(Army Spc. Matthew Freire/ MPJ)
Nancy Austin spent the Friday after Thanksgiving weekend doing an annual ritual:
She wrapped up packages and shipped them off to 15 of her “children” who are serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and South Korea.
“I still care,” said Austin, deputy director of the Military Visual Journalism Program at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School. Those “children” are the students who come through the program from the Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force.
The Newhouse School has run the Military Visual Journalism Program under contract from the Pentagon for the past 17 years. The current contract pays the school $4.2 million and runs through 2015 year.
In the program, active-duty service members take classes in photo and video-journalism for one year at SU. They earn up to 30 credit hours in either the Military Photo Journalism program or the Military Motion Media, which teaches broadcast journalism. After graduation, they return to active duty for at least three more years. Some are mass communications specialists. Some are military journalists. Some are combat photographers.
Austin has been with the program since it started. In 2007, she became its deputy director. Officially, she acts as the liaison between the students, their professors and the Department of Defense.
In reality, to many of the military students, she is quite simply their SU “mom.”
Sgt. Paul Mancuso, 27, who is in the military motion media program now, is supposed to deploy to Japan by mid-June 2011. He’s been in the Marine Corps for eight years and has served six months in Iraq and nine months in Afghanistan.
At SU, he said, Austin really is a mother-figure. “She goes out of her way to make sure we’re comfortable here,” Mancuso said. “It’s kind of a hard transition for us to leave the military fleet and come into the school environment.”
Petty Officer 1st Class Leah Stiles of the Navy agreed. “This program definitely wouldn’t be what it is without Nancy,” said Stiles, who has been with the Navy for almost 10 years and is studying photojournalism at Newhouse. “She’s definitely the most reliable, caring, dependable person that we have.”
Sgt. 1st Class Luciano Vera of the Army is one of the 15 getting this year’s special package from Austin. He’s based in Seoul, South Korea and graduated from the Military Motion Media program last May. He keeps in touch with Nancy via Facebook and phone, Vera said in an e-mail interview.
“On top of having her own family, she has her extended military family ‘us’ and without her the program would fail,” he said. “Nancy is one of those people who doesn’t realize how much she affects our lives while we are there.”
At her home in Baldwinsville on this Friday, Austin walked back and forth between the stacks of homemade cookies in her kitchen and the 15 boxes that blanketed her dining table and part of the floor of her den. Her husband, Rick Austin, has left his own work early to help distribute the goodies to each box. Each is labeled with a student’s name. Nancy Austin has customized every one based on the needs, likes and dislikes of each person.
Don’t put chocolate in that box, she tells Rick. “Lucky doesn’t eat any chocolate,” she explains. As they pack the boxes, Nancy and Rick often talk about the students as if they’re in the room.
She started the tradition several years ago, Austin recalls. At first, she just sent cookies she baked to a few students. Then she started asking others to help out. Now, Austin has a network of bakers, gift-buyers, school children who help fill the boxes with candy, cookies, SU shirts, Starbucks VIA coffee, baby wipes and holiday cards. Some of the boxes will go to Bahrain. Some to Iraq. Those addressed to Afghanistan should take a bit longer, Austin said.
At 51, Austin has two grown sons, a granddaughter and a golden retriever named Sophie. In her free time, she likes to quilt, knit and decorate, Austin said.
To top off the holiday boxes, Nancy placed in cards local elementary school students made for her students. Most brought a smile. But one evoked a more solemn reaction.
“Thank you for serving this country,” Austin read out loud. “Thank you for giving us freedom. Is it hard knowing you might die? Is it hard killing other people? Do you feel protected? If you get this letter, that means you might not be by your lonesome. Sincerely, Michael.”
Said Austin, “This is one that makes me cry.”
The boxes are packed. Austin is ready to head to the post office. “I can’t leave these people out,” she said. “I just love them.”
(Rebecca Shabad is a senior dual major in broadcast journalism and political science).
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