Comm Magazine 2015

Diederich College of Communication

2015

No. 04

Students’ life-changing field experiences — in their own words

JAMES FORD MURPHY GETS PERSONAL ABOUT HIS PIXAR SHORT PG. 5

THE MARQUETTE JOURNAL’S DIGITAL TURNAROUND PG. 16

BEHIND THE CURTAIN IN THE MARQUETTE THEATRE PG. 22

Marquette University

COMM

Diederich College of Communication

2015

No. 04

NEWS 04 05 06 07 08 08 09

Rockumentary: Students produce film on alumnus Greg Kot Labor of Lava: James Ford Murphy, Pixar animator Remembering James Foley Crowdfriending: Using social networks to advance Marquette causes Parting gifts: Honoring Jeannie Hayes Linking communication alumni Sparring in the spotlight: A Q&A with Jamie Cheatham

FEATURES 10 Communicating beyond boundaries: Students reflect on experiential learning

opportunities through various programs 16 Turnaround story: The new Marquette Journal 22 Becoming alive: A rare look behind the curtain at the making of a great

Marquette musical

THE GRAPEVINE 29 30

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32 32 33

Doubling down: Nicholas D’Agosto, Comm ’02 Breadth and depth: The wide-ranging interests and talents of Dr. Bonnie Brennen Campaign vs. Kampagne: Dr. Sumana Chattopadhyay compares electoral issues in the United States and multiparty Austria Critiquing our era of quality TV: Unlocking the meaning of the shows we binge on Activist auteur: Fostering student creativity through real stories Lasting impressions: Dr. Robert Shuter, Dr. James Scotton and Donna Turben

Comm is published for alumni, colleagues and friends of the college. We’d love to hear your feedback and story ideas for future issues.

Email stephen.filmanowicz@marquette.edu.

INTERIM DEAN OF THE DIEDERICH COLLEGE OF COMMUNICATION Dr. Ana C. Garner

EDITORIAL TEAM Stephen Filmanowicz, Becky Dubin Jenkins, Katharine Miller (intern), Jennifer Russell

ART DIRECTOR Patrick Castro, LP/w Design Studios

PHOTOGRAPHY Pixar/Disney, pg. 5; Gary Porter, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, pg. 6; Tim Cigelske, pg. 7; Jungle Wagon Press, pg.8; Tim Robberts/Getty, pg. 29, Daria Kempka, pg. 34; Dan Johnson; Marquette Journal photographers, including Valeria Cárdenas, Yue Yin, Nolan Bollier and Cassie Rogala, Diederich College faculty and students.

END NOTE 34 Majoring in meaning by Daria Kempka

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“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.”

from the interim dean

John F. Kennedy

President Kennedy’s observation about the inevitability of change — and the opportunities it provides — is reflected in the events surrounding the Diederich College of Communication over the past year, and it promises to be a factor as we move forward.

One big change has been the departure of Dean Lori Bergen, who served our college faithfully for six years. Lori has moved on to the University of Colorado Boulder, and we will be forever touched by her vision for our college, including the O’Brien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism, the Neighborhood News Service, the Olson Communication and Innovation Initiative, the j-Pad student lounge, a renovated building, and updated curricula and classrooms. Although this list is far too short and we expect Lori’s impact will be anything but short-lived, we want to thank her for her outstanding contribution to our lives. Be sure to see the short story on page 31 featuring Lori’s reflections on her Marquette tenure.

As the college searches for a new dean, it is my pleasure to work with the faculty, staff and alumni as we continue this college’s momentum. We begin the academic year looking forward to the third O’Brien Fellowship Conference in October, when we will welcome new fellows (Justin George, The Baltimore Sun; Liz Navratil, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; and Dave Umhoefer, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) and celebrate and honor the work of past fellows (Brandon Loomis, The Arizona Republic; Raquel Rutledge, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; and Marjorie Valbrun, The Washington Post). It promises to be an exciting time as we also recognize the work of the 12 graduate and undergraduate students who worked with the O’Brien fellows over the past year.

As you read the wide range of stories in this issue, you will see other evidence of change, as well as hope and opportunity. We remember the lives and contributions of James Foley and Jeannie Hayes while we also celebrate how friends, family, colleagues and fellow alums have created lasting scholarships in their honor.

What a lasting beautiful way to keep their spirit and their names in our hearts and on our minds by giving an education to a young Diederich scholar.

You will also read about student transformation through experiential learning opportunities that have taken them around the globe and to neglected neighborhoods in Milwaukee. Stories also report on how faculty have been actively engaged in research and teaching activities intended to change student lives and how we view the world. Finally, we say goodbye to two faculty and a staff member. Dr. James Scotton, Dr. Robert Shuter and Donna Turben have been a part of our Diederich family for a very long time, but all have decided to change their lives and ours by retiring or transitioning to emeritus status. Together they have inspired us — students, faculty, staff and alumni — to be better than we could ever imagine. As they change their lives, we wish them the best and look forward to our own new challenges and transformation.

Dr. Ana C. Garner Interim Dean of the Diederich College of Communication

We will begin the new calendar year with a celebration of a 100 Years of Student Media. We have come a long way since 1916, when type for the Marquette Tribune’s first stories was set manually and the sheets of the paper’s inaugural editions rolled off a hand-cranked rotary press. Today, we have the Marquette Wire and all student media (MUTV, Marquette Radio, the Marquette Journal and the Tribune) work together to generate copy, audio and video news, and entertainment stories and programming. In this issue, we celebrate and recognize the recent transformation of the Marquette Journal (which actually started 111 years ago, predating the College of Journalism by about a decade and undergoing several format shifts in its early years) from a print to purely digital magazine. Talk about change!

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letter from the interim dean

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Rockumentary Students’ film on alumnus Kot hits the right notes and wins a Midwest Emmy.

Take a right at the laundry, walk past shelves filled with old records and you’ll see the humble home office where Greg Kot has taken phone calls from the likes of Bono, Eddie Vedder and Mick Jagger.

Since graduating with a journalism degree in 1978, Kot has turned his love for music into a life of writing about music for the Chicago Tribune while also hosting a syndicated radio show. He’s an enthusiastic youth basketball coach, too.

That’s a lot of living to pack into a documentary that lasts only a few minutes longer than Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven.

But with help from instructors, a group of four Diederich College students took on the challenge.

“We knew it would be difficult, for sure, but we didn’t really know how difficult,” said Elle Gehringer, Comm ’14. “It was just really hard to come up with a way to keep everything together in a way that made sense.”

For Gehringer and fellow 2014 Diederich alumni Greg Ideran, Francesca Reed and Daniel Schergen, the documentary Greg Kot: Never Too Loud, Never Too Old was a chance to show off the skills they learned at Marquette — and learn some new stuff along the way. The film, released in May 2014, won praise inside and outside the college, including a Midwest Student Emmy. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel noted its “spectacular editing.”

That’s significant, given that editing was by far the hardest part.

Taking more than 15 hours’ worth of video interviews with Kot, his co-workers and his family, picking out the few snippets that

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Student Emmy winners Daniel Schergen, Greg Ideran, Elle Gehringer and Fracesca Reed, all Comm ’14, shot more than 15 hours of Kot-related footage for their 12-minute video.

might make their way into the final product, and organizing them in a way that would still tell a coherent story took months.

“You know the story inside and out,” says former Marquette instructor April Spay Newton, who helped the students with the project. “And editing is that moment where you have to condense that story into 12 minutes. You have to condense that months-long experience into 12 minutes. And it can be very, very frustrating.”

So how’d they do?

“I was really proud of them,” said Newton, who is pursuing her doctorate at the University of Maryland. “And I just really hope that they understood we weren’t blowing smoke at them. We were really impressed. We were really proud.”

