Jargon - 2018

FALL 2018

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VOLUME LXXIX

Sustained Excellence seven alumni contribute

2018 pulitzer-winning work page 14 to

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CONTENTS FALL 2018

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DIRECTOR’S NOTE

NEWS 04

Year In Review

National awards, special guests, community partnerships

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New Faces

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Lights, Camera, Action

New faculty join JMC, with specialties in digital media production and media innovation

KSUIF’s fifth feature film premieres, opening doors to new partnerships and curricular innovation

COMMUNITY IMPACT 10

Inspiring Change

Team of public relations students places second in national competition for its campaign for childhood cancer research

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From Detroit to Kent to D.C.

One JMC senior has interned at two of the country’s three largest national news stations

FEATURES 20 Representation Matters

One alumna has filled a niche by creating a magazine for underrepresented teenage girls

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28 Retirements

30 Faculty and Alumni Notes

How student media empowered one 1960s alumna to face her career with confidence

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14 Pulitzer Legacy

Seven JMC alumni contributed to two Pulitzer Prize-winning stories in 2017-18

Reflection

ALUMNI AND FACULTY NEWS

‘A Guy from Cleveland Who Tells Stories’

Alumnus reflects on his shift from print journalism to documentary storytelling

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2018 Alumni Awards

Taylor Award: Kristen DelGuzzi, ’98 Fast-Track Awards: Brooke DiDonato, ’12 and Phylicia McCorkle, M.A., ’13 ON THE COVER: THE AKRON BEACON JOURNAL’S 1994 PULITZER PRIZE MEDAL FOR PUBLIC SERVICE. ACCORDING TO THE PULITZER WEBSITE, THE “ICONIC PULITZER PRIZE GOLD MEDAL IS AWARDED EACH YEAR TO THE AMERICAN NEWS ORGANIZATION THAT WINS THE PUBLIC SERVICE CATEGORY. … HOWEVER, THROUGH THE YEARS, THE MEDAL HAS COME TO SYMBOLIZE THE ENTIRE PULITZER PROGRAM.” PHOTOGRAPHY BY: JACYNA M. PEÑA

Kent State University School of Journalism and Mass Communication 204 Franklin Hall, P.O. BOX 5190, Kent, OH 44242 Phone: 330-672-2572 | Fax: 330-672-4064 | Email: jmc@kent.edu www.kent.edu/jmc

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MANAGING EDITOR / CHRISTINA RUSS, ’10

ART DIRECTOR / JACYNA M. PEÑA

DIRECTOR’S NOTE

JMC’s Learning Landscape, Circa 2018 I parachuted back into the JMC Director’s job last fall after several years in the uncharted space (for me) of interim director gigs in Kent State’s School of Digital Sciences and the School of Information. I found a fascinating, vibrant learning landscape in Franklin Hall.

The traditional strengths of the School remain – writing, critical and analytical thinking, a liberal (interdisciplinary) education. These are necessary building blocks for a meaningful, fulfilling career. However, they are not always sufficient for that first job.

“We are fortunate to have students, faculty, staff and alumni who embrace change and are making their mark.”

Today’s students must also build a more diverse toolkit of skills and must engage with a range of digital multimedia storytelling and delivery platforms. Further, they must develop a mindset oriented toward innovation and entrepreneurial thinking, to not only deliver unique content to communities of interest, but to deliver value, monetary and otherwise.

While in many respects our media marketplaces are more challenging than ever, in other respects they are more open to opportunity.

The costs of entry are near zero; anyone with an internet connection and access to a smart phone can participate. We are fortunate to have students, faculty, staff and alumni who embrace change and are making their mark. This issue of Jargon is full of show-don’t-just-tell evidence of their fine work.

Take, for example, our Student Media and student organizations, which endure as an area of sustained excellence. These are wonderful hands-on learning environments where students find their passion and begin to build their portfolios. The national awards and recognitions aplenty offer hard evidence that our students continue to run at the front of the pack:

• Witness, for example, The Kent Stater

winning the College Media Association’s Pinnacle Award for “Newspaper of the Year”

• Or, The Burr winning Best Student Magazine nationwide in the Society of Professional Journalists contest for 2017

• Or, TV2 winning second place nationally in

the College Media Association awards for both News Broadcast and the Sports Corner show

• Or, our team of five PR majors whose

campaign placed second nationwide in the Public Relations Student Society of America’s Bateman Competition in May

• Or, KSU Independent Films producing the School’s fifth feature film, “Fly By Night,” which had its debut in April.

Come back and visit! We would love to see you anytime, but particularly for Homecoming 2018 on Oct. 6, when we’ll honor our alumni award winners (see the back cover) and celebrate all things Kent State.

Keep up the good work, and keep in touch.

JEFF FRUIT is a Professor and Interim Director of JMC. He also served as School Director from 2002-2012.

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JMC NEWS

NEWS FROM FRANKLIN HALL The Business of Media

JMC students were recognized for their excellent results and efforts in practicing the business of media and communication at the annual College Media Business and Advertising Managers (CMBAM) convention in March 2018. Kent State Student Media was named one of the country’s best in several categories.

CMBAM facilitates knowledge sharing from the business side of college student media operations. Kent State Student Media earned 20 awards at the convention, including second place for “Media Company of the Year,” the convention’s overall award. Other highlights included: • 2nd place: Best College Multimedia Program • 2nd place: Best College Media PR and Marketing Program • 2nd place: Best Sponsored Content • 1st place: Best Self-Promotional Website

Regional Mark of Excellence

Kent State students earned top regional honors in sports photography and in-depth reporting, along with eight honorable mentions, in the Society of Professional Journalists’ regional Mark of Excellence competition.

The three Kent State students who earned top honors in Region 4 (comprising Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia and western Pennsylvania) were:

Members of Kent State Student Media smile with their new awards in the Franklin Hall newsroom.

• In-Depth Reporting: KARL SCHNEIDER, ’17, for the article “Keeping up with compliance” • Sports Photography: NATE MANLEY, ’18, for the photo “Watch Party” (below) • Television In-Depth Reporting: ANNA HUNTSMAN, ’19, for the package “Down to the wire”

In the regional competition, three Kent State Student Media outlets – The Burr Magazine, Fusion Magazine and TV2 News at 6 – were honored as finalists (top two or three in the region). Several students also were named regional finalists. Kent State earned 11 regional recognitions overall, the second most in Region 4.

Best in the Nation The Kent Stater is the best student newspaper in the nation in its class, according to the College Media Association.

The organization announced the annual Pinnacle Award winners at the National College Media Convention in October 2017.

The Kent Stater beat out competition from Northwestern University, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Pennsylvania, to take the Pinnacle Award for Newspaper of the Year for 2016-17.

The Newspaper of the Year Pinnacle Award recognizes excellence in coverage and content; design, graphics and illustrations; photography; service to the campus community; and reporting, writing and editing.

Over the course of the 2016-17 academic year, student reporters covered the men’s basketball team’s trip to the NCAA National Tournament, the 2016 presidential election and the national and local protests that followed, an in-depth look at racial profiling and a weeklong examination of the heroin epidemic in Northeast Ohio.

PHOTO BY NATE MANLEY, ’18 / “Watch Party” earned the top regional honor for sports photography in SPJ’s Region 4 Mark of Excellence Competition.

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JMC NEWS

PHOTO BY SUE ZAKE / Dan Rather, former CBS News anchor, met with Kent State students in the student newsroom in Franklin Hall during his visit to Kent State University on May 4, 2018.

TV2, Kent State’s independent television station, also took home national honors at the convention. It earned second place nationally in two categories: best newscast and best sportscast. KentWired.com earned an honorable mention for website of the year.

PRSSA Recognition Fifteen members of PRSSA Kent attended the organization’s national conference in Boston in October 2017, where two members received individual honors and the Chapter once again earned a Star Chapter award.

The Star Chapter Award recognizes consistent success and leadership and serves as recognition for continually exceeding Chapter and professional development goals. Out of more than 300 Chapters, only 15 percent earn this distinction.

LATISHA ELLISON, ’18, was awarded the National President’s Citation, a special honor for students who have left a lasting impact on PRSSA through work in their Chapters and on a national level. CHARLEAH TROMBITAS, ’18, earned the Gold Key Award, which is the highest PRSSA honor for individual students.

This recognizes her academic excellence and ambitious professional development pursuits.

‘The Pulitzer Prize of Collegiate Journalism’ Three Kent State students placed nationally in the top 20 for The Hearst Journalism Awards’ individual categories. The competition is known as the “Pulitzer Prize of Collegiate Journalism.”

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MARISSA NICHOL, ’19, placed 10th in the Multimedia Features competition AARON SELF, ’18, placed 19th in the Photo One competition LYDIA TAYLOR, ’18, placed 9th in the Breaking News competition

Broadcast Education Association Festival of Media Arts JIMMY NAPLES, ’18, earned second place nationwide in the Music Video category at the BEA’s Festival of Media Arts for “Chil – Something to Live For.”

on May 4, 2018. Before his evening speech to the public, he took time to meet with media and communication students to share insights about the industry and offer advice.

Rather talked about how he made the transition into the social media world because of advice from his young staff members at his media and production company, News and Guts.

He echoed what Edward R. Murrow once said about electronic journalism, relating it to social media: “(It can be a) tremendous force for good. It can contribute mightily to education, information, illumination. It can be a powerful force in alleviating poverty, spreading knowledge, doing a lot of good things. But it can do that only to the extent we’re dedicated to using it for those purposes.”

BEA is the premier international academic media organization, driving insights, excellence in media production and career advancement for educators, students and professionals. The Festival of Media Arts is a competitive festival open to BEA faculty and student members.

Dan Rather Shares Insight on Career, Future of Media Journalism legend and former CBS News anchor DAN RATHER visited Kent State as part of the university’s Presidential Speaker Series

PHOTO BY KAM BOLATI, ’19 / Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather speaks with students from the College of Communication and Information during his visit to Kent State University, May 4, 2018.

JARGON | FALL 2018 5

JMC NEWS

Students Tell Stories of Triumph Among Hardship for Cleveland Children Students in Professor THOR WASBOTTEN’S Advanced Television News Producing class, with support from a grant awarded by the TEGNA Foundation, spent the spring 2018 semester telling the stories of middle school students at Cleveland’s Daniel E. Morgan School and within the Hough community.

The stories they collected were used to produce a half-hour news special, a documentary and a community conversation in partnership with WKYC-TV and the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.

The community conversation was moderated

by WKYC anchor RUSS MITCHELL and streamed to the station’s 380,000 followers on Facebook Live. Kent State students live produced the entire event.

Students said the opportunity to work alongside professionals and take the lead in producing the conversation was a defining moment in their education. It was also an opportunity for them to explore journalism’s role as a public service.

“This is really important for us as student journalists because it’s really important that we learn the skills now on how to cover difficult situations,” said ANNA HUNTSMAN, ’19. “I think it’s the media’s responsibility to not just provide

Kent State students pause for a photo with Daniel E. Morgan middle school students while reporting for the “My Voice. Our Stories.” project for the Advanced Television News Producing class. viewers with another crime statistic. It’s their responsibility to show viewers what’s going on behind the crime statistic and also to inspire solutions.”

