Counseling (SBCC), which provides job training for at-risk youth.

"The PromaxBDA Advisory Committee identified the skills necessary to become a promo writer/editor/producer and together we developed the curriculum at Santa Monica College," said Frank Dawson, chair of the SMC Communication Department and a former promotional writer/producer at CBS and NBC.

Twenty-five students were chosen from more than 300 applicants from inner-city neighborhoods that included Compton, South Central and East LA to enter the first program in the nation offering a promotion writer/producer/editor certificate. Each of the students received full scholarships to cover not only the fees, but also equipment, transportation and childcare.

The college set up a curriculum that applied industry lessons to general subjects such as math and English and paired students with television stations where they served two internships -- one exposing them to the on-air promotions work environment, the other allowing them to apprentice with a writer, producer or editor.

The first class will graduate in December after presenting ideas hatched under deadline pressure to top industry professionals who will gauge their work and perhaps offer them promo jobs that can earn between $50,000 to $80,000 a year.
"This is an incredible opportunity for the students and Santa Monica College," Dawson said.