Packed House At NSMC 2026
• The National Student Media Convention (NSMC) returned to Philadelphia on October 14-17 and had its highest attendance since 2018. Over three days, nearly 500 attendees listened to more than 85 media professionals and attended 90 informational sessions to learn valuable skills and techniques to take back to their media organizations at colleges and universities across the country, including these students (pictured above) representing KWTS-FM at West Texas A&M University.
On Friday, students attended a career fair mixer where they engaged with recruiters from four media companies representing radio, television and live production. Select students were able to follow up on Saturday with one-on-one interviews for internships and entry-level jobs.
Among the highlights: CBI presented The Dave Black Excellence in Advising Award to CBI President Anabella Poland, General Manager of Montclair State University’s WMSC-FM in recognition of her exceptional dedication and service to student electronic media operation.
That’s Ms. Poland (left), with Sean McDonald, Treasurer of CBI and Executive Director of Neumann Media and Neumann University. The Joel Willer Award was presented to Jamie Lynn Gilbert of North Carolina State University for exceptional dedication and service to student electronic media.
“Philadelphia never disappoints as a host of the National Student Media Convention,” said Anabella Poland. “The number of media pros speaking at the conference nearly doubled since last year and our attendees loved the opportunities to share programming, marketing and production ideas with their peers. We know the creative energy we saw this week will now spread to campus media outlets all over the country.”
NSMC 2026 culminated on Saturday with the presentation of the National Student Production Awards, honoring the best student work in media production across 40 categories. Judges reviewed over 950 entries before honoring three finalists and one winner in each category. A complete list of winners and finalists is available HERE.
NSMC 2027 will be held at the Hilton Cleveland Downtown, Oct. 27-30, 2027. [Special thanks to CBI VP John Owens]