- Chris Jenkins

Watch the documentary at go.mu.edu/kot.

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Labor of Lava

James Ford Murphy previews his Pixar short and gets personal about what it takes to make creative works that matter.

Standing alone on stage in front of 500 people, James Ford Murphy, Jour ’86, allowed himself to be emotionally vulnerable.

Opening himself up has been part of his career since he drew cartoons for The Marquette Tribune. It led him to send an eight-page resume to land his first job, with Jockey Underwear in 1988. After he was floored by the animation in the movie Toy Story, it led him to spend almost an entire Thanksgiving weekend updating his sample reel and resume so he could submit them to Pixar. The company hired him in 1996. And this spring, it led him to bring his new project to the campus where he roomed with Chris Farley, Sp ’86, and met his wife, Kathy (Karas) Murphy, Arts ’88.

As part of his closing keynote address for the Diederich-hosted Insight Summit Series in March, he debuted Lava, the Pixar short feature he directed. “I hope you enjoy this giant little love story we call Lava,” he said as the lights in the Weasler Auditorium dimmed.

The feature, which follows the life cycle of a lonely volcano in the middle of the ocean, hadn’t been released to the public when his Marquette audience viewed it. It made its theatrical debut with the summer blockbuster Inside Out.

underwater volcano that will join the mainland during the next 10,000 to 100,000 years.

“To say the making of Lava was a labor of love, or even an unhealthy obsession, is an understatement,” he says. “You can’t fake those types of things. It has to be genuine.”

When he returned from his investigative trip, he pitched the film idea to his Pixar partners with a song that he wrote, sang and played on a Kamaka ukulele purchased in Hawaii. “The Hawaiians said the greatest gift you can give someone is a song,” he explained.

Showing creative work to an audience requires courage. Showing a highly personal creative work at your alma mater 30 years after you graduated requires a whole new level of vulnerability. But Murphy is used to that, because that’s what he does all the time at Pixar.

“You have to be in an environment where it’s safe to be vulnerable because oftentimes you’re showing your work to your peers before it’s ready to be seen,” he said. “It has to be a safe space where you can get honest feedback because it’s that honest feedback that makes all of our work better.”

“Take chances,” he told the audience, and “pour your heart and soul into everything you do.”

The animator for Pixar has helped produce such work as A Bugs Life and The Incredibles. His new short animated film may be his most personal work yet. It was inspired by his honeymoon in Hawaii 20 years ago. “I’ve been an animator and a supervisor,” he said. “But lately I wanted to do something personal, something that was more me.”

Then there comes a moment when your art is put out into the world, and after your film is shown, the credits run and the lights come back on, there is a piece of you that is now part of everyone who just witnessed your work.

To him, that’s what makes it all worth it. - Tim Cigelske

To prepare for his film, he took his family and trekked across Hawaii.

He researched the history of the islands. He learned about Lõ`ihi, an

Read more about James Ford Murphy in Marquette Magazine at go.mu.edu/animator.

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Remembering James Foley Scholarship fund honors Marquette alumnus who was tragically executed pursuing untold truths in a war zone.

“Marquette University has always been a friend to me. The kind who challenges you to do more and be better and ultimately shapes who you become.”

Journalist James Foley, Arts ’96, wrote these words in a 2011 letter to Marquette Magazine after his first experience in captivity in the Middle East.

In the weeks after Foley’s brutal August 2014 murder by the Islamic State militant group, the strength of the bond between Marquette and Foley was revealed in new ways. It began with a moving prayer vigil attended by many of those closest to him and hundreds more from the Marquette community and continues through a scholarship that has inspired extraordinary generosity.

Established in November 2014 to provide tuition support for Diederich students, the James Foley Endowed Scholarship has received more than $323,000 in contributions from 1,371 people nationally and internationally, the most online donors of any Marquette fund. Social media shares by journalists such as Anderson Cooper and Katie Couric played a large part.

Now that the fund has surpassed its goal of $320,000, it is set to provide $8,000 per year to students — one this fall but ultimately two during a typical school year — who are economically disadvantaged, demonstrate a commitment to social justice through service and aspire to be communication professionals working for positive change in the world.

During Mission Week 2015, artist Mary Pimmel-Freeman paints a portrait of James Foley in the foyer of the Raynor Memorial Libraries.

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One of Foley’s closest friends, Thomas Durkin, Arts ’96, Grad ’07, worked with Foley’s family to establish the scholarship and says he will always remember Foley’s humanity and willingness to care for the underdog.

“Marquette was an important transitional point in Jim’s life. He met new friends, and, as he did everywhere he went, he became a part of the landscape through exploration, listening and action,” Durkin says.

“This scholarship would not exist if Jim didn’t sacrifice everything, including his life, to do what is right. My hope is that deserving students will benefit from Jim’s sacrifice.”

It’s a fitting way to honor an alumnus who felt called to tell untold stories from dangerous war zones. During a 2011 visit to Marquette, a student asked Foley why he would go back to the Middle East.

“It was pretty simple,” Foley answered. “Once I was able to process what happened, once I was able to recover, emotionally, I knew that I had to go back. I had to go back to finish the story.”

At the August 2014 prayer vigil that drew hundreds to Church of the Gesu, then-dean Dr. Lori Bergen recounted that story before concluding: “We thank Jim for his service to our craft and for the sacrifice he made to tell the stories of human lives and human history, the stories of truth that make a difference. God bless James Foley.”

- Guy Fiorita Read a Q&A with Marquette’s first Foley Scholar, freshman Jake Zelinske, at go.mu.edu/foley-scholar.

Rev. Fred Zagone, S.J., prays at the September 2014 vigil for Foley at Church of the Gesu.

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Crowdfriending

At a kickoff event, social media students discuss campaigns with representatives of the causes. In the background, Marquette president Dr. Michael R. Lovell meets with the team supporting the Great Lakes Film Festival, while the foreground discussion centers around the Marquette Blue & Gold Fund effort.

Students tap the generosity of social networks to advance Marquette causes.

As a soon-to-be graduate, Julie Posh, Comm ’15, was looking for a hands-on, application-based course to finish out her Marquette career, leading her to register for a social media analytics class.

What she didn’t expect was that, thanks to the experience, she would soon be advocating passionately for a local nonprofit.

Specifically, Posh collaborated with the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, a community reporting project sponsored by the college and other partners that aims to tell the untold stories of local people who often are not represented in mainstream media.

Through a crowdfunding campaign developed as a class project, Posh and a classmate helped NNS implement an innovative twist on its usual coverage — putting cameras in the hands of local people to document their own lives.

Since spring 2014, Posh and fellow students in courses taught by Tim Cigelske, Comm ’04, Marquette’s director of social media, have waged 18 campaigns on the crowdfunding platform Indiegogo, raising more than $50,000 to support a range of missions with Marquette ties. The initiatives have covered a gamut of good: advancing autism research, broadening access in developing countries to human-powered respiratory assistance devices, campaigning for low-income youth to participate in triathlons and more.

A campaign also helped launch the Great Lakes Environmental Film Festival in May, a project of digital arts professional in residence Joe Brown that not only screened films but also fostered conversations among students, filmmakers, researchers and environmentally minded people from far beyond campus.

The crowdfunding effort met its goal of $1,000, helping defray festival expenses, which included bringing an Oscar-nominated filmmaker to campus.

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In their case, Posh and classmate Sarah McClanahan, Comm ’15, raised more than $2,000 for NNS. Posh says a strong partnership with NNS and growing passion for the organization’s mission drove their success. “We found that genuine, emotional appeals relevant to NNS’ audience brought the most awareness and donations,” she says. “Staying very focused on the mission of telling untold stories made our social posts more impactful.”

