ABC News will open several mini-bureaus in September 2008 in an effort to expand their news-gathering resources while training future journalists.

The "ABC News On Campus" program will open bureaus within the journalism departments at several top American universities allowing students to participate directly in ABC News programming. Campuses participating in the program include Syracuse University, the University of Florida and Arizona State University. ABC News on Campus will be unlike one of the education initiatives in which NBC News is involved: the partnership with the New York Film Academy in that students will work as staffers in each of the bureaus, contributing story ideas and using equipment provided by ABC.

ABC News President David Westin said this morning in an internal email, "This is a great opportunity for these students to learn about the news industry and for us at ABC News to help nurture these bright young journalists."

Dona Hayes, chair of the broadcast journalism department at the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, tells TVNewser, "I think it's a well thought out program and we're just really excited. It's a really unique program for our students to be a part of."

The draw for Newhouse was the access the program will give students. "They made it very clear that this is going to be a well-supported project," she said. "It's not just equipment, but access to folks at ABC who will be talking to students."

Click continued to see Westin's full email announcing the program...

Today we are announcing the launch of an exciting new initiative, ABC News on Campus — a partnership with five top journalism schools across the country to educate and mentor talented college students. As part of this program, we will create five on campus multimedia bureaus that will open in September 2008 and extend our newsgathering reach throughout the country while providing opportunities for students to see their reporting appear on ABC News' digital and broadcast platforms.

John Green and Sandy Sidey have been working on this program since its inception in the fall of 2007, and will supervise the bureaus with a team in New York. They will also work hand-in-hand with a university-appointed faculty liaison at each college.

This program will provide a unique benefit to gain insight into what America's 33 million 18-25 year-olds are thinking. Each ABC News on Campus bureau will have a team of official ABC News paid students, who will receive extensive training from our division beginning in August 2008. We also will be doing our very best to create a successful learning environment, by providing state of the art digital technology including video cameras, computers, and edit software.

The 2008 ABC News on Campus College News Bureaus are:

* Arizona State University- Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication
* Syracuse University - S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications
* University of Florida - College of Journalism and Communications
* University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication
* University of Texas at Austin School of Journalism

This is a great opportunity for these students to learn about the news industry and for us at ABC News to help nurture these bright young journalists.