Why does the Indiana High School Press Association exist and what would be lost if it closed its doors tomorrow?

The question was posed to 15 officers and leaders of the IHSPA in a “think tank” retreat in December. The goal of the weekend was simple: To sharpen the focus of the organization and provide a better way of doing business.

However, answering the question above was not so simple. If the IHSPA disappeared, we all agreed we certainly would miss the convention, contests and many services for advisers and students. It appeared our primary existence, then, was to provide programs and services.

But it also seemed to us there should be a better foundation for an organization that has represented scholastic journalism in Indiana since 1922. It was our job to dig deeper to find out what we believe “down to our toes” about the IHSPA.

It was time for the real work to begin.

To assist us in our quest to fine our core values and purpose, Mike Frazier, an IHSPA officer, suggested we prepare by reading the book, Built to Last, a historical study of successful corporations and what distinguished some companies as “visionary.”

The book’s insights, along with a professional facilitator for our meeting, proved crucial to us. What faced our group next was the difficult task of determining what we believed about scholastic journalism and about ourselves as teachers and advisers. And those beliefs would guide us to the IHSPA’s central purpose.

Leaders weren’t looking for a philosophy that might look good on a brochure. Instead, we spent hours trying to articulate what was deep inside us, what was in our gut about teaching, advising and the IHSPA.
We learned from Built to Last that it’s not so much what we believed as how deeply we believed it (and how consistently the IHSPA could live it). We also knew that simply going through the often difficult process of finding our core values added meaning and pulled our organization together.

As we pondered our role as an advocate for scholastic journalism, we realized that the underlying force was our mutual desire to promote responsible freedom. We had discovered a value that bound us together.
We thought about our students and how their study of journalism often ignites a boldness and courage in their pursuit of truth, even when that truth comes at a price. We had discovered that antecedent values to freedom: truth and courage.

Perhaps the fourth and final value we discovered is the glue that holds it all together. We are bound by integrity if we are to be effective teachers and advisers.
There you have it. Our core values – more self discovery than creating anything new – built around our common, deep-felt beliefs about freedom, truth, courage and integrity. We realize these values are simple. But the piercing simplicity, we hoped, would provide substantial guidance as we repositioned the IHSPA to better meet the many challenges ahead.

It may be difficult for those outside this retreat experience to appreciate the energy and enthusiasm we all gained from articulating these values. Again, our purpose wasn’t to dazzle anyone else with a fancy statement of goals. Instead, we sought what was as natural to us as breathing.
The key to this retreat experience was authenticity.

Our core values will never change. Our goals and day-to-day strategies will, however. In fact, our new plans for reorganization is a direct result of our values. And that’s the beauty of what we’ve been through.
The IHSPA’s success from this point on will be based on how well we preserve our core values while stimulating the progress and change necessary today. We hope we’ve made an important first step in doing just that.

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