As students planned, launched and promoted their social media campaigns, they measured progress by identifying which posts worked best and why. That knowledge influenced the advice they shared with a group of “advocates”— committed supporters of the cause who helped promote the campaigns within their networks.

Recognizing the importance of actively engaging a core audience was a key lesson for the students, says Cigelske. “Your campaign isn’t for everybody; it’s for a very specific group of people who care a lot about your cause,” he says. “You have to learn to frame your communication to that niche.”

Cigelske said the campaigns succeeded — and then some — as learning tools, getting students using social media in ways that produce measurable progress and tangible results.

“They used new skills for good. It’s a form of service learning,” Cigelske reports. “I’m a strong believer in hands-on and experiential learning. I also wanted students to really care about their campaigns. I believe that’s when you learn the most and do your best work.” - Katharine Miller with additional reporting by Jonathan McHugh

Read about all the campaigns and their results at marquette.edu/crowdfunding.

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Parting gifts In the world of news broadcasting, many anchors spend their time investigating and reporting hard news stories about violent crimes, natural disasters and other trying situations.

But not Jeannie Hayes, Comm ’05, whose life was cut short in 2012 by a rare and aggressive form of leukemia, just days after it was diagnosed.

She was 29.

“Her thing was about being positive, and she would steer herself to those kinds of stories,” says her father, Phil Hayes, Eng ’77.

Jeannie’s favorite stories were those about kindness to people and animals, Phil says, recalling his daughter’s seven years as a producer and reporter at WREX TV, the Rockford, Ill., NBC affiliate.

Her legacy at Marquette, where she introduced the live remote shot to MUTV, carries on in the Jeannie Hayes Endowed Scholarship Fund, which was established by her parents.

It’s awarded to a broadcast and electronic communication student who is “passionate about their field and has a kind heart” and recently reached an endowment of $100,000.

Donations came from just about everywhere, says Phil, a testament to all those Jeannie touched along the way. Proceeds also came from two children’s stories she wrote: Jeannie’s Missing Shoes and Shelly the Turtle, which she completed for a contest a month before she died. Several months after her death, the publisher, Jungle Wagon Press, offered to help the Hayes family publish the stories in a flip-style hardcover children’s book. The first release was Nov. 8, 2013, exactly one year after Jeannie’s death.

The most recent recipient of the scholarship was Marlo Marisie, Comm ’15. She says the scholarship was a blessing — financially

and as a source of knowledge that she’s carrying on somebody’s legacy.

“It was incredible to put a face and story to the support I was getting,” says Marisie, who first met Jeannie’s parents during a 2015 scholarship luncheon.

Marisie works in television production and says learning Jeannie’s story showed her how fleeting life can be. “I want to do work that makes me happy, like Jeannie did,” she says.

- Edgar Mendez

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Linking communication alumni Two different groups are proving themselves as valuable alumni resources, making their presence felt in two geographic regions and around the country.

Diederich College of Communication Alumni Board Under the direction of Jennifer Roethe, the Diederich College of Communication Alumni Board is making a special push to leverage the 3,000-strong communication alumni in the greater Milwaukee area.

“Our goal is to advance the college in every possible way,” says Roethe, Comm ’89. “The size and power of our Milwaukee-area alumni base is awesome and can help us do amazing things.”

Roethe and her crew strive to create a welcoming alumni community through various engagement strategies and networking activities. The group’s mentorship program extends far beyond Milwaukee in the form of volunteer matches. “We engage with members on social media so that we can all share and communicate regardless of location,” she says.

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Marquette Entertainment & Communications Alumni The Marquette Entertainment & Communications Alumni group provides networking and support to alumni working in these sectors in Southern California. Under the leadership of Marquette National Alumni Association Board member Joel Andryc, Sp ’79, MECA is a touchpoint for alumni who want to volunteer as mentors to current Marquette students and recent graduates looking to start or advance careers in greater Los Angeles.

“With many graduates moving to L.A. to work in the entertainment industry, we want to give them a friendly face to connect with,” says Andryc. The group has held three networking events, the largest of which occurred early this fall. California ranks third among states with the most Marquette alumni.

To learn more or connect with either group, visit go.mu.edu/ COCalumni and go.mu.edu/MECA.

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Sparring in the spotlight: A Q&A with Jamie Cheatham

Jamie Cheatham is not only one of the newest members of the Theatre Arts Department and an accomplished actor-director with experience on professional stages stretching from Milwaukee to off-Broadway. He’s also a fight director and certified teacher with the Society of American Fight Directors. We sat down with Cheatham to discuss teaching, directing and his stage weapon of choice.

What does a fight director do?

A fight director choreographs and guides actors through any fight sequences that appear on stage. I’ve been asked everything from: “Can we hit him in the head with a shovel?” to “Can we stab him with a candelabra?” The main part of the job is making sure that the actors and the audience are safe.

How did you realize fight directing was something you wanted to pursue as a specialty?

When I was in college, a fight master came to help us stage a fight for a production. He introduced me to what stage combat was and recommended that I attend the National Stage Combat Workshop, put on by the fight directors society. I came back to college with this information and immediately started applying it. People were asking me for help on fights, and I’d be cast in a show and they’d say: “Why don’t we make a fight here since you know all this stuff?”

Is there overlap between your work as a fight director and an educator?

As an acting teacher, I refer to combat all the time. Theatre is about conflict. And, for actors, that conflict is usually hard to define — but in a fight it’s very clear. I attempt something and you react to something, and there’s a win or a loss. So, quite often, lessons from the realm of stage combat can also make sense in an acting class.

Comedy or tragedy?

Whatever I haven’t done last.

Swordplay or hand-to-hand combat?

Small sword.

Most enjoyable role you’ve ever played?

Dr. Lyman in Bus Stop at the Milwaukee Chamber Theatre. It was a professional collaboration, so I got to act on stage for several weeks with two to three of my students from the University of Wisconsin–Parkside, where I was head of acting at the time, and other professional actors. To see them shine … that was so rewarding on many levels, as an actor and as a teacher. There was also a fight in that show, and it was my first performance in Milwaukee.

Favorite playwright to direct?

Shakespeare. One, there’s a lot of good fights. Two, I love the language. There’s something always so rich to be found, and it’s always surprisingly relevant. In terms of more contemporary names, I love Sarah Ruhl. I also think David Lindsay-Abaire is wonderful.

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Favorite to teach?

I love to teach a variety of different playwrights because they will push and challenge students in different ways. Chekhov is great to teach because he’s so challenging. And Tennessee Williams for character work. - Kate Sheka

This fall, Cheatham will direct To Kill a Mockingbird at Marquette and fight direct Dreamgirls, Of Mice and Men, and The Mousetrap at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater.

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student field experiences

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xperiential learning — or learning through real-world experiences well beyond campus — has a venerable tradition in the Diederich College of Communication, even as it catches on more broadly across academia. But this student field work continues to grow in its depth, diversity and reach through novel programs such as the O’Brien Fellowship, the Neighborhood News Service and Global Brand Tracking, as well as extensive opportunities to study abroad and participate in internships.

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“These experiences offer students an opportunity to expand what they learn in the classroom and take it to the next level, exploring the world and experiencing life outside their comfort range,” says Dr. Ana C. Garner, interim dean and professor of journalism.

Students travel to unfamiliar new places. They make contact with people who live and work differently from themselves. They work without the “net” that’s there for in-class assignments. Their confidence grows along with their ability to lead. And when you hear them reflect on these experiences, as you will in the essays that follow, you realize the real difference they can make in young lives. Observes Herbert Lowe, journalism professional in residence and director of the O’Brien Fellowship: “I have yet to see a student come back not transformed by the experience — either in a small or large way.”