Kent State’s relationship with Daniel E. Morgan School is part of a larger initiative called “My Voice. Our Stories.” About a dozen middle school students participated in a weeklong workshop at Kent State this past June, and Wasbotten and fellow JMC Professor GENE SHELTON, have been regularly speaking to Daniel E. Morgan classes for the past two years.

See Today’s Learning Landscape

JMC alumna CAROL COSTELLO, ’04, of CNN, visited Kent State during the Spring 2018 semester to help the College of Communication and Information produce its

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first virtual reality project. Costello, who is an HLN anchor, spent the day with students and filmed scenes acting as the host of a virtual tour of Franklin Hall and Taylor Hall.

“When I met (Daniel E. Morgan students), I saw this community of students that had so much hope, so many dreams, so many ideas about what they wanted to be when they grow up, but then I also saw a group that might fall under some stereotypes that people from the outside might put upon a community,” Wasbotten said. “People might say it’s a disadvantaged socioeconomic community, with a lot of hardships, crime rates … (But) you can’t define a community just based on the external perceptions one may have.”

View the project at www.kent.edu/CCI later this fall.

JMC NEWS

Two New Faculty Join JMC Tang Tang, Ph.D.

sights on research within mass communication.

Tang has been hired as a professor in the Kent State School of Journalism and Mass Communication (JMC) and the School of Digital Sciences and will be teaching graduate and undergraduate courses within the College of Communication and Information (CCI).

“They (CCI) want to hire in emerging media technologies, and my research is in exactly that area. They also want to hire someone to help with the graduate program and have some connection with international study,” Tang said.

“It’s just a perfect fit.”

Professor, Journalism and Mass Communication and Digital Sciences While traveling on a reporting assignment in China with her father, a travel/food writer, TANG TANG, Ph.D. developed dreams of becoming a journalist. She later learned through her education, especially when coming to the United States, that there was more to journalism than trying cuisine and traveling, and she set her

Dana White, M.F.A.

Realizing a love of research and data after she completed her undergraduate degree, Tang moved to the United States to diversify her skillset. She received a master’s degree from San Diego State University (SDSU) and a doctorate from Ohio University (OU). From broadcast journalism and film production, to media management and research within communication, Tang’s education and experience have set her up to be a jack-of-alltrades in CCI. Most recently, Tang served as a professor and graduate coordinator for the University of

Filmmaker and producer DANA WHITE has joined the Kent State School of Journalism and Mass Communication’s (JMC) faculty as an assistant professor. She will teach primarily in the digital media production major.

White lived in Los Angeles before coming to Kent State and worked in various capacities: as a writer, producer and editor on two feature films and several short films and documentaries; as a senior editor and feature producer for television shows including NBC’s “Poker After Dark” and “The Director’s Cut,” and as a lecturer in the University of California, Riverside’s (UCR) Department of Theatre, Film, and Digital Production.

Assistant Professor, Journalism and Mass Communication

Her newest film, “In the Orchard,” which she wrote, produced, edited and starred in, won Best American Independent Feature at the 2018 Sonoma International Film Festival.

Akron. She has also taught at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, OU, SDSU and has published a book about strategic social media.

Tang said she is looking forward to the opportunity for collaboration between programs within CCI. When looking at Kent State, she said CCI’s five schools (JMC, Digital Sciences, Communication Studies, Information and Visual Communication Design) allow for productive partnerships and collaboration.

“I really am looking forward to digital sciences opportunities and being very involved in the graduate and Ph.D. program,” Tang said. “There is potential to build more of an interdisciplinary master’s program to better serve our students.”

She is excited to bring her research expertise and networking connections through her membership in professional associations and faculty fellowships to CCI programs.

“Personally, I learned a lot from communicating directly with those top-level executives and journalists and media industry leaders,” Tang said. “I got to ask what kind of students they want and where they think the future of journalism is. I was able to build connections to bring a lot of internship and fellowship opportunities for our students.”

Arts at UCR. There, she was awarded the Gluck Fellowship and worked to bring the arts into local schools.

In her teaching statement, White writes: “I love filmmaking and writing and storytelling.

It is my life’s work. My students are the next generation of film and theater artists. If my art form is to survive, it will need intelligent, thoughtful, sensitive and powerful storytellers.

In short, helping to guide the next generation of storytellers cuts deep into my heart. It is a serious responsibility that I hold very dear.”

“We are all very excited about Dana joining the faculty for digital media production,” said SCOTT HALLGREN, assistant professor. “She is a skilled artist and passionate about teaching, and we look forward to her help in continuing to make story a priority in our program.”

White earned her Master of Fine Arts degree in Screenwriting and Writing for the Performing

JARGON | FALL 2018 7

JMC NEWS

Collaboration, Celebration and Change KSUIF’s Fifth Feature Film Fuels New Partnerships, Reflecting the Future of Digital Media Production at Kent State

1 New Collaborations

By: Scott Lendak, ’19 Social gatherings filled the halls on April 28, 2018, in anticipation of the fifth Kent State University Independent Films (KSUIF) feature, “Fly By Night.” The audience of about 800 people enjoyed refreshments and drinks before flooding into the viewing area in Cartwright Hall.

After the 87-minute film, a neo-noir crime drama, concluded, there was a brief silence before immense cheering took over the room.

Directors NATE SHIVELY, ’19, and JIM NAPLES, ’18, took the stage to answer questions and thank everyone involved.

“We did it!” Naples screamed in the microphone.

The directors had worked closely with alumna ERICA COLLINS, ’17, who wrote the script before graduating last year. But over the two-year process that began in 2016, more than 65 Kent State students were involved.

New collaborations were born – within the School of Journalism and Mass Communication (JMC), throughout the Kent campus and across regional campuses – setting up KSUIF as an organization and digital media production as a major for future innovation.

Associate Professor DAVE SMELTZER, former Senior Lecturer TRACI WILLIAMS and Assistant

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Professor SCOTT HALLGREN served as the supervising producers and helped with the film in different ways from pre-production to postproduction. Assistant Professor BECKY ROLNICK was KSUIF’s adviser.

“Fly By Night” was the first feature film that wasn’t shot entirely on the Kent State campus, so it required more organization and more outreach to the greater community. The film, which follows two detectives who lead very opposite lives, wasn’t based on a college campus, so the directors had to think outside the box to create or find scene locations that fit the script – like a police station and jail – on a low budget.

Locations weren’t the only big decisions the directors had to make. Naples and Shively spent many late nights working on the film to make it as perfect as possible. They both realized the importance of directing their first feature film.

“When your name is attached to something like this, you want to give it everything you have,” Naples said. “Nate and I would be up working until about 2 a.m. The extra work has definitely paid off for us.”

The directors also received feedback from focus groups through a partnership with a JMC advertising class.

Students in Research and Measurement in Advertising and Public Relations, taught by adjunct instructor JEFF STAATS, conducted surveys and focus groups to help critique the film. The groups watched the first 40 minutes and gave insight about what they liked and disliked. They also helped promote the film.

“The partnership with the advertising class was helpful for us because when we were still editing the movie we could hear what worked and what didn’t work,” Shively said.

“You can’t just make a successful feature film in the production room. You have to reach an audience through advertising and social media, and the advertising class helped us with that.”

Faculty helped the students make connections beyond JMC, too. Over spring break, all of the film’s post-production sound work – mixing, editing and recording the score – was completed at Kent State Stark’s state-of-the-art music technology studio in the newly expanded Fine Arts Building. Previously, this part of the process was outsourced to a third party.

“The collaboration between the two campuses is a manifestation of the ‘one university’ idea,”

JMC NEWS

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3 Hallgren said. “We are putting students first and working to ensure joint educational experiences are happening.”

Hallgren, who has two degrees in music, also wrote 24 pieces of music for the film, and the score was performed by various Kent State musicians. Digital media production students are also connecting more with the School of Theatre and Dance. Before this year, it was difficult to get actors to show up for auditions in Franklin Hall, but now, actors who want to be in films are connecting with the directors making them – whether they’re feature-length or shorts.

“I think the most important thing (we’ve done) is just encouraging a greater sense of collaboration than ever before and recognizing that we’re stronger when we collaborate because we can have access to more people, with more skillsets when we do,” Hallgren said.

Passing the Torch Smeltzer, who has been part of all five KSUIF feature films over the years, retired in May (Page 28) after 13 years, and since then, the industry has completely changed.

“People weren’t shooting video with DSLRs, a web series didn’t exist, and the internet wasn’t fast enough in the distribution process,” he said.

“I think it’s super exciting where the business is headed.”

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To reflect the changing industry, Hallgren and Rolnick will lead the launch of a new curriculum for the digital media production major in coming years. Students will choose to specialize in areas like:

On the night of the premiere, Smeltzer was honored with gifts presented by the student directors. A smile covered his face as Naples and Shively showered him with congratulatory hugs.

• Artistic: creating ideas that will fuel projects,

“I’m speechless,” Naples said as he wiped a tear from his eye. “I couldn’t imagine working with a better group of people for my first feature film. The support from my friends and family is overwhelming, and it is a dream just to be up here.”

All three of these aspects came together as students collaborated to produce “Fly By Night,” and the curriculum will reflect the necessity of working together across disciplines.

Photo Reference

writing the story • Technical: executing stories using current technology • Business: piecing a team together and finding the market for the story

“Executing a business strategy goes along with a creative strategy and a technical strategy,” Hallgren said. “All those things need to come together to produce a piece of work, whether it’s a movie, short film, web series or game.”

Smeltzer is excited about the future of the program that he helped shape over the years.

“I think this program will be in great shape for the future,” Smeltzer said. “Scott and Becky have taken over the reins, and I think it’s exciting to see the direction they take this.”

1: Assistant Professor SCOTT HALLGREN directs Kent State musicians, who recorded the score of the KSUIF feature film “Fly By Night.”

Hallgren wrote the music.

2: More than 700 guests attended the “Fly By Night” movie premiere on April 28, 2018.

3: PHOTO BY MIKE RICH (KENT STATE UNIVERSITY STARK) / Digital media production students collaborated with Kent State Stark to complete the sound mixing and editing for “Fly By Night” over spring break.

4: PHOTO BY SAMANTHA GIRDLER, ’19 / Jimmy Naples, ’18 and Nate Shively, ’19, served as co-directors for “Fly By Night,” Kent State University Independent Films’ fifth full-length feature.

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COMMUNITY IMPACT

A CAMPAIGN WITH PURPOSE

Public relations students earn second place nationwide for education-based campaign to raise awareness for childhood cancer research

PHOTO BY CHRISTINE JUSTISS-SIMON, NIHF STEM HIGH SCHOOL / The Kent State Bateman team implemented its nationally recognized education/public relations campaign at NIHF STEM High School in Akron before traveling to Charleston, S.C., for the national finals.

“You guys are the strategic thinkers we need more of in the world.”

A team of Kent State public relations students had just placed second nationally in the Public Relations Student Society of America’s (PRSSA) Bateman Case Study competition when a judge told them these inspiring words.

Then, another said: “We want to implement your campaign.”

ASHLEY PURNELL, SAMANTHA ROSS, MOLLY SPILLMAN, ARKAYLA TENNEY-HOWARD and ABIGAIL WINTERNITZ, all members of the Class of 2019, traveled to Charleston, S.C., just after the spring semester came to a close, for the national finals

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of PRSSA’s annual case study competition.

They were one of three teams, out of the 84 that entered the competition, invited to present the public relations campaign they researched, created, implemented and evaluated for the client With Purpose.

“Knowing we got second, that our campaign will be used and implemented by the client, that’s more important than any place you can get in the competition,” said Winternitz. “We wanted to create a campaign that was sustainable, that you could use anywhere on any budget, and I think we accomplished that, and our client appreciated it.”

With Purpose was created by a couple who lost their son to childhood cancer and found a huge discrepancy between the amount of money directed toward clinical trials for adult cancer patients versus childhood cancer patients.

This discrepancy has created a pre-clinical gap – a lack of research for solutions that could potentially lead to future treatments for childhood cancer. For the Bateman Case Study competition, teams were challenged to create a campaign that would lead to awareness of the pre-clinical gap, and in turn, spur a youth-led movement to advocate for research funding for childhood cancer.

COMMUNITY IMPACT

Winternitz brought a creative mindset and designed the graphics, while Tenney-Howard took the lead on the research. Ross was the one that kept the team grounded and brought some of the more “out there” ideas back to the main task at hand.

“It taught me to have mature trust in people who are working with me,” Spillman said. “You can’t do everything at once. (My team) taught me that it’s okay to take a step back and watch them successfully do something.”

LEFT TO RIGHT: Bateman team members Samantha Ross, Ashley Purnell, Arkayla Tenney-Howard, Molly Spillman, Abigail Winternitz, all public relations majors in the Kent State class of 2019, took second place nationwide in PRSSA’s annual case study competition.

While working on the research phase of the campaign, the team found that this wasn’t something that was talked about in school curriculums.

“It became very clear early on that this had to be an educational campaign, more so than a one-time donation or volunteer opportunity,” Winternitz said. “People really needed to understand the issue before they could act on it or advocate for it.”

The team identified STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) students as a target audience, because these children and young adults often pursue medical careers. If educated now about the pre-clinical gap for childhood cancer, they could become future researchers.

The Kent State team created an entire education pipeline, implementing the campaign with middle schoolers at Bio-Med Science Academy in Rootstown, through Choose Ohio First Scholars at Kent State. They also worked with science education students to create lesson plans that would engage and draw upon concepts STEM students may already be familiar with.

“I thought the approach of (targeting) STEM students … to educate them about the inequity of childhood cancer research funding, and the potential to motivate them to do research and become With Purpose advocates, set them apart,” said TIM ROBERTS, associate lecturer and

team adviser. “The judges … were impressed with the sophistication of this approach.”

By working with the students on handson activities and making national statistics personal, they focused on the idea that, even with so many digital tools available, face-toface communication, when done right, can be extremely effective.

“When you’re scrolling through your Twitter feed, you see (something) for a second,” said Spillman, another team member. “When you’re doing a research activity that you spend 30 or 40 minutes on, you get emotionally attached. …

It really enforced the idea in these kids, in a way that was more (effective) than just seeing an Instagram post.”

Students earn class credit for participating in the Bateman competition, but they also put in a significant amount of time outside of the classroom. In doing so, they learned valuable lessons about teamwork.

“You can’t go into working as a team and expect it to go perfectly right away,” said Purnell. “We just went with the flow and didn’t have anyone take over any position. We let everyone find their own niche and went from there.”

Spillman was the editor of the team’s 60-page casebook, and Purnell did a lot of the writing.

Being able to meet With Purpose’s founders at the finals in Charleston, and see the change their campaign could make, shaped how many of the team members envision their future careers.

Winternitz, who has a minor in public health, had always planned on working in public relations for a hospital or insurance company, but now, she feels drawn toward health advocacy.

“There’s so much work in healthcare advocacy … that really needs to be done,” she said.

“It’s definitely helped me think more seriously (about) … working with a client who actually needs the help, being an advocate for someone who needs it, as opposed to just working in a corporate setting.”

And for Spillman, it cemented her plans to pursue advocacy through strategic communication and design.

“The PR that I want to do … is about creating a change,” she said. “This, to me, was a change that I wanted to create: It was grassroots education – not just making a web campaign and calling it a day, but really reaching out to people and making a change within communities. To me, this showed a side of PR that is very hard to teach in the classroom.”

This is the second time that a Kent State team has placed second in the Bateman Case Study competition. (The first second place finish was in 2013.) Teams have earned honorable mentions in 2017, 2016, 2014 and 2009.

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COMMUNITY IMPACT

Opening Doors: From Detroit to Kent to D.C.

Broadcast Journalism Senior Shares Insights About Media Diversity and Media Bias After Internships With MSNBC, Fox News and Local News Station Kent State senior CHRISTIANA FORD’s path to becoming a political journalist began at a young age. With a family that often watched the news together and encouraged her to ask questions, the seed was planted right at home, and Ford began dreaming big.

get the internship on my own, but the door was opened through Emma Bowen.”

When someone told her she looked like local reporter and anchor Glenda Lewis, of Detroit’s WXYZ-Channel 7, Lewis quickly became her first journalism role model. As a young black girl, seeing someone who looked like her, doing what she wanted to do, gave Ford an extra boost of confidence.

“Right now, I feel like I’m part of the team,” Ford said. “It feels like more than an internship.

The relationships I’ve built are stronger than any intern could build in a (single) six-week internship. … Every time I come back, they know I have certain skillsets. They know they don’t have to re-teach me things, and that I can just jump in and do it.”

“You hear all the time, ‘You speak well for a black person, you talk like a white person,’” Ford remembers. “But when I looked on the news, I had (Glenda Lewis) to look to, and I thought, ‘She actually does look like me.’ … That was my inspiration that I can do this. It was very important for me to see her on the news every day.”

Since then, Ford has been quick to seek out and seize opportunities. She is entering her senior year with internships at two of the nation’s top three cable news stations (Fox News and MSNBC) under her belt, along with two summers of work as an intern at Detroit’s WDIV Local 4.

When One Door Opens…

During her freshman year at Kent State University, Ford applied and was accepted into the Emma Bowen Foundation, a national organization with a mission to build a more diverse media industry. The foundation connects college-aged Fellows like Ford with a parent company in their area of media interest – business, content or innovation – and Fellows then interview for an internship, where if selected, they can return during summer and winter breaks throughout college.

Ford, who wants to be a legal or political reporter, fell into the “content” area and was connected to a parent company, Detroit’s Local 4.

“Once one door is open, that opens the door for so many more things in the journalism field,” she said. “(The Emma Bowen Foundation) opened the door to have me interview at my parent company. In addition to me, they had outside (non-Emma Bowen Fellow) applicants. I had to

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Ford has interned at Local 4 during summer and winter 2016, winter 2017 and summer 2018.

She plans to return during winter 2018.

While interning at Local 4, Ford spends most of her time shadowing veteran reporter Paula Tutman. She runs Tutman’s social media pages, collaborates on Facebook Live broadcasts, interviews sources and picks out sound bites.

“I’ve learned this semester more than ever that being a journalist isn’t about picking a side.”

By working so closely with Tutman and returning year after year, Ford has developed sources within the city of Detroit. Even during school semesters, when she’s not officially interning, she has been able to collaborate on stories from afar. One of these stories – about Devontae Sanford, a recently exonerated man who was wrongly convicted of four murders at age 14 – had national reach.

… More Doors Keep Opening As an Emma Bowen Fellow, Ford also has the opportunity to attend a New York City convention each summer. The convention features panel discussions with well-known reporters like Joy-Ann Reid and Gayle King, on the topics of media diversity and technology, along with resume workshops and networking events. In 2016, during the first convention she attended, Ford met with representatives from MSNBC, and that meeting eventually led to an internship, which she completed the following summer (2017).

At MSNBC, she worked on various tasks and shadowed journalists for several different

shows. During some weekends, she went into work on her days off so she could shadow journalists she couldn’t meet during the week.

And she didn’t stop after interning at one national news outlet. This past spring, Ford participated in Kent State’s Washington Program in National Issues (WPNI). While studying the political process and international issues in Washington, D.C., with a cohort of Kent State students, Ford completed an internship at Fox News, working as a college associate for the Special Report with Bret Baier.

On assignment with senior reporters, she went to the Capitol for an exclusive interview with Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), to an interview with the Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia, Adel al-Jubeir, and to the White House for a live taping of the Special Report.

As someone who has now spent time at a conservative and liberal network – amid increasing polarization among the American public – Ford said she has learned valuable lessons about media bias.

“I’ve learned this semester more than ever that being a journalist isn’t about picking a

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side,” she said. “It’s about doing your job and presenting the facts and upholding democracy by protecting the right of the people to make decisions themselves. It’s not up to us to tell people what is right or wrong. It’s not up to us to be politicians, just to do our jobs. We’re the ones who get paid to not pick a side and who have a front row seat to history. People don’t have to like us or always agree with us. It’s like an ‘if not us, then who’ type of responsibility.”

The Next Chapter Ford said she is thankful for the Emma Bowen Foundation and Kent State University for connecting her to opportunities that will help her achieve her dreams. She would like to see other industries make similar commitments to improving diversity and representation.

“Opportunities such as the Emma Bowen Foundation should be more present in other fields, more than just media,” Ford said.

“It should be in architecture, science and technology, so that we can develop more people in society. … Opportunities have to be given.

People can say we all have an equal chance, but that’s not true.”

Within the School of Journalism and Mass Communication (JMC), Ford has participated in TV2 and been part of the team that reinstated Kent State’s chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ). She has also discovered purpose in journalism.

“I really learned how to be a great storyteller and to not be a greedy journalist,” Ford said.

“Do it for the value it creates. Have purpose with your stories. Don’t do it just to do it or for yourself. JMC stresses impact and making a difference through the work that you do.”

“JMC stresses impact and making a difference through the work that you do.”

Ford said she hopes to work at a local news station after graduation in May 2019, but she would eventually like to return to Washington, D.C. “I’m definitely more focused on being a White House correspondent one day,” she said.

“Watching them live in action from the White House increased that desire. I know it may seem far-fetched, but all you need is one ‘yes’ to make a dream. You can receive a thousand no’s but all you need is one yes. Why not me? It has to be somebody.”

PHOTOS PROVIDED BY CHRISTIANA FORD / As an intern at Fox News, CHRISTIANA FORD, ’19, practices a stand-up near the White House. Ford participated in the internship as part of Kent State’s Washington Program in National Issues in spring 2018. She has also completed internships at MSNBC and WDIV Local 4 in Detroit.

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Journalism Excellence.

Community

impact.

PHOTO BY LIZ DUFOUR, CINCINNATI ENQUIRER / Cincinnati Enquirer reporter TERRY DEMIO, ‘86, talks to sources for a story about heroin’s grip on Cincinnati and greater Ohio. The piece won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting.

K

ent State alumni have earned their place among the best in American journalism over the years through Pulitzer Prize recognition. From coverage of the tragic events that occurred May 4, 1970, to commentary that gave voice to the underprivileged, to investigative reporting about the safety of children’s toys and products (and several more), the winning stories have been catalysts for community impact and engagement.

This year, seven alumni contributed to two Pulitzer Prize-winning stories, further solidifying this legacy.

TERRY DEMIO, ’86, was one of two lead writers for the Cincinnati Enquirer’s “Seven Days of Heroin,” which won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for local news reporting. More than 60 reporters, photographers and videographers contributed, including four other Kent State alumni.

“It means that local community journalism is working,” DeMio said. “… Deep dives and long stories done with great care and determination are always going to be sought and adored by people, no matter what, whether they’re in print,

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or you look at them on the phone or in a video.

It’s an amazing feeling, a reassurance.”

On the other side of the country, alumni KRISTEN DELGUZZI, ’98, and MARK LAUFFER, ’81, were part of The Arizona Republic / USA TODAY Network staff that won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting for “The Wall: Unknown Stories, Unintended Consequences.” The project explored every mile of the U.S./Mexico border, reporting on existing security and potential impacts of a border wall.

In the pages that follow, alumni discuss these award-winning stories.

Cincinnati Enquirer’s “Seven Days of Heroin”

2018 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting TERRY DEMIO, ’86, heroin reporter, Cincinnati Enquirer Co-lead writer TERRY DEMIO first saw the roots of the heroin epidemic in 2012, when she noticed an increase of vigils for people who had died from overdoses.

“I remember thinking: If they’re having vigils for these folks, and all these people are attending, we’re not talking about a little problem here,” she said.

At the time, she was a general assignment reporter for the Cincinnati Enquirer. She got to know families of people who were suffering from addiction, learned about advocates’ grassroots

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treatment work and talked to fire departments and hospitals.

Treatment has consistently been a strong focus of her work.

Under PETER BHATIA (now editor of the Detroit Free Press), who served as the Enquirer’s editor from 2015-2017, DeMio’s role officially shifted to “heroin reporter,” even though the epidemic had been her main focus for several years.

How did “Seven Days of Heroin” come to be?

“(Peter’s) idea has always been, and continued to be, that we can’t be everything to everyone anymore,” DeMio said. “… We have to find the most important and most compelling and most needed stories and really delve deeply into them.”

How has your work covering heroin evolved?

Initially, DeMio’s focus was on daily stories, many of which were immediately shocking to the general public: the fact that children as young as nine years old were being trained to use naloxone (Narcan) or that parents or grandparents who had overdosed were found in a car with children.

Today, she works on more enterprise pieces that illustrate the ways the epidemic has permeated society. She recently wrote about a rise in people with HIV due to injection drug use and compassion fatigue among first responders.

DeMio and DAN HORN, the other lead writer for the Pulitzer Prize-winning piece, had been discussing the idea of documenting several days of heroin usage in Cincinnati for about a year. They pitched the idea in May 2017 in response to an editor’s desire to “do something big.” The paper’s leadership was quickly on board.

“Obviously, everybody was very proud. We didn’t do it for the numbers. But we were thrilled. … We wanted it to have an impact. But we didn’t know what it would look like.”

“We realized quite quickly that in order to show seven days chronologically, hour by hour, we needed a lot of hands on this story.”

About 60 people from the Enquirer and Gannett’s 10 smaller Ohio news outlets

contributed. DeMio and Horn started by compiling a list of 129 potential assignments for “heroin week,” July 10-16, 2017.

“People could pick them, and some people were adding their own, but mostly these were things I knew about already that do happen with any regularity.”

DeMio handled much of the street reporting, while the team of photographers and reporters deployed to jails and treatment centers and followed first responders in ride-alongs and people in recovery.

In preparing the team, “I really stressed that we are going to be seeing people at some of the worst times of their lives. We need to treat them with respect and have some empathy to understand that this is a health condition.”

What was the process of assembling the final piece?

DeMio and Horn assembled a timeline of notes and photos on an office wall, organized by day (Monday through Sunday).

“From there, we kind of made our outline, and we just started writing. Dan and I split up the work about evenly. We’re both storytellers. He came up with the lede. … I was making sure we were using the right terminology, that we were addressing things correctly.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC / Arizona Republic staff celebrate as the 2018 Pulitzer Prizes are announced.

The Republic / USA TODAY Network won the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting for “The Wall.”

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“Seven Days of Heroin” ran Sept. 10, 2017.

The story follows a fast-paced narrative, chronicling heroin’s grip on Cincinnati and greater Ohio, hour by hour, over the course of seven days. It includes vignettes about a mother who suspects her son is using, recovery centers and support groups, doctor appointments and caseworkers’ visits with children of mothers and fathers who are addicted to heroin. 911 emergency call transcripts and social media posts are woven throughout.

How did the community react?

Almost immediately, affected families and people working on the epidemic began sharing the piece widely. Soon, well-known journalists and past Pulitzer Prize winners began to chime in.

“Obviously, everybody was very proud. We didn’t do it for the numbers. But we were thrilled. … We wanted it to have an impact. But we didn’t know what it would look like.”

For some, it was “a kick in the gut, a realization of where we are.”

Others continued the conversation: Kentucky State Rep. ADDIA WUCHNER held a media hearing to talk about the realities of the epidemic. A mother who recognized her son, a recovering heroin addict, in the story, wrote a column in response about the struggles and stigmas parents like her face.

Has this story and the Pulitzer win drawn more attention to the epidemic?

There have always been doubters about the scope of the heroin epidemic. “Seven Days of Heroin” affirmed that it was and continues to be a big deal, DeMio said.

Since the Pulitzer win, DeMio has been called upon more frequently as an expert about the opioid epidemic for panels and media programming.

“That’s what I’ve tried to become over the years.

You really need to learn the beat. There’s that recognition now, more than there used to be, that yeah, she knows exactly what she’s talking about, without being an advocate, but (as someone who knows) whether something is the kind of thing that should or should not happen, and why or why not.”

What is your advice for young journalists?

Keep in touch with sources even after a story is complete. Sometimes that means taking calls “after hours.” She doesn’t advocate for working overtime without pay, but for smartly deciding how to structure what time there is.

“Doctors, grieving mothers and scared dads, they’re not going to be on a nine-to-five cycle.”

But most importantly, if something feels important, don’t let up.

“If you have something that you’re going after, and you know this is something that needs this

attention, just don’t stop. Don’t stop until you’re told to stop. If you’re told to stop, question it, and decide how you can continue if you think you need to.”

EMILY MILLS, ’16, breaking news reporter, Mansfield News Journal Contributor Her role: Mills spent a Friday night reporting from the Richland County Jail.

There, she observed a woman overdose (who later died), and a pregnant woman experiencing withdrawal.

The vignette about the pregnant woman ran in the final package, and Mills included observations about the woman who overdosed in a follow-up story about how the Richland County Jail was handling the epidemic.

Covering the opioid epidemic: As a breaking news reporter, she has covered her fair share of heroin-related stories, but until “Seven Days of Heroin,” she had never witnessed an overdose.

Before going to the jail to report that week, she had prepared herself emotionally for what she might see.

“You’re doing this for your job, but you’re also doing this to tell a story to the community, and it’s a story that’s really important,” she told herself. “It might have an effect on you emotionally – and it did – but that’s the price to pay to tell important stories to the community.”

Kent State Pulitzer Prize Winners Throughout the Years ALBERT FITZPATRICK, ’56; LACY MCCRARY, ’60; RON CLARK, ’65; JEFF SALLOT ’70; AND PAUL TOPLE, ’70 as part of the Akron Beacon Journal Award: Local News Reporting, for coverage of May 4, 1970 events at Kent State

1971

1971

JOHN FILO, ’72 as a student photojournalist Award: Spot News Photography, for photograph of Mary Vecchio taken on May 4, 1970 at Kent State

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1978

J. ROSS BAUGHMAN, ’75 as an Associated Press photographer Award: Feature Photography, for coverage of the war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe)

JIM TOMS, ’67; PAUL TOPLE, ’70; AND SUE ZAKE, ’11 as part of the Akron Beacon Journal Award: General News Reporting, for coverage of the attempted hostile takeover of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company in Akron

1987

1993

LYNNE SLADKY, ’78 as a photographer for the Associated Press Award: Feature Photography, for coverage of the 1992 Presidential campaign

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Contributing to a Pulitzer Prize-winning story: “It’s really special. I don’t feel like I’ve done a lot to contribute because I had a tiny little section of the overall piece, but I know it wouldn’t have happened without all those little tiny pieces coming together. I just graduated two years ago, so to be able to say I contributed to a Pulitzer Prize-winning project is unreal and unbelievable.”

BRIAN SMITH, ’14, photographer, Mansfield News Journal Contributor His role: Smith completed several photo assignments for “Seven Days of Heroin,” and several of his photos ran in the final piece.

Preparing for the assignment: Smith used many lessons he first learned in JMC while reporting for this project. The ethics golden rule of “doing unto others as you would want done unto yourself” was a guiding principle as he witnessed subjects in tough situations.

He is especially thankful for what he learned from instructor GARY HARWOOD in Visual Storytelling.

“He taught us how to be empathetic and to slow down and spend some quality time to get to know the people – and to realize that these are human beings and that it’s a great honor to tell their stories. When you’re dealing with terrible subject matters like death, addiction and despair, he would tell you to take time for yourself, talk to others and don’t close up.”

JONA ISON, ’02, reporter, Chillicothe Gazette Contributor

JOE POWELL, ’86 Projects Manager / Planning Editor, Cincinnati Enquirer Editor

Covering the opioid epidemic: Ison has reported on the opioid epidemic for the Chillicothe Gazette and other Gannett papers. Her six-day series, “The Overdose Dilemma,” in which she examined every Ross County overdose death over a year, recently won an Ohio Associated Press award for enterprise reporting.

His role: As the Enquirer’s “news planner,” Powell shepherded stories through the workflow process and coordinated between those on the front lines of the story (reporters and photographers) and those working behind the scenes (editors, design and production).

For “Seven Days of Heroin,” Ison juggled several assignments about the opioid epidemic.

How newspapers with shrinking staffs can continue to cover big issues: Leadership and thoughtful planning about how reporters spend their time is important, she said.

“You have to have leadership willing to let you off the daily grind to really focus on bigger projects. We’ve had to restructure and reconfigure how we cover our communities...It was really taking and evaluating each thing, and asking, ‘What’s the best way to cover this?’”

Collaboration is also key.

“We’re lucky, I think, here in Ohio because there are so many Gannett properties, so we can work on things like ‘Seven Days of Heroin.’ At any one paper alone, it still would have maybe been possible, but it would have taken much longer to do and wouldn’t have had quite the depth.”

JIM TOMS, ’67; PAUL TOPLE, ’70; CHUCK AYERS, ’71; AND SUE ZAKE, ’11 as well as retired JMC advisor Bob Springer, as part of the Akron Beacon Journal Award: Public Service, for coverage of race issues

“‘Seven Days’ was a complex project with more than 100 reporters, photographers, editors, producers, designers, etc., on board,” he said. “I’ll go out on a limb and say this was the largest team project I’ve been involved in!”

USA TODAY / The Arizona Republic’s “The Wall”

2018 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting “The Wall: Unknown Stories, Unintended Consequences” was led by The Arizona Republic and involved more than 30 USA TODAY Network journalists from California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

Over eight days of printed and online coverage, “The Wall” explored existing security at the border and the possible impacts of a wall on life, commerce, smuggling and property rights.

Kent State alumnus MARK LAUFFER, ’81, was part of the online team that packaged the stories and accompanying media each day. Having worked in Arizona for most of his professional career, border issues have always been familiar to him, and he knows how “deeply divided and polarized” Americans are on issues like immigration.

CONNIE SCHULTZ, ’79 as a Plain Dealer columnist Award: Commentary, for columns that gave voice to the underprivileged

1994

2005

1997

PAUL FRESTY, ’89 as graphics editor of the New Orleans Times-Picayune Award: Public Service, for the paper’s comprehensive look at the environmental, ecological and economic threats to the world’s fishing industry

SAM ROE, ’83 as part of the Chicago Tribune Award: Investigative Reporting, for a comprehensive investigation into the safety of children’s toys and products

2008

2006

SUE ZAKE, ’11 as part of the Biloxi Sun Herald Award: Public Service, for Hurricane Katrina coverage

JARGON | FALL 2018 17

COMMUNITY IMPACT

“Sure, we sold papers and received great online traffic numbers. But measuring hearts and minds is another thing,” he said. “ … From comments, letters and so on, overall, the impression was that it was balanced, representing all sides.”

KRISTEN DELGUZZI, ’98, managing editor for politics, government and world at USA TODAY Network; formerly senior director of digital and audience growth at The Arizona Republic Editor Her role: Before joining USA TODAY Network in Washington, D.C., in the spring of 2018, DelGuzzi spent 12 years at The Arizona Republic. As the senior director for digital and audience growth, she managed the Pulitzerwinning story’s rollout, digital planning and socialization.

DelGuzzi is the 2018 Taylor Award winner, JMC’s highest honor for alumni. Read more about her on Page 24.

This required being focused on two fronts: managing “The Wall” and its progress, and managing the day-to-day newsroom operations differently, while several reporters and photographers were pulled off regular assignments to focus solely on “The Wall.”

What happened next: “The Wall” was built on USA TODAY Network’s platform and shared across all Gannett publications. Within about a month, the story had five million page views, and the numbers continued to climb. The Republic held live storytelling events in the community, where they previewed some of the video that was produced as part of the package. They’ve recently released a full-length documentary that premiered at the Detroit Film Festival and is now making its rounds across the country.

“There has been a lot of reaction, and it has been intense. Some of it has been mixed around partisan lines. There have been a lot of ‘thank-yous’ – for showing us what life around the border is like, for showing us the border.”

MARK LAUFFER, ’81, homepage producer at azcentral.com / The Arizona Republic Contributor His role: As a homepage producer, it was up to Lauffer to feature the day’s package prominently and properly online (barring breaking news). In the months that followed, he’s also linked back to the story to add context to stories about deeper U.S./Mexico border issues.

“If there was any breaking news that involved deeper border issues – like border agents using deadly force, or having deadly force used against them, or President Trump visiting the border to view wall prototypes – (these) were perfect vehicles for pointing to our comprehensive (and later, ‘Pulitzer Prizewinning’) project.”

Being part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning staff: “The staff of The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com has many people who have, and demonstrate daily, the fire in the belly that has driven hungry journalists from the get-go. On a big project, they think nothing of disrupting their lives and spending days, even weeks, out in the field, sometimes under grueling conditions.”

He has worked in the industry for nearly 37 years, and as he nears the end of his career in journalism, he said this experience will always be a source of pride.

“Wherever my career, and life, lead from here, I’ll always carry the banner of working on a staff, and having a small role, in my profession’s ultimate prize.”

“It means that local community journalism is working... Deep dives and long stories done with great care and determination are always going to be sought and adored.”

TERRY DEMIO, ’86

Lauffer said he and the web staff are always excited to make big news stories functional and interactive online.

O im

Col to s stu Info

Thi ran Tue

“Online people take the handling of the work of our colleagues very seriously, as if it were our own, and strive to present projects online in the very best way, at the proper times, in the correct forms.”

PHOTO BY MEG VOGEL, THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER / Editor Amy Wilson FaceTimes with former editor Peter Bhatia after The Cincinnati Enquirer wins a Pulitzer Prize for local reporting for their “Seven Days of Heroin” project Monday, April 16, 2018.

No like stu sch

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JARGON | FALL 2018 | ISSUE 1 18

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One purpose, immense impact Collectively, more than 100 of you gave $20,000 to support student media and passports for students in the College of Communication and Information.

This happened because of individual gifts, ranging from $5 to $200 in honor of Giving Tuesday 2017.

No gift is too small. Choose the initiative you’d like to support, whether it’s a JMC organization, student media outlet, global initiative or scholarship.

www.kent.edu/SupportCCI

JARGON | FALL 2018 19

FEATURE

Representation Matters

Alumna Fills Void With Sesi, a Magazine for Underrepresented Teen Girls By: Margaret Manning, ’18 Growing up, Kent State alumna ANDRÉA BUTLER, M.A. ’05, was much like any other young girl.

She loved to get her magazines and gush over the latest trends. However, she remembers thinking that the magazines weren’t giving her everything she needed: A huge majority of teen magazines didn’t cover the beauty necessities of black girls. It didn’t dawn on her until she was about 17 years old. She wondered why no one in the magazines looked like her.

“No one was my skin tone, and there were no articles that I could relate to,” she said.

From there, Butler promised herself that if nothing changed by the time she graduated from college, she’d start her own magazine.

And so, the journey to create Sesi, began.

Butler started to form the body of Sesi in the mid-2000s, as a graduate student earning a master’s degree in journalism and mass communication at Kent State University. For her master’s project, she created a business plan and prototype for Sesi. Still, after graduation, she knew that if the magazine was going to be a success, she would have to invest a lot of money into it – money a newly minted graduate student wouldn’t and didn’t have.

After spending five years as an English teacher, she went on to work as an editor at LivingSocial in Washington, D.C. It was there that Butler got the last boost she needed to really reboot and relaunch Sesi. “(Working at LivingSocial) helped me refine my style of writing for Sesi and my editing skills,” she said.

Photos provided by Andréa Butler It also taught her about the importance of freelancers: how to hire them, manage them and how they could capture the essence of local voices. As she started to get more serious about Sesi, she knew that to really help the magazine come to life, she was going to need to quit her full-time job.

“Sesi was always calling to me,” Butler said, but the timing wasn’t right to go full-force into making her idea a reality until 2012.

About five years after quitting her full-time job, Butler secured a distributer for Sesi; since June 15, 2018, the magazine has been on shelves at Books-A-Million stores across the country. The summer issue features actress Lyric Ross as its cover girl. Ross plays Deja on NBC’s “This Is Us.” Butler said she has had some big names on the cover before, but she hopes this will hit a different audience because of the role that Ross plays as well as how young she is.

However, the struggle was real and still is, according to Butler.

“It’s still a hustle,” she said, because selling ads, getting distributors, creating content for social media, finding influencers, attending

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conventions, forming surveys and staying authentic, is a constant battle. Yet she manages to do it all and still gets excited about her magazine every day.

Butler said she’s had a lot of help along the way, but in terms of making Sesi her own, she has put in countless hours. In addition to serving as editor-in-chief of the magazine, Butler runs Sesi’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram channels. She also travels to school librarian expos, which she has found to be an effective way of getting the word out, because librarians will often subscribe on the spot.

As Butler continues to define Sesi, she said that today the magazine sees 10,000 readers, and those readers share their issues with four to five other people. However, what Butler prides her magazine on the most is just encouraging girls to get involved, to have a voice.

As Sesi forms a community that continues to blossom, Butler’s 17-year-old self would be ecstatic.

FEATURE

An ‘Orchestra of Can-Do Spirit and Strength’ movement. The movement originally asked for equal pay for a woman performing the same job as a man. There was also a desire for the same educational opportunities. These were worthwhile issues, but the public often was perplexed trying to relate to what was going on.

JANIS D. FROELICH, ’68

Whenever I give a brief rundown of my professional life starting with the Daily Kent Stater editor position, people often ask, “Oh, they had women editors back then? Or were you the first?”

Today, as women find their voice, not taking sexual harassment or unequal pay any more, I observe that we’ve made progress, but challenges remain.

No indeed, I was not the first. Kent State had a long line of female editors dating back to 1926 – long before my saddle shoes hit the sidewalks in 1964. In fact, the second best thing about my college experience was that I didn’t walk away with horrid sexual discrimination stories to retell.

Sure, I was nervous when I applied. But it wasn’t at all because I feared a young woman wouldn’t get the job. I was fretting because I was pregnant and had morning sickness. But by the time my term as editor began, my pregnancy had settled in, and I was ready to don billowing maternity tops while running a 10-page plus independent newspaper.

Of course, I learned to work through failure.

But overall, my own 1960s in Kent nurtured any ambitious dream I had. I found people who cared about me. If I wanted to do something, I could. This was the Golden Flashes orchestra of can-do spirit and strength – the background “noise” for my coming-of-age.

Though I spent time in other fields, newspapers were my true love. While working at the Akron Beacon Journal in the seventies, I was assigned to cover the women’s liberation

Forty years of working at five newspapers later, I cherish that other women before me made my career possible. No, I wasn’t a pioneer at Kent State or at Kent’s Record-Courier, the Akron Beacon Journal, Tampa Bay Times, The Des Moines Register or The Tampa Tribune.

Others had broken barriers before me, providing unlimited ways to go like sparrows flying out from an Ohio apple tree.

But in newsrooms early in my career, there weren’t many women reporters with young children. My career always had to be balanced with being a mom.

(The first best thing was that my son Mark was born the same day I earned my Bachelor of Arts degree – more on the kid later.)

I was editor during my senior year. As anyone who has spent time in the student media newsroom knows, this was like a full-time job.

I earned a nice paycheck, but while attending classes, I shepherded a large staff, had visibility on campus (interviewing U.S. Vice President Hubert Humphrey) and had loads of detailed responsibilities. It was a turbulent time in our country, and our student reporters responded, day after day, to tragedy and upheaval.

I also had many role models but none stronger than Des Moines Register editor Geneva Overholser, whose stellar career has included being ombudsman at The Washington Post.

I actually remember going into her office with goosebumps because she was the first woman editor at a newspaper where I worked.

That brings me back to the “kid part” of my tale, like I promised. On Aug. 30, 1968, the day before my college graduation, eight-plus months pregnant, I excitedly laid out my cap and gown.

“Wonder if they’ll mention I was Stater editor when I walk across the stage,” I asked my thenhusband (late newspaper editor Larry Froelich).

As editor of the Daily Kent Stater, Janis Froelich, ’68, had the opportunity to meet and interview then-Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

Nationally syndicated columnist CONNIE SCHULTZ, alumna and professional-in-residence in the Kent State College of Communication and Information, says most of her champions through the years were women. She graduated in 1979 after serving as a Stater editor. She later joined The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, where she eventually won a Pulitzer Prize.

But, I never made it across that stage; our baby decided to be born slightly early. I went to the hospital on the eve of my graduation, and the next morning when I should have been grabbing that diploma, I was cuddling newborn Mark.

Thank you Kent State for my career kick start!

And Mark, a 1991 alumnus, thanks you also.

“While I was at Kent, gender was never an issue, even though in looking at old Stater staff photos, I was outnumbered by lots of men,” Schultz said. “I think all the time how lucky I was because the Stater experience prepared me for life, and that confidence has never left me.”

In the real world, male-dominated newsrooms weren’t always welcoming to Schultz’s “women’s issues” columns. Her role models include a number of women at the Plain Dealer who believed in the wide appeal of her columns.

JARGON | FALL 2018 21

FEATURE

‘A Guy From Cleveland Who Tells Stories’ Alumnus Navigates Shift From Print to Documentary Film, Wins Emmy By: Megan Ayscue, ’19 TOM JENNINGS, ’85, a Peabody and Emmy Award-winning journalist, won the first Hearst Award, known as the “Pulitzer Prize of collegiate journalism,” for Kent State. However, he almost didn’t graduate in the journalism program.

Jennings started college on a general studies track, but found his way to, as it was called at the time, the Daily Kent Stater. He knew next to nothing about journalistic writing, but after hard work with the editor, his first story made it to the front page. He was hooked.

“That wonderfully fateful day when I walked into that Stater office… I literally was just trying to find my way with what I wanted to do, not

necessarily for my life, but I definitely was looking for something to give me direction,” he said.

At the time, he was weeks away from graduating but “bemoaning the fact” that his degree would not be in journalism.

And he started getting more first-page stories, despite never taking one journalism class.

He tried to join the School of Journalism but was denied each time. Then Jennings wrote an editorial about the need for Kent State to properly memorialize the May 4, 1970, shootings. Unbeknownst to him, a professor liked the piece so much, they submitted it for the Hearst Journalism Awards Program. And he won.

Because Kent State’s School of Journalism and the Division of Telecommunications were separate at the time, Jennings told the director, “if I was not allowed into the School of Journalism that day, that I would take my Hearst Award, and I would walk over to (Telecommunications), and they would gladly welcome me and my Hearst Award into that school.

“I didn’t even know what it was because nobody here had won it, nobody knew,” Jennings said.

“By the time I got to my office at the Daily Kent Stater … there is a letter on my desk from (Director) Joe Harper … accepting me into the School of Journalism and congratulating me on my story,” Jennings said. “And from that point

PHOTO BY AMRITA DATTA, ’19 / JMC alumnus TOM JENNINGS, ’85, talks with WKSU reporters during a 2018 visit to Franklin Hall.

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FEATURE

on he said he needed to have the Tom Jennings rule, which would be ‘no matter what your GPA, if you win a Hearst Award, you are allowed into the School of Journalism.’”

No such rule exists today. But for Jennings, the Hearst Award was his first of many.

He has gone on to win a number of other awards, from the George Foster Peabody Award and the CINE Golden Eagle Award, to the New York Film Festival Gold and Silver Medal and an Emmy for Outstanding Research.

The Emmy, which he won in 2017, was for the film “Challenger Disaster: Lost Tapes” on National Geographic, in collaboration with Katherine Williams and David Tillman. When it came to doing this research, Jennings said he was proud to win because their documentary beat out work from bigger companies such as HBO, PBS and American Experience.

“Those skills that I learned here long ago paid off,” he said.

Shifting Mediums But switching from a traditional medium of newspaper writing to documentary work wasn’t easy. When writing for a paper, Jennings said reporters only cared about one phrase: above the fold. Working with digital and film was “a different game” and starting “was like going to school all over again.”

The switch to this new medium was a sudden one. After years, Jennings finally got a piece he wrote into the New York Times. When he finally saw the story – a half-page in the A section – the feeling he had been waiting for lasted no more than five seconds, he said.

“My heart just dropped, and I thought, ‘I’ve been waiting 10 years for this moment,’ and all I could think of was, ‘This wasn’t it,’” Jennings said. “I had this profound sense of, ‘I had to work so hard, and there were so many struggles, and it was going to be another 10 years of more of the same to just try (to) get a staff job, and journalism was changing’… This isn’t what I got into it for. I had this moment where I felt all of the energy in my soul just sink into the ground.”

That very day, he began looking for work in cable.

“There were a lot more opportunities; it was a business that was growing,” he said. “I felt like if I learned to do it really well, I would still feel proud of what I do. And I do.”

A lot of Jennings’ work as a producer, director and writer centers on the idea of “lost tapes” – documentaries based around rare footage, audio and the like, compiled into one film. Each

PHOTO BY AMRITA DATTA, ’19 / TOM JENNINGS, ’85, talks with student media newsroom adviser and assistant professor SUE ZAKE, during a recent visit to Kent State. focuses on a historical figure or event, such as Malcolm X, O.J. Simpson or Pearl Harbor.

Rediscovering Kent Despite all of his accomplishments, Jennings never forgot his roots at Kent State. He recently visited the main campus for the first time in more than a decade. While a lot has changed, one thing he was most surprised and pleased about was the May 4 Visitors Center’s new location in Taylor Hall.

“That whole bank of windows where the Visitors Center is, the ones that chase the Commons?

That was the Stater office. Right there,” Jennings said. “And the Chestnut Burr was right next to it in that next room where now they have an exhibit of Sandy Scheuer, one of the students who was killed.”

“Those skills that I learned here long ago paid off.”

Jennings felt that the May 4 Center’s placement in what was once the Stater newsroom was fitting.

“It just gave me tremendous perspective on my own life and where I came from. That recognition that I wrote about what needed to be done, whatever small part in reminding people way back when, I’m certainly grateful to see… May 4th, the tragedy that it was,

being recognized in such a remarkable way,” Jennings said. “And to have it be done in the offices of the Kent Stater and the Chestnut Burr is more than appropriate in my opinion.”

As he reconnects with the campus he once called home, Jennings is planning to set up a scholarship in the School of Nursing, in honor of his mother, a surgical nurse, who died when he was eight years old.

He is also interested in teaching short, intensive seminars about making documentary television.

“I don’t consider myself a professor,” he said.

“But I certainly would be able to come in for five days, try to unload everything that I know onto a class, and hopefully they would get something out of it.

“I’m really grateful that my old alma mater reached out to me when they did last year. I didn’t expect what I’ve accomplished so far to equal what I know some of the distinguishing alumni have done in their lives… Sometimes I think distinguished alumni types are Nobel Prize winners and that kind of level. So when the Dean asked me to come and talk to a class and visit the campus, I was really thrilled and humbled. I just still consider myself a guy from Cleveland who tells stories.”

JARGON | FALL 2018 23

FEATURE

Prepared From Day One

Taylor Award-Winner Kristen DelGuzzi Has Led Wide-Ranging Newspaper, Online Journalism Career That Began in JMC, Student Media KRISTEN DELGUZZI, ’98, remembers her first day as a full-time journalist well: It was Easter Sunday 1993, and she had been offered a fulltime job at the Cincinnati Enquirer following a spring internship. Because it was a holiday, she was one of only a few people working when the historic Lucasville, Ohio, prison riots broke out – so the assignment was hers.

“I spent the next 13 days over there, living out of my car, in the mud, and it was huge,” she remembers. “A lot of people died … I covered that. I covered the aftermath and the trials. …

State and national media came in, and I was able to hold my own.”

She thanks her professors and experience in Student Media for the fact that she was “very prepared going in.”

Twenty-five years later, DelGuzzi has covered or planned coverage of plenty of other big stories: presidential campaigns, border and

environmental issues, manhunts and more.

She will be recognized Homecoming weekend, as the William D. Taylor Award winner, the Kent State School of Journalism and Mass Communication’s (JMC) highest honor for alumni.

DelGuzzi recently moved to Washington, D.C., to become managing editor for government, politics and world at USA TODAY Network. She is working across the network’s publications to make sure voices from all corners of the country are represented.

A Fitting Honor DelGuzzi previously spent 12 years at The Arizona Republic, part of USA TODAY Network.

There, she worked on “The Wall,” an interactive piece that explored every mile of the U.S./ Mexico border, which won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting. (See Page 14 to learn about other JMC graduates who were part of 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning teams.)

In these politically divisive times, she sees a huge opportunity for more integration between local and national coverage.

As the senior director of digital and audience growth, she was in charge of planning on many fronts: digital, print and social media. “The Wall” was published in September 2017, but the team began planning more than a year earlier.

“There are different voices and different themes,” she said. “This lets us hear what people are saying and what they care about, what their passions are about.”

In 2016, former Republic editor Nicole Carroll accompanied her staff covering a rally for thenpresidential candidate Donald Trump. As chants of “Build the wall” broke out, it prompted her to

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC / Arizona Republic staff wait for Wisconsin to be called on Election Night 2016. KRISTEN DELGUZZI, ’98, was responsible for A1, azcentral.com and The Republic’s social channels.

Charting a Course to Success

think about what a major issue the border would become if he won the election.

“We are right here in Arizona; we’re pretty much at Ground Zero. We need to really look at what a wall would mean along the border,” DelGuzzi remembers Carroll saying. “She came back and pulled a group of people together (to figure out), ‘How do we do this?’”

About a year later, Trump had been elected president, and The Republic published “The Wall” in print and online over eight days. It used virtual reality, aerial video, 360-video, documentary video, photos, podcasts, interactive maps and more than a dozen stories to explain the proposed wall along the 2,000mile border.

“We didn’t go into this with one particular point of view or the other,” DelGuzzi said. “We went into this together, with as much information as we could gather from all sides of the issue.”

Seeing staff acknowledged for their hard work with a Pulitzer Prize was a fulfilling end to DelGuzzi’s 12 years in Arizona.

“I was just so proud and happy for the newsroom,” she said. “That newsroom had been a finalist twice before in the past eight to ten years. To see them finally win, it was so rewarding.”

LEFT: Photo courtesy of The Arizona Republic

DelGuzzi has covered many areas of journalism, ranging from legal, to political, to business, to environmental.

“I think each assignment and each role has made me a better journalist. Having been a business editor, I understand budgets so much better. … Now, that helps me work with reporters who are covering budgets. Everything has prepared me better for my next role.”

“I think each assignment and each role has made me a better journalist,” she said. “Having been a business editor, I understand budgets so much better. … Now, that helps me work with reporters who are covering budgets. Everything has prepared me better for my next role.”

But she almost didn’t pursue journalism. As a Kent State student, DelGuzzi was on a pre-law track, when during her junior year, she took Newswriting as an elective because she thought it would be easy. She ended up enjoying it so much, she switched her major.

Professors like CARL SCHIERHORN and BARB HIPSMAN helped her navigate the change.

She credits them for setting her on this path to professional success that she is now being honored for.

“This is as much an honor for them as it is for me,” she said. “Without their guidance, I wouldn’t be where I am now – standing among professionals I admired as a student, with my name on a list of people I have looked up to for as long as I can remember.”

JARGON | FALL 2018 25

FEATURE

‘Creative Resurgence’

Alumna Flourishes as a Photographer in New York City By: Molly Spillman, ’19 After a long day as a photo intern at the Lexington Herald Leader, BROOKE DIDONATO, ’12, arrived home and set down her gear. She didn’t relax; she got to work on the 365 Project, a challenge for photographers to create a photo every day for a year.

She challenged herself after she met a staffer at the newspaper who had an entire editorial career on the side. DiDonato got to shadow him at different shoots as he used stylized lighting and created portrait shots. It was less journalistic and more interesting to her, since she could be more creative.

It was 2011, and DiDonato had just found her niche outside the world of news photography.

“That’s how I spent that entire summer,” DiDonato said. “It was the most I’ve ever worked; I was up from sunrise to sunset and then came home to create another photo. It was a creative resurgence.”

DiDonato is one of the 2018 Fast-Track Award winners in Kent State’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication (JMC). The award is given annually to young alumni who have been significant early achievers in their careers. DiDonato has been growing as a freelance and gig-based photographer in New York City ever since graduating in 2012.

DiDonato returned to Kent State for her senior year after her internship in Kentucky and did a portfolio with photojournalism faculty. They encouraged her to pursue the creative route.

“It definitely helped having validation, and it felt like it did lead me in this direction,” she said.

“I feel like my direction has changed (a lot) since then, but if I had to pinpoint it, it would probably be coming home from that trip.”

Moving to New York City right after graduation is what DiDonato calls a midwestern dream.

“I wanted to pick the city that would be the hardest and the most challenging; it was the one that would make me better,” she said.

After working studio assistant jobs for three years, DiDonato landed her first big job as a photographer for an artist who created an installation in the desert near Palm Springs, Calif. Her work has been included in various magazines and exhibits, most notably in The Fence, an outdoor photo exhibition located in 26

Left: Creative self-portrait by BROOKE DIDONATO ‘12

Brooklyn, N.Y. It’s the largest outdoor traveling exhibit in North America and reaches six million visitors across eight cities, according to The Fence’s website.

“There are a lot of little (successes), and it’s definitely not easy,” she said. “You have to really make your own success in these industries.”

Although by nature, freelancing has highs and lows, DiDonato said one of her biggest milestones has been being able to support herself as a freelancer.

“I’m my own boss, so if I don’t put effort into (my work), then I’m not going to get paid,” she said. “That’s definitely been a huge achievement of mine, being able to do this for the last two years.”

Being creative, no matter the medium, is a long-time love for DiDonato. She has always been inclined toward making things and telling a story with her art.

“I can’t imagine not doing it (photography),” DiDonato said. “It’s creating something that comes from inside of you. Taking a visceral thing and putting it on paper has always been interesting to me.”

DiDonato traces many skills, such as making subjects comfortable and being able to direct photoshoots, back to her time in Kent State Student Media. She said her experiences during her undergraduate career planted the seed for those skills to flourish in her professional life.

DiDonato plans to stay in New York City, but she is interested in exploring film and directing, and also doing installation-based art, possibly building roots in the gallery world.

“I’m never going to stop doing photography,” she said, “but I can see myself finding ways to use my photography in other mediums.”

FEATURE

Shaping Communities Through Baseball Alumna Works on Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives for MLB By: Molly Spillman, ’19 For most, baseball games are a time to relax with friends and family, indulge in ballpark food and show support for the home team. These games are much more than that for PHYLICIA MCCORKLE, M.A. ’13. For her, baseball means giving back to the community and finding ways to make an impact that is bigger than a single franchise.

“What I like most about sports is that I’m not selling tickets. I’m not about putting together events in between innings,” McCorkle said. “I like connecting that sport to the community.

How are our players and our organizations giving back to the community? At the end of the day, I think that is what is most important.”

McCorkle is one of the 2018 Fast-Track Award winners in the Kent State School of Journalism and Mass Communication (JMC). The award is given annually to young alumni who have been significant early achievers in their careers.

After working with the Akron RubberDucks (formerly the Akron Aeros) on her thesis for her master’s degree in public relations at Kent State, McCorkle spent four years working on diversity and community relations with the Cincinnati Reds. Soon after, she found her big break in Major League Baseball (MLB).

McCorkle now serves as the Manager of Diversity and Inclusion for MLB at the Office of the Commissioner located in New York City. She has the unique opportunity to work with all 30 clubs and their human resources departments as well as with MLB Network and MLB Advanced Media to put together strategies and diversity recruiting efforts.

“We’re looking for ways to bring in that next generation of leaders,” McCorkle said. “How can we put together efforts to make sure we’re bringing that brand awareness (to baseball) and make sure everyone has an idea of what it’s like to work within this sport?”

The first project she worked on when she started in October 2017 was the inaugural MLB Diversity Fellowship Program. This program allows participating clubs to select a Fellow to work in the baseball operations department, in

an effort to create more diversity, both in gender and race, among people working in the sport.

“It was a huge accomplishment for our department as a whole,” McCorkle said. “It was exciting to come in, jump right into it and support my colleague in getting that off the ground.”

McCorkle said. “In the future, (the Fast-Track Award) will be a nice reminder that what I’m doing is good work.”

Since graduate school, McCorkle has been passionate about using communication to help others. She traces this interest to a media relations course, as well as her hands-on experience with the Reds.

“I knew I wanted to make an impact and bring awareness about baseball,” McCorkle said.

“Working for the Reds as diversity relations coordinator and being able to work in the community with those underserved populations was definitely what helped me drive and come to where I’m at right now.”

Her experience working with the Reds’ initiatives and growing their strategies is something that sets her apart now at the Office of the Commissioner.

“Being able to take my experiences of working at a club and make that transition to here (Office of the Commissioner) was a huge milestone,” McCorkle said. “It’s been beneficial so far and will continue to be beneficial.”

Through her job, McCorkle is able to shine a light on different philanthropic efforts in the MLB and show how many players dedicate themselves to causes and initiatives.

“With communications and community relations, you can look at things with a different lens and tell a different story that isn’t always at the surface,” she said. “You can do your research, dive a little deeper and tell those human-type stories.”

McCorkle is excited to continue using the skills she learned in her master’s program to help bring awareness to the opportunities within baseball for everyone.

“The work that I’ve done and the things that I’ve learned while at Kent were beneficial and definitely helped get me where I’m at right now,” JARGON | FALL 2018 27

ALUMNI & FACULTY NEWS

That’s a Wrap!

In Retirement, David Smeltzer Leaves Strong Legacy in Film, Digital Media Other memorable moments in Smeltzer’s career came while leading students abroad. Combining his passion for science and media, he worked with the Biological Sciences Department’s OSCAR ROCHA (associate professor) to create a science documentary and photojournalism course in Costa Rica. JMC students would document research that biology students were doing and produce independent projects related to environmental and conservational issues important to Costa Rica. They would then present these projects at the end of the spring semester.

One of his favorite Costa Rica memories was seeing a student, who was a dance major and electronic media production minor, climb up a fire tower to get a shot.

PHOTO BY KAM BOLATI, ’19 / The School of Journalism and Mass Communication celebrates Associate Professor David Smeltzer’s retirement and legacy. He taught digital media production in the School for 13 years.

By: Madison Baughman, ’20 When starting a career, people tend to look up to those who came before them and changed things for the better. That was the case for associate professor DAVID SMELTZER when he came to Kent State in 2005 to teach what was then electronic media production (now known as digital media production).

Now, Smeltzer has retired after teaching for 13 years in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication (JMC), and the next generation of students, staff and faculty will almost certainly look to his legacy for decades to come.

Smeltzer reflected on his opportunity to make an impact right away, as he started his Kent State career before Franklin Hall, JMC’s home since 2007, was even ready. He was able to offer a lot of input as the television studio made its transition from Studio C in the Music and Speech Building; Smeltzer wanted to make sure it was HD (high definition), the new broadcast standard.

“My impetus when I came in was to make sure that we upgraded the level of equipment that our students were using to things that were professional quality, and to teach professional work,” Smeltzer said.

28

Smeltzer was TV2’s adviser from 2008-2010.

He said his favorite memories ranged from helping broadcast basketball games to doing allnight coverage of the 2008 presidential election.

With TV2’s general manager at the time, KYLE MICHAEL MILLER, ’09, Smeltzer also helped established the morning Flashcast, which TV2 still produces daily.

As a teacher, Smeltzer created immersive experiences, where students could learn while doing real, hands-on projects. With former senior lecturer TRACI WILLIAMS, he also advocated for Kent State to start producing feature films. Students followed a curriculum that involved a semester of pre-production, a summer shoot, editing the picture in the fall and doing the sound mix the following spring.

Following this model, Kent State University Independent Films has produced five feature films over the past 10 years.

During one of the feature film shoots, Smeltzer remembers being in a residence hall with no air conditioning; fans were blowing and windows were open, when all of a sudden, tornado sirens started going off. He chuckled as he mentioned that the students and staff had to leave all of the equipment and hide in the basement until everything was clear.

“To see how students grow is the most amazing and wonderful thing,” Smeltzer said. “Basically our job is to provide them with the tools and opportunities – and at times, motivation – but it’s really their growth that causes them to decide to seize that opportunity and do something with it.”

While making an impact within JMC over the years, Smeltzer also kept his basketball skills sharp. One of the first things he learned about at new employee orientation back in 2005 was the faculty/staff noon basketball games at the MACC Annex that later moved to the Student Recreation and Wellness Center. Smeltzer smiled as he mentioned how much he loves to play basketball; three times a week for the last 13 years, he has participated in the recreational game. He joked about how it ranges from playing with high-level administrators to community members to students.

Smeltzer believes the digital media production major is changing for the better and is excited to see how the program will grow as new faculty arrive.

“It’s kind of vindication that I got the program to a certain point, and now it’s time to pass it to other people,” he said.

Although Smeltzer will miss students and teaching, he is excited to work on his own science films and to travel the world.

ALUMNI & FACULTY NEWS

Never Stop Learning

Public Relations Professor Bill Sledzik to Retire After 26 Years By: Molly Spillman, ’19 In 1995, two of BILL SLEDZIK’S public relations students were chosen to speak at the Public Relations Student Society of America’s (PRSSA) national conference in Seattle. During the presentation, the audience took to its feet, applauding and engaging with the Kent State University students’ message.

KEVIN AUGUST, ’96, one of the two students speaking, arrived back at the table, and Sledzik wrapped his arm around him, saying, “August, you better be a preacher someday.”

Fifteen years later, August graduated seminary school and tells Sledzik he uses the skills from his time in the public relations program every day in his professional life. Sledzik smiles fondly while remembering this story; it’s still one of his favorite memories from being a professor at Kent State.

“It was me in a classroom and a bunch of students; they were really competitive and eager to learn. I thought, ‘This is awesome. I can’t believe I waited until I was 38 years old to do this.’ ” For anyone who has met Sledzik, they will tell you he is an avid and passionate storyteller.

Upon his retirement in December 2018, he will have an archive of memories spanning his 26year tenure in the Kent State University School of Journalism and Mass Communication (JMC).

From chaperoning PRSSA national conferences to watching former students become CEOs of their own agencies, Sledzik can name many student success stories that originated in his classrooms.

Teaching was never in Sledzik’s original plans; in fact, public relations wasn’t either. He switched from journalism to public relations halfway through college and began working a retail and writing job post-graduation. Soon after, he landed a job at an agency in Detroit, which was the launchpad to his 16-year career in public relations.

Years later, he taught an introductory public relations course for two semesters at the University of Buffalo. The experience felt like a lightning bolt hit him; he had discovered a new energy and love for teaching.

“It was me in a classroom and a bunch of students; they were really competitive and eager to learn,” Sledzik said. “I thought, ‘This is awesome. I can’t believe I waited until I was 38 years old to do this.’ ” Sledzik came to Kent State in 1992 as an assistant professor, eventually moving up to associate professor. In 2012, he began exclusively teaching online courses for a master’s degree program in public relations.

He also has served as a course designer. The transition to online teaching was necessary for Sledzik and brought its own set of experiences and challenges. Although he rarely saw his students in person, he has created amazing connections, and occasionally friendships, with former students.

“I’ve had students who are older than I am, two of my students have already retired,” Sledzik said. “I’ve even (taught) the executive director of corporate communications for Harley-Davidson, just to give you an idea of the kind of people who (were) drawn to this program.”

Some of Sledzik’s biggest accomplishments in JMC came from integrating a professional approach into the public relations curriculum.

Public Relations Case Studies, a class he launched that every public relations major and minor now is required to take, was birthed out of this very idea.

“If I were to do it again I probably would have found a way to make it a little softer but many students have said to me, ‘No, you did exactly what I needed, you gave me what I needed,’” Sledzik said.

Sledzik said he has never stopped learning.

“I learned every day from my students, (about) their experiences, challenges and obstacles,” Sledzik said. “You learn to listen, tread carefully and be compassionate about what people are going through.”

Sledzik understands the impact he has had on JMC and believes his legacy lives through the students and alumni he taught.

“You have this influence on people’s lives, and I look at my friend Kevin August and I think, ‘He’s doing that every day in his church,’” Sledzik said. “He’s using that skillset every day.”

Celebrate Professor Sledzik’s Retirement

Join us FRIDAY, SEPT. 14 for a dual celebration: Bill Sledzik’s retirement and PRSSA Kent’s 50th anniversary. Formal remarks will take place at 6 p.m. in 340 Franklin Hall. For a full list of activities, follow PRSSA Kent (@prssakent) and JMC (@KentStateJMC) on Facebook and Twitter.

“I was reading the national standards for ACEJMC (The Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications) and what they believed to be the courses that a good public relations program needs to have, and a case studies course was one that we didn’t have,” Sledzik said. “That allowed us to expose students to how organizations solve PR programs but at the same time (letting them) have their first crack at a plan.”

Sledzik’s approach did not just revamp the academic curriculum; it impacted every student that walked into his classroom. His students remember the papers with pen marks covering the entire page, with lines and lines of constructive writing feedback.

JARGON | FALL 2018 29

ALUMNI & FACULTY NEWS

Obituaries Frances W. Richardson, ‘39 Kent State’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication (JMC) has lost a notable link with its past.

FRANCES W. RICHARDSON (nee Francie Waterbury), ’39 – one of the School’s first seven graduates, its first woman graduate and at her death the last remaining alumnus from the School’s founding – died Jan. 30, 2018, in Virginia. She was 100.

After working her way through school (partly through freelance writing, for which she once interviewed Eleanor Roosevelt for the Akron Times-Press), Francie drove west with $75 in her pocket to find work at radio stations in Oregon. That launched a colorful career that, she later said, was highlighted in 1997 when she received JMC’s William Taylor Distinguished Alumnus Award. She was a student in Taylor’s first classes when he began his 27-year career as the School’s first director in 1936.

“He was the most important influence on my life,” she often said.

Fran, as she was known as an adult, served with the Red Cross in front-line Army field hospitals in Europe during World War II; earned a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University; and for over two decades with her businessman husband, lived in 17 foreign capitals, mostly in the developing world, working for the U.S. Information Service and as a freelancer.

In a busy retirement, she taught journalism at Marymount University in Virginia, taught English in China and monitored elections in Bosnia. In perhaps her most enduring legacy, she founded the University’s celebrated Washington Program in National Issues, which in 45 years has graduated more than 1,000 Kent State students, including many from JMC. For this, she received the Alumni Association’s Distinguished Service Award in 1974.

JMC also honored her in 2005 with one of its five Women of Distinction Awards, given to early women graduates who made their marks in journalism.

Paul D. Tople, ‘70 PAUL D. TOPLE, ’70, who as a student photographer on May 4, 1970, made some of the most iconic images of the shootings on Kent State’s campus – died May 11, 2018 in suburban Akron. He was 70 years old.

was a privilege because we got to tell other people’s stories, go into their houses and tell a part of their lives.

Paul was born in Barberton, graduated from Norton High School, then went to Kent State.

Zake said Paul could gain people’s trust and approached story subjects with compassion and respect. He was proud to be from Kent State, always looking for ways to give back to the community.

Paul worked his way through college photographing weddings and working parttime at the Barberton Herald, according to his obituary in the Akron Beacon Journal, where he worked for 42 years. While at Kent State, Paul worked for the School of Journalism and for the Chestnut Burr magazine, yearbook and the Daily Kent Stater. On May 4, 1970, Tople witnessed and photographed events during the anti-Vietnam war protests including the shootings that killed four students and wounded nine others. Paul joined the Beacon after graduation from Kent State and was a member of news teams that won three Pulitzer Prizes, including one for coverage of the events of May 4.

Associate Professor SUSAN KIRKMAN ZAKE, who worked with Paul for 20 years in photography at the Beacon, said he “believed that he had the world’s best job, that being a photojournalist 30

“And he treasured that,” Zake said.

Paul eagerly accepted invitations to speak to journalism students. Associate Professor JAN LEACH, who also worked with Paul at the Beacon, asked him and two other Beacon colleagues to speak to freshmen about the significance of May 4. Their moving presentations, each representing different perspectives, were the highlight of orientation classes, Leach said.

Paul was awarded the William Taylor Distinguished Alumni Award, the Kent State Man of the Year and Friends of JMC Photographer Award. He also was an Eagle Scout and continued scouting his entire life, eventually earning the Silver Beaver Award, a Boy Scout council award for service to young people.

Photo courtesy of the Akron Beacon Journal

ALUMNI & FACULTY NEWS

Faculty News

JASON LLOYD, ’01, was named one of Cleveland’s most interesting people of 2018 by Cleveland Magazine. He is the editor of The Athletic Cleveland. He wrote “The Blueprint: LeBron James, Cleveland’s Deliverance, and the Making of the Modern NBA,” which was released in October 2017.

Exploring Fake News

Associate Professor MICHELE EWING and Assistant Professor CHERYL ANN LAMBERT, PH.D., collaborated with CHAS WITHERS, ’87, of Dix & Eaton, to research fake news. They presented the paper “The financial impact of fake news: A case study analysis of man-made crises” at the International Public Relations Research Conference in March 2018. Ewing and Lambert are completing a second phase of the research project, “Truth-telling trumps fake news: Successfully safeguarding the company reputation,” with funding from the Arthur W. Page Center at Penn State.

GRACE DOBUSH, ’05, moved from Cincinnati to Berlin in 2017, where she now contributes regularly to Handelsblatt Global, the English edition of Germany’s leading business newspaper. She has been writing about the intersection of tech, design and politics, and frequently covers topics surrounding urbanization.

Promotion to Full Professor

CANDACE PERKINS BOWEN has been promoted to full professor, effective for the 2018-19 academic year. She began teaching at Kent State in 1995. She regularly teaches Honors Writing Across Platforms and courses in the online master’s degree program for journalism educators. She also serves as director of the Center for Scholastic Journalism. In 2017, Bowen was named a finalist for Kent State’s Distinguished Teaching Award.

Alumni Notes Advisor of the Year

Associate Professor MICHELE EWING earned the 2017 Teahan Faculty Advisor Award from the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA).

It honors outstanding service, guidance and contribution to the chapter. Ewing also was recognized, along with a team of researchers from other institutions, with the PRSA Employee Communication Award at the International Public Relations Research Conference in March 2018. The award recognized Ewing’s research about the role of social media in creating an engaged workplace.

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Please send us news about your career, professional and personal achievements, family and more. Email jmc@kent.edu to include your updates and photos in Jargon.

JAMES RUSSELL, ’77, retired as associate director of the Illinois Association of School Boards in early 2018. IASB is made up of local boards of education dedicated to strengthening public schools. Russell spent 17 years with IASB, where he began as publications director in 2000. Before that, he spent 26 years as a newspaper editor in Illinois and Ohio.

GAVIN JACKSON, ’08, became host of South Carolina ETV’s weekly video magazine Palmetto Scene in 2017. Jackson joined the state’s public broadcasting network in January 2017 after years as a newspaper photojournalist, multimedia journalist and political reporter. He was recruited by SCETV after recapping the 2016 legislative session on the show he now hosts. The former Charleston Post and Courier Statehouse reporter continues to cover South Carolina’s legislature from January to May in Columbia, produces weekly packages from around the state and contributes content to South Carolina Public Radio.

ANNE-MARIE COLANT, ’17, was hired as a public relations and social media specialist at Kleidon & Associates in November 2017. Colant previously interned with the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission, the American Junior Golf Association and Fox Sports Ohio.

BILL ROMPILLA, ’79, earned a bronze award in Prix de la Photographie (Px3), an international photography competition that seeks to discover emerging talent. His photograph was titled “Fog.” Rompilla lives in Washington, N.C., where he is retired and pursues photography as a hobby.

SAM ROE, ’83, and a team from the Chicago Tribune won gold in the 2017 Barlett & Steele Awards, presented by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism. The winning story, “Dangerous Doses,” was a twoyear investigation that exposed failure of the nation’s pharmacies to adequately warn patients of potentially dangerous drug combinations.

MANDY JENKINS, ’04, is John S. Knight Fellow for 2018-19. She is one of 17 journalism innovators, entrepreneurs and leaders from around the world selected for this fellowship.

She will spend 10 months at Stanford University in California working on projects that address some of the most urgent issues in journalism.

STEVE WRIGHT, ’87, runs a firm that promotes urban design, with a concentration in universal design for people with disabilities. He resides in Miami and previously was the chief urban policy advisor to the chair of the Miami City Commission for nearly a decade.

JARGON | FALL 2018 31

U S Postage

PAID

Permit No. 2 Kent, OH

P.O. Box 5190 Kent, OH 44242-0001 100164 School of Journalism and Mass Communication

CELEBRATE HOMECOMING OCT. 5-6, 2018 The 14th Annual KSU Poynter Media Ethics Workshop Thursday, Sept. 20, 2018 | 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Kent State University Join us to explore ethics issues related to covering the opioid epidemic. Pulitzer Prize-winning alumna Terry DeMio, ’86, who co-wrote the Cincinnati Enquirer’s “Seven Days of Heroin” will be the keynote speaker, along with co-writer Dan Horn and photographer Liz Dufour. A live stream will be available.

Learn more at

https://mediaethics.jmc.kent.edu

FRIDAY, OCT. 5 AT 2 P.M. Alumni Award Winners Recognition Ceremony Franklin Hall First Floor Lobby

SATURDAY, OCT. 6 AT 11 A.M. (AFTER THE PARADE): JMC Alumni Reception Food and Beverage | Franklin Hall First Floor Lobby

www.kent.edu/homecoming