Alex Lahr Second time’s a charm

the full impact this experience would have on them as future communicators, students of culture and individuals looking to make a difference in the world.

Our entire course was built around being an outsider, doing our best to turn off our “American eyes” and experience things with a clean slate.

The students I helped teach took the soul of our course and ran with it.

They were curious and absolutely fearless when conversing with locals and doing ethnographic exercises to collect insights for their blogs.

I was inspired by their enthusiasm for creativity and branding. I saw bits of myself in each of them, the drive and desire to do and make great things people care about.

There’s a certain exhilaration — a tingling, really — that washes over you when walking up to a complete stranger in a country where English is not its primary language and asking him about his first memories of cars. Or snack foods. Or shoes.

It’s a thrill I was lucky to experience twice during my time at Marquette.

In 2012, I was a student in Dr. Jean Grow’s three-week Global Brand Tracking course that trekked across the pond to London and Barcelona. We deconstructed the cultural meanings behind certain products; immersed ourselves in our surroundings; and learned how branding, marketing and creativity in foreign locales contrast to how we understand them in the United States.

And the memories. Seeking shelter from a London thunderstorm beneath a restaurant awning in St. James’s Park. Eating unbelievable Pakistani food at a family-owned hole in the wall in Manchester, England. Having a two-hour walking tour of Prague become three and a half hours because our tour guide, Zdenek, was worried he wasn’t doing a good enough job. Leaping on and off a continuously moving Czech elevator as if it were a theme park ride. I wouldn’t trade those moments for anything.

For most people, a vacation is a time to relax and unwind. But after my Marquette study abroad experience, I can happily say I never want to have a relaxing vacation again. Not when there’s exploring to do.

My experience as a student was unforgettable in its own right, but it was my time as Grow’s teaching assistant on the 2014 trip that left an imprint on my life.

Alex Lahr, Comm ’14, is a copywriter and social specialist at Thirsty Boy in Milwaukee.

I vividly remember sitting at O’Hare’s international gate before departure, watching students arrive one by one for our group flight.

Their faces beamed with optimism and anxiety. I felt giddy knowing

Read more about Global Brand Tracking and Alex’s experiences at the course blog: go.mu.edu/global-track.

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Amanda Goeppner A class project’s high-profile screening

On the first day of Editing Techniques, professional in residence Joe Brown revealed that the class’ projects for the semester would be shown at the annual awards ceremony of the Broadcast Education Association: the Festival of Media Arts in Las Vegas. I sensed both excitement and fear. Some students had never before done video editing. And here our class was, preparing to edit projects — short videos introducing award winners and their winning work — to be shown in front of hundreds of people at a ceremony that’s the Oscars for the national academic film and broadcast community.

I was charged with making short video packages of the student winners in the Narrative and Non-fiction Video category, which received more than 1,250 national student entries. I felt honored to create these packages that included a mix of interviews with the winners and clips of the winning content.

For the interviews, each winner submitted footage of him or herself answering a set of questions. Because I had never edited this kind of client-produced content, I first watched all the material. I noted the interviews’ best sound bites and great plot points. Based on my notes, I determined how each question could connect with clips from the winning entries and transition from one question to another. I felt like I had a lot of creative control.

overbearing mom and begins to make decisions on his own. In introducing the winner in my package, I incorporated his reflections on his experiences with homeschooling to help reveal the motivation for the film. I then emphasized the theme and overall message of the film: People make their own mistakes and learn from them.

In addition to attending the BEA ceremony and National Association of Broadcasters trade show, which is held at the same time, we had the opportunity to meet the winners. During the ceremony, I became emotional when watching my packages play on the large projector screen. I scanned the audience for its reaction and instantly knew that my hard work during the semester paid off.

From this experience, my interest in video editing grew stronger.

This one-of-a-kind class project helped confirm that I chose the right major and encouraged me to pursue a career in production or postproduction, preparing me for a journey in Los Angeles, where the pace of learning and adventure never lets up.

Amanda Goeppner, Comm ’14, lives in Los Angeles, where she works as a production assistant on NBC’s The Voice.

View Amanda’s demo reel, including her work for the BEA awards, at go.mu.edu/amanda-reel.

One of my projects focused on the narrative feature film Always Learning, in which a homeschooled boy rebels against his

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Wyatt Massey A walk into the unknown

At some point on the 14-hour plane ride, I pulled out my travel guide. It was a printed copy of the Wikipedia and World Factbook pages on my destination: India.

My journey there was part of a small fact-finding delegation from Marquette and Creighton University. Four students and three faculty members went to assess possibilities for creating academic and immersion programs with the Jesuits working in northeast India. With each turn of the page, my head memorized numbers — population, religious diversity and demographics. This information provided knowledge but not understanding. That comes from being on the ground, from taking a long look at reality. Numbers are remembered by the head. Experiences are remembered by the heart.

No statistic, or even feature story, can replace the sensation of strolling through unknown streets. It’s the difference between reading about India’s economy and walking through the markets as vendors prepare for the day’s bustle.

It was already warm by the time the first rays of sunlight peeked over the rooftops. Between scurrying people, my eyes scanned lines of fruits and vegetables stretching far out of view, a rainbow cascading around corners to the ends of the market, a pile of yellow bananas to my right, a mound of purple onions to the left and, in the distance, a stack of ruby red pomegranates.

The diversity of India — language, religion, ethnicity — was unlike any place my feet have carried me. The market was a small fraction of

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it. Just a week there, however, highlighted how infrequently my walk at home crosses paths with those I seemingly have little in common with. Taking a lesson from the Jesuit directors of schools and teachers in northeast India, this is not a reason to remain isolated. It’s a reason to engage.

The schools value traditional culture as much as they teach classes in spelling, science or math. Sitting on the wooden benches of a classroom, students in elementary school through college are empowered to think about differences not as divides but as various ways of engaging their world. The Jesuit ideal of cura personalis, caring for people wholly and individually, is held above all else.

Seeing these words on the walls of Marquette and carried out in Milwaukee is empowering in one regard. Spending days with those whose livelihoods are defined by that mission emboldened an already present belief in the power of committing one’s life to others.

This is the lesson from India I carry as my feet cover the streets of Milwaukee. It is an experience that can’t be encompassed in a number or conveyed in a report. It’s found only in walking out of the comfortable and into the interesting unknown.

An aspiring human rights journalist, senior Wyatt Massey coordinates the Midnight Run service program and is double majoring in writing-intensive English and advertising.

Follow Wyatt’s writing on Medium at medium.com/@ News4Mass.

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Teran Powell My experience with NNS

In February, I found myself reporting from the gymnasium of Milwaukee’s North Division High School covering the 12th annual daddy/daughter dance sponsored by Milwaukee Recreation, the Milwaukee Fatherhood Initiative and the Social Development Commission.

The sold-out event drew more than 800 family members — people such as local attorney Eric Andrews and his daughter Amaya. Eightyear-old Amaya was dressed in a red ruffled dress with a matching red headband, and her father complemented her outfit with his black suit, red tie and suspenders. Andrews said events like this one have a positive effect on a father’s relationship with his daughter. “A dad is the first man a daughter loves, so it’s important to build that relationship,” he said. “And that’s why I’m here.”

Interviewing children for the first time, I learned how to ask them “why” questions and saw their answers grow more in depth.

Fathers saw my interaction with their children and thanked me for covering the event. I used that as a platform to interview them. Many fathers said the dance is positive for men in the African American community. I agreed. It was good to see men who may rarely be perceived positively in the public eye have this opportunity to share special moments with their daughters and show them how a young lady should be treated. I wished I were there with my own father.

I covered the dance as part of a semester-long internship with the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, the award-winning online news service covering Milwaukee’s urban communities that was established with support from the Diederich College, the Zilber Family Foundation and other organizations.

Through the internship and a related independent study project the previous semester, NNS took me to places and introduced me to people I otherwise never would have met. I mostly traveled by

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bus to cover stories in neighborhoods across Milwaukee — Layton Boulevard West, Northcott, Walnut Way and Concordia. Many Marquette students do not visit these neighborhoods unless they volunteer or do service learning.

I grew up on Chicago’s South Side, raised by a single parent in a neighborhood plagued by violence and poverty. I soon developed an interest in the people in my neighborhood and how they fell victim to circumstances and crime in the city.

Now, I was incorporating these interests into my educational journey at Marquette. The service allowed me the independence to practice my journalism craft. I reported, took video, and shot photos while covering the Silver City music and art festival, a former professional soccer player and his youth program at Northcott Neighborhood House, a unique program that revives the tradition of double-Dutch jumping with young girls, and more.

The Neighborhood News Service gave me an up-close and personal look at the community. Looking back on that experience, I am and will always be grateful for the opportunity I had to meet so many wonderful people. Being a reporter has it perks. I was invited back to events, encouraged to volunteer and given a few sweet treats.

Working with this service has further convinced me that communitybased journalism — relating the experiences of people who might otherwise be overlooked — is what I need to be doing.

Senior Teran Powell, majoring in journalism with a sociology minor, is a member of Marquette’s Black Student Council and the National Association of Black Journalists.

Find all of Teran’s articles for the Neighborhood News Service at go.mu.edu/teran.

diederich.marquette.edu

Ye Zhu Following the story to China’s icy frontier

“It really was the grandest adventure of all,” says Seattle Times journalist Hal Bernton, 2013–14 O’Brien Fellow, of the trip he took to China with Ye Zhu, Grad ’14, to report for “Losing Ground,” a three-part series on the challenges of reducing global carbon emissions. In December 2013, Bernton and Zhu, a native of China, traveled to Inner Mongolia to visit the first coal to gas plant built in China where carbon emissions are buried underground. Battling temperatures of 20 below zero and lack of indoor restrooms, they lodged with construction workers at a makeshift trailer camp for the majority of their trip. “Ye offered to give up some of her winter break to go with me. She is an amazing person who helped with video, translation and photography, among other things. We were the first journalists to get there,” says Bernton. The following comes from Zhu’s remarks at the 2014 O’Brien Fellowship conference.

We started by looking at a map, thinking: How are we going to pull this off? How are we going to do all of these grand ideas? So I asked: “What’s the plan? When are we going? What’s the timeline? How are we going to make this happen?” Hal just stared at me and said, “Oh, well, I don’t know … we will just have to figure it out.”

And that’s exactly what I did, what we did, together — a Chinese student (not from Mongolia) and an American who speaks no Chinese at all: travel to Inner Mongolia and just try to find our way.

You have to make connections as you go, figuring out where we are going and what access we can get. It was crucial to make connections with people.

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So I was a fixer, a translator, a photographer, a videographer and all that kind of stuff. I feel like I developed a great relationship with Hal in the process — we were like friends, mentor-mentee, and daughter and father. … There were fights, I’m telling you, but it worked out.

We really kept an open heart: talking to everyone we met on the bus and at bus stations … trying to get information we wanted because local people can give you it firsthand from the field. I talked to about 15 bus and taxi drivers just trying to figure out exactly where this plant was!

I feel like this trip was an amazing experience. I never really thought of the challenges, like how cold it was. One minute, I’m outside wearing a pair of gloves, and the next I can’t feel my fingers to press the button on the video camera … but none of this seemed to be a problem because we were so determined to make it all happen.

It was a great opportunity for me to work with a top-notch journalist in the field and to see how it happens … to go from somewhere you don’t know anything about to ending up somewhere you never imagined.

Ye Zhu, Grad ’14, earned her master of arts degree in advertising and digital storytelling from Marquette and works as a producer at Caihong Cinemas LLC in New York.

Learn more about the O’Brien Fellowship at marquette.edu/ comm/obrien-fellowship, and view a video Ye shot for the Seattle Times’ “Losing Ground” series at go.mu.edu/renewable.

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WHEN THE MARQUETTE JOURNAL LOST ITS PRINT BUDGET AFTER MORE THAN A CENTURY OF PUBLISHING, A STUDENT-LED REINVENTION BROUGHT FAR MORE THAN JUST SURVIVAL.

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Introduction by A. Martina Ibáñez-Baldor, Comm ’15, Marquette Journal managing editor, 2014–15

In fall 2014, the inevitable happened. Needing to rein in student media spending and redistribute available funds, the Marquette Wire board cut the Marquette Journal’s entire printing budget. The Journal started printing in 1904, so its 110th anniversary coincided with the last time an issue of the magazine rolled off the presses. To continue, the Journal needed to become an online-only magazine.

We had no choice but to embrace this change, as many newspapers and magazine around the country have. The decision gave us the unique opportunity to explore new ways of storytelling, and having no page budget gave us the freedom to publish as many stories and pages as we wanted.

We were faced with other challenges: how to transform the magazine from print to online, how to reach a larger audience and how to keep readers, beyond the boundaries of Marquette’s campus, interested in our stories.

Those challenges were accepted by the Wire staff and taken head on.

Stories like “110 Things for 110 years of the Marquette Journal” in our November issue caught the attention of many nostalgic alumni, eager to revisit Marquette memories. Other stories explored Marquette’s relationship with its surrounding neighborhood and issues that resonated both on campus and far beyond it.

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Aside from creating stories that reached a broader audience, we learned how to use social media to our benefit. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram helped us gain a following and share our monthly issues, individual stories, and behind-the-scenes photos and videos. We grew to 900-plus likes on Facebook and gained a following of more than 2,500 on Twitter. The university’s social media accounts and even President Lovell himself retweeted and shared our posts.

In the past, the Journal was published four times a year and had about 30 pages per issue. From October 2014 to April 2015, we published six issues with 55 stories spread across 419 pages. Social media erased the limits of physical newsstands and political borders.

Our magazine has been read 5,425 times by readers in 36 different countries so far.

In April, our hard work was recognized. The Society of Professional Journalists named us runner-up “Best Magazine” in the Mark of Excellence competition for region six, which includes the entire Midwest. This was one of the first times the Journal placed in the category.

A thanks to the Wire staff, the student media board and all our readers who supported us during this year of transformation. I graduated in May, but the Marquette Journal will continue, hopefully for the next 110 years.

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As the Journal transitioned to an online-only publication, the editors aimed for the monthly stories to reach a larger, more diverse audience than ever before. The plan was to appeal not only to students but also faculty, alumni, parents and other community members. A great Journal story, they found, was one that covered not only campus news but integrated a Marquette perspective with stories and issues from surrounding communities.

To commemorate the Journal’s 110th anniversary, the staff dove into university archives to find 110 engaging tidbits about the school and publication’s history. The story includes 11 “Top 10” lists, with topics ranging from changes in technology to important university events.

Editors looked back at past Journal issues to find the 10 most controversial covers. A cover from fall 1993 reads: “The Last of the Warrior” and pictures a young man posing next to “save the warrior” written in sidewalk chalk.

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In this March article, reporters researched what campus leaders are doing to spark growth in Marquette’s surrounding neighborhoods. The article profiles Ruby G’s, a restaurant located just a few blocks from campus and still undiscovered by many students.

For “Tongues of Faith,” reporters and photographers revealed some of the ways the Marquette community — as represented by Campus Ministry and Church of the Gesu — is evolving as the Hispanic population in Milwaukee rises.

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Localizing a national story and relating it to college students and faculty, the Journal’s Opinions desk investigated how rising tuition and wages affect student campus jobs.

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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

THROUGH

DANNY’S

LENS

A look through Daniel Alfonzo’s study abroad experience through his camera.

BY A. MARTINA IBÁÑEZ-BALDOR PHOTOS BY DANIEL ALFONZO

D

anny Alfonzo is a senior in the College of Communication majoring in advertising and minoring in graphic design. He also has an amazing talent for photography, a hobby he was able to actualize through Marquette en Madrid, a study abroad program in Madrid, Spain.

Some people express themselves through writing, others through visual media, like photography. Danny was able to capture his study abroad experience and European travels through the lens of his camera, posting photos to his Tumblr, danielalfonzo.tumblr. com. His Tumblr became very

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popular while abroad, gaining more than 850 followers.

I sat down with Danny to talk about his study abroad experience and learn the stories behind some of his amazing photos.

Why did you decide to study abroad?

Years ago, my sister studied abroad in Rome, and [my family] went and visited her. We went to Madrid for a week and I loved it. I absolutely loved it. I loved the life of the streets and the antiquity of how beautiful everything seemed.

From that moment on, I

became really obsessed with the idea of traveling. I just knew when I was there that I wanted to live abroad for a semester at least.

That’s kind of what inspired me, and when I finally got my chance to go my junior year, I decided on the Marquette en Madrid program. I decided that it was a really good program because I stayed with a host family. I was going to have my dinners cooked for me, and all of my classes were going to be in Spanish, so it felt like I was going to get that full immersion. I think I really made the right choice.

OCTOBER 2014

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In October, the Journal profiled Daniel Alfonzo, Comm ’15, who photographed his European study abroad adventures. Alfonzo won a Gold Milwaukee Press Club award for photography published in this article.

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In “Through Danny’s Lens,” Alfonzo shared the creative process behind each featured photo. “The interview made me reflect and relive the amazing experiences that I had behind the lens,” he says.

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Each month, the Journal featured five top photographer-submitted photos.

Because the Journal is online-only, page space was not an issue; a spread was dedicated to each photo.

Photographers submitted pieces from their work assignments, personal explorations and school break travels.

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B

C

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the making of company

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BECOMING ALIVE

Story by Stephen Filmanowicz Photos by Jesse Lee

IN NAVIGATING THE PERILS AND JOYS OF SONDHEIM’S MUSICAL COMPANY BEFORE A MARQUETTE THEATRE RUN, EVERY MINUTE OF PREPARATION MATTERS.

THREE DAYS TILL OPENING NIGHT …

It was close to midnight when Niffer Clarke sat down to write the email to the 14 student actors she was directing in the Stephen Sondheim musical Company. The words had come to her as she drove home on mostly empty streets from the evening’s dress rehearsal, the first of three leading into opening night.

That the production was at a critical point went without saying. But it was especially true now, thanks to a calendar fluke that put the accelerating preparations for Company on a collision course with the university’s Easter break. Five days earlier, the cast had scattered to spend the holiday with family and friends, before returning tonight for opening week.

Some impressive work had gone into the show so far. As the students found their bearings amid Company’s often disorienting songs and storyline, the intimidating job of tackling Sondheim had grown bit by bit less elusive. Stirring melodies, clever dance moves, vivid characters and genuine human emotion were emerging from the murk. But questions about how the young players would react to this five-day pause had lingered, like storm clouds on the edge of a radar screen.

The production’s choreographer, Dustyn Martincich, Comm ’04, a visiting professional like Clarke, had mentioned the issue on the way into this evening’s practice. “I’m intrigued to see how it goes. It’s not something that I’m particularly used to, coming off a five-day break right into opening week,” she mused. “Their professionalism and their ability to get focused is really going to be challenged.”

Among audience-ready moments, there had been, not unexpectedly, some forgotten lines, missed notes and tangled dance steps. In reviewing her notes with the cast afterward, Clarke had drilled into something more concerning. After beginning the evening with physical and vocal calisthenics and a practice run of a difficult dance number, the players had returned to their dressing rooms to change into costumes, chat and wait for the call to places. When the call came, Clarke sensed a lack of what she’d seen during their best rehearsals: energy shared among them on stage, animating their characters’ interactions, making them real.

With the email, Clarke made sure this point broke through.

Complimenting the players on their passion, talent, creative spirit, courage and imagination, she then turned to a sometimes overlooked quality: discipline.

“You’re cheating yourselves and your colleagues and your audience if you don’t bring a sense of discipline to your craft,” she typed.

“Don’t be at your most animated, your most alive, your most dramatic or funny or honest or present when you’re backstage or offstage or in the green room … By the time you are called to places, your head and heart and core should be singularly focused on your job as actors to tell this story. Give yourselves the time and the space to do that.”

As she wrote the next lines, she smiled, finally: “I am incredibly proud of you and of this show and of what it will still grow to be. And so very grateful.”

She hit send. There were just two more rehearsals before opening night.

So how had the rehearsal gone?

Afterward, the consensus from players such as education major Peter Sisto, playing the central role of Bobby (see images I, N, T), was a qualified OK. “Considering we’ve been off for five days, it was pretty good,” he said, perhaps a bit politely.

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23

Becoming Alive (Continued)

D

E

F

Additional production members not mentioned in main story: then-junior Hayley Bassett playing Amy (image A); Ava Thomann, Comm ’15, playing Joanne (image C, with Armando Ronconi, Comm ’15); Hannah KlapperichMueller, Comm ’15, building a set platform (image E); assistant stage manager Sarah Best, Comm ’15 (image H, right, with Kaitlyn Martin); costume designer and assistant artistic professor Connie Petersen making final wardrobe adjustments (image N, with thenjunior Peter Sisto); then-junior Mackenzie Possage applying makeup to play April (image Q).

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the making of company

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Becoming Alive (Continued)

TWO MONTHS TILL OPENING NIGHT …

Long before the curtain goes up on a Marquette theatre production, a team of people who will never don costumes begins meeting to coordinate the show’s essential components — set, costume, lighting, sound, music, movement and acting.

Their work is a merger of artistry and administration, a set of harddriving plans that must stand on their own merit yet also mesh seamlessly together. If these designers, directors and managers succeed, characters dressed convincingly as New York sophisticates will walk onto a set evoking a series of Manhattan apartments, move to their marks and find a spotlight on them as they hear the musical cues to begin their solos or dance numbers. And the evening will be full of such perfectly timed moments. In one of countless collaborations (image F), director Niffer Clarke and set designer Stephen HudsonMairet, associate professor and chair of digital media and performing arts, tweak blueprints, adjusting the location of furniture and drop-in decorative panels to avoid on-stage collisions.

THE SCRIPT OFFERS ACTORS A STIFF CHALLENGE RIGHT AT THE TOP — A DISORIENTING BIRTHDAY SCENE IN WHICH BOBBY’S FRIENDS CIRCLE HIM LIKE FISH IN A TANK, OVERLAPPING IN GREETINGS OF “BOBBY, BABY” AND “BUBBY” AND INVITATIONS TO JOIN HIM FOR DINNER.

Even before these meetings began, Company required backstage heroics just to earn a spot on the calendar, when university belttightening reduced the theatrical productions budget by 40 percent.

Through some deft adjustments by Hudson-Mairet (image D) — with help from faculty colleague and artistic director Debra Krajec — Company is a slimmed-down production that puts an emphasis on student performances, not frills. Grand pianos have been generously loaned to the theatre by Hulbert Piano of Milwaukee. And visiting professionals — Clarke, Martincich and musical director/pianist Paul Helm — are on board thanks to a new Theatre Support Fund, initiated with a $5,000 contribution from the Wilson Family Foundation. “This experience has made me a fundraiser,” says Hudson-Mairet.

A key member of Company’s support team is Kaitlyn Martin, Comm ’15 (image H, left), whose tireless work as stage manager doubles as her senior capstone project. A rare student who felt called to stage managing since high school, she chose Marquette over universities with larger programs, based partly on Hudson-Mairet’s assurances that she’d one day step into roles like this one. Now leading production meetings, adjusting work styles for various creative personalities, herding actors to their places, reporting out each night, even holding the phone so the choreographer can call into a meeting (image G), Martin is as responsible as anybody for the production’s outcome.

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“She’s the grease in the wheel, the one who makes sure everything flows smoothly,” says Hudson-Mairet. “When we add light cues and sound cues, she’s the one who calls them and makes sure they all happen at the right time. And when the show opens, it’s hers. The director will typically go away after opening night. The stage manager becomes the eyes on the production. It’s a great role.”

ABOUT ONE MONTH TILL OPENING NIGHT …

With the debut of Company in 1970, composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim (working from a story by George Furth) broke new ground on Broadway and divided audiences, too. Dispensing with the straightforward storytelling and true-love-prevails sentiment of classic musicals, Company plunges theater-goers into the unsettled Manhattan of bachelor Bobby on his 35th birthday. There, a surreal stream of vignettes with potential mates and colorfully conflicted married friends magnify both the joys and pitfalls of long-term commitment. Off-kilter yet hummable, Company’s songbook mirrors Bobby’s uncertainty and leaves members of the Marquette production — professionals and students alike — proceeding haltingly at the start.

“The music flummoxes me,” says lighting designer Chester LoefflerBell, an artistic assistant professor of digital media and performing arts (image G, far left), during an early meeting. “It’s beautiful, but in terms of figuring out how it flows and how to cover what’s happening on stage with light, it’s difficult. The music is just so non-linear in my mind.”

“The whole story is non-linear,” fires back Clarke. To help the actors gain a foothold, the director initially brings them into the studio — couple by couple and in other small groupings — to delve into their characters’ lives, motivations and relationships. Martincich (image J) follows up with a workshop to develop unique characterdriven movements each will carry through a production that leaves them on stage for long periods, drifting in and out of the shadows.

In rehearsals, the script offers actors a stiff challenge right at the top.

Act one, scene one — one of several imaginings of Bobby’s birthday party — has married friends circling him like fish in a tank (image M), overlapping in greetings of “Bobby, baby” and “Bubby” and invitations to join them for dinner. Still carrying their scripts, actors have “home bases” and a few waypoints “blocked” on the stage, but the complex action defies precise choreography. So Martincich proposes a game: asking each to add a different wrinkle to his or her character’s signature gesture — a hold for two counts, a twist, a spin and reverse direction — every time he or she calls out Bobby’s name.

Stumbling and bumping into each other, the actors barely make it through their first attempt through the song. “Excellent,” shouts Martincich in wry affirmation. “Let’s embrace that first horrible time.”

Clarke complies with a fist pump above her head and exultant “yes.”

The next few attempts are better but still require persistent reminders — no, the twist comes after the hold! A sidebar consultation (image L) follows with Ben Braun, Comm ’15, who admits he didn’t fully expect this unnervingly challenging exercise to yield permanent steps, as appears to be happening. Martincich assures him — presciently, it turns out — that an early struggle learning a set of movements is no indicator of how fluid or graceful they can become.

Words, notes, movements — putting them together is an extended high-wire act. Yet through it all, Clarke (image K) urges actors to be conscious of the through-line — character — connecting every scene.

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25

Becoming Alive (Continued)

I

J

K

L

M

TWO DAYS TILL OPENING NIGHT …

Arriving in inboxes early Tuesday morning of opening week, Clarke’s impassioned email message didn’t take long to make an impression.

Braun and then-sophomore Andrew Zarnowski — playing Bobby’s married friends, Paul and David — discussed it later that morning and felt inspired to float an idea to a few of their fellow players. How about arriving early and reversing the order tonight: changing into makeup and costumes right away, boosting energy levels with their warm-up routine (image O) and bringing it directly to the stage for tonight’s dress rehearsal?

“We said: ‘Let’s warm up as our characters. Let’s talk as our characters backstage,’” explains Zarnowski. “That’s what we did. And the rehearsal was good on Tuesday and great on Wednesday.”

The warm-ups in the backstage practice studio have also been a crucial time for removing any remaining doubts about a climactic group

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the making of company

dance number — the Vaudeville-inspired Side by Side, which Armando Ronconi, Comm ’15, playing Larry (image C) and now doubling as deputy dance coach, has dubbed Suicide by Side. By the warm-up for Wednesday’s final dress rehearsal, stubborn traces of strain and unintentional slapstick are gone. The performers look polished and

“BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO MAKE THE MAGIC. THAT’S US.”

witty performing the madcap song and dance. “Well done. Let’s go,” Ronconi pronounces, with a sharp hand clap and rollicking move from the room.

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Becoming Alive (Continued)

N

O

P

S Q

T

R

U

A nearly flawless run-through of it before their opening night performance on Thursday leaves the look of confidence on the cast members as they return to dressing rooms for final costume and makeup adjustments. Energy and emotion run high, but in a channeled way. At one point (image R), Zarnowski gathers his fellow male actors for a huddle. “Maybe we’ll all be at Paul’s wedding for real someday,” he says, referring to the musical’s wedding-day scene involving Braun’s character. “I just want us to remember this moment.”

Women cast members soon flood into the men’s dressing room and form a circle for a backstage tradition (image S). Braun begins leading a set of rapid-fire, semi-intelligible group chats that help bring the cast into vocal unity one last time before opening the show. The words are so well ingrained that the cast members mispronounce them in perfect unison. “Blessed is the theatre for it is magic,” shout the players during one of their more intelligible passages. “Blessed are those who make the magic. That’s us.”

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V

Then, Ronconi calls out to the heavens in the voice of a Renaissance town crier, “Please help us kick ass.” And the group answers with a decidedly R-rated version of the phrase “Don’t let us mess up.” Their clapping grows faster and faster.

Her remaining time with the company growing short, Clarke had joined them for their warm-up minutes earlier (image P). At every touch point with the students now, including this one, she has been using a kind of mantra to reinforce the gratifying progress she’s seen during these last adrenaline-fueled days: “You’re listening now, really listening to each other … stay connected out there … tighten everything up between you … remember your energy.”

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27

Becoming Alive (Continued)

She has also been alluding to her imminent departure. Starting tomorrow, the cast will be on its own for the bulk of the nine-show run, with stage manager Martin and music director Paul Helm serving as “two sets of eyes and ears” on the production, able to call for help if things go sideways for any reason.

“I’ll be back at the end, so I won’t say goodbye. But I will say it has been a privilege,” she says. When she confesses barely being able to contain her excitement and sense of anticipation, the players break into applause. She then leaves them with a final plea: “Have. Fun. It’s about joy, right? Otherwise, why do it? So just have the most fun.

OK? Go.” In the hallway outside the studio, Clarke acknowledges feeling like a parent leaving a child at college for the first time. “You get them as prepared as you can, with as many tools as you can give them. Now they have to go out and do it for themselves. You can’t go out there with them,” she says, wistfully. “It is sad — that it keeps going without you. Of course, that’s also what’s wonderful about it.”

“YOU GET THEM AS PREPARED AS YOU CAN, WITH AS MANY TOOLS AS YOU CAN GIVE THEM. NOW THEY HAVE TO GO OUT AND DO IT FOR THEMSELVES.”

A GIFT THAT WILL SHAPE

FUTURE STORYTELLERS FOR YEARS TO COME.

As Clarke lets go, Martin takes the helm. From her windowed booth behind and high above the audience (image V), she speaks into her headset and uses the backstage speakers to call the actors to their places for the top of the show.

Minutes later, she flips a switch. “Standby, lights and house lights dim,” she speaks gently into the earpiece of her lighting, sound and stage technicians. “Lights, go.”

“Standby, spot, sound and lights,” she says in a firm whisper, pausing just the right amount of time. “Spot, sound and lights ... go.”

With the beep of an answering machine and the voice of Ava Thomann, Comm ’15, playing Joanne, one of Bobby’s friends, leaving a birthday message, the performance is off and running.

These are the first of several hundred cues the young stage manager will need to provide with precision tonight. Despite the cramped, stuffy space where she’ll spend the next two hours — and the pressure she’ll be under the whole time — Martin is convinced she has the best seat in the house. “The stage manager gets to interact with all of these people from all aspects of the show, to see their process and see all of it come together,” she explained earlier, relishing this moment far in advance. “That for me — that’s what theatre is. It’s like watching everybody work on their own task and their own agenda. And then suddenly you have a show. That’s the coolest thing. I just love getting to oversee that.”

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Thank you to the Bernice Shanke Greiveldinger Charitable Trust for its $3.5 million gift.

This transformative philanthropy makes possible significant improvements to historic Johnston Hall, providing advanced technology and a more collaborative environment, ensuring that future graduates are well prepared to use their communication skills to make a difference. We think Bernice Shanke Greiveldinger, a 1942 graduate of Marquette’s School of Journalism and 43-year employee of the then-Milwaukee Journal, would approve.

To find out how you can support the college, contact Paul Markovina at 414.288.4512 or paul.markovina@marquette.edu.

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DOUBLING DOWN Nicholas D’Agosto

By Edgar Mendez

“You only have that one time at that one age to be in college, and I really loved school,” says D’Agosto, who graduated cum laude with bachelor’s degrees in theatre and history.

In June, he married his Green Bay-native sweetheart, whom he met on a blind date set up through a Marquette connection, adding family man to a repertoire that includes leading man. And though starring on the big screen was once his aspiration, he now prefers the stability that acting on TV shows provides.

“The truth is that I’m older now and crave that sort of consistency in my life,” says D’Agosto, who also was a recurring character on Showtime’s Masters and Johnson drama Masters of Sex with Emmy-nominated ensemble mates Lizzy Caplan, Allison Janney and Beau Bridges. Janney took home a 2014 Emmy for her guest role in the series.

Similarly, D’Agosto was part of a renaissance period for talented student performers in the Theatre Department.

Tempted by Hollywood as an undergraduate, Nicholas D’Agosto — TV’s Harvey Dent — is grateful he stayed at Marquette and completed his education.

Actor Nicholas D’Agosto had a tough decision to make during his freshman year. Heed the calls of Hollywood or stay in school?

“I absolutely made the right choice,” says the Comm ’02 alum, who plays Harvey Dent — later to become the villain Two-face — on Fox’s popular show Gotham, a sort of Batman prequel.

The job opportunities for D’Agosto flowed in after his standout role in the hit movie Election. Featuring Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick, it was filmed in his hometown Omaha, Neb., while he was in high school and released to an enthusiastic reception in the months after he arrived on campus.

He suddenly was a hot commodity but wasn’t ready to transition to tinsel town.

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“Monica West, Danny Pudi, Andy Grotelueschen and Andy Herro — we all hung out,” D’Agosto recalls. West, Pudi and Grotelueschen are actors and Herro a dancer. All have made their marks in the entertainment world.

“I have so many great memories of our time together at Marquette,” says D’Agosto, whose post-graduation move to Hollywood led to leading roles in films such as Final Destination V and work as a TV regular on Heroes and Grey’s Anatomy, among other roles. A huge part of his development as a performer was the training he received from the late Phylis Ravel, former faculty member in the theatre arts program, whom D’Agosto describes as his first great acting teacher.

“She took us naïve Midwestern kids and brought a real furiousness and technique training to us,” he says. Ravel also advised students to continue their training beyond Marquette, advice that D’Agosto still heeds, taking acting lessons during his time off from Gotham, Fox’s second-highest-rated scripted show.

It's now in its second season.

“My Marquette education is a huge part of who I am,” he says. “My degree really sets me apart from a lot of other actors here.”

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BREADTH AND DEPTH Dr. Bonnie Brennen

By Guy Fiorita received her doctorate from the University of Iowa, served on the faculty at Temple and other universities, and has been Diederich’s Nieman Professor of Journalism and Media Studies for seven years.

This well-rounded experience defines Brennen and is something she continues cultivating in her professional life. She seldom teaches the same class and is comfortable covering subjects ranging from the history of journalism to media, technology and society.

“I guess I am a bit of a generalist, but I’m interested in a lot of things and love the challenge of keeping up with my students’ interests. Besides, I really only teach one thing — critical thinking,” she says.

In Bonnie Brennen, wide-ranging interests and talents meet a scholarly mind.

Dr. Bonnie Brennen’s first taste of journalism was almost her last. She took an internship with the Los Angeles Times and was immediately sent to cover a murder.

“It turned out to be one of the Hillside Strangler’s first victims.

One look and I couldn’t stop throwing up. The photographer had to do the job. I quickly realized that my perception was not the reality of journalism,” she says.

That realization prompted a career shift into marketing and communication followed by a brief flirtation with the study of genetics before an eventual return to journalism studies. She

Brennen’s range can best be seen in the Raynor Memorial Libraries catalogue or on amazon.com, where a search of her name turns up eight books. There are scholarly works, like Qualitative Research Methods for Media Studies, and even a novel, Contradictions, which tells the story of a family grappling with the fact that the Holocaust is part of its history. When not teaching or writing — or riding her horse — she organizes speaker series and the biennial Nieman Conference. Last year’s conference, Data Visualization, featured five guest speakers and was attended by 300 students, faculty members and guests.

Next up is a one-semester sabbatical. “Without revealing too much, I can say that I will be studying how people use technology based on their age, social groups and background,” she says.

And are there any plans for another novel? “It’s possible. I certainly won’t rule it out,” she says.

What’s in a name?

A one-minute guide to the college’s endowed chairs Endowed chairs are valued as a way to attract stellar scholars and help fund graduate research assistants, travel for research, and programming such as lecture series and conferences — all reasons the college welcomes opportunities to add new names to this esteemed collection.

Set up in 1960 to honor the man who founded the Milwaukee Journal, the Lucius W. Nieman Chair of Journalism held

by Brennen is one of three endowed professorships in the Diederich College. Nieman’s niece made the endowment to preserve his memory, help Marquette maintain “the outstanding quality” of its journalism instruction and “inspire future generations of students.”

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The Gretchen and Cyril Colnik Chair was established in 1991 by Gretchen Colnik, a local TV personality of the 1950s and ’60s, and honors her father Cyril, who was called the Tiffany of wrought iron for work that’s found in some of Milwaukee’s historic buildings. Dr. John J. Pauly holds the Colnik Chair.

The William R. Burleigh and E.W. Scripps Professorship began in 2000 and is traditionally held by the dean.

diederich.marquette.edu

CAMPAIGN VS. KAMPAGNE Dr. Sumana Chattopadhyay

By Ann Christenson European republic to that of the United States. After speaking at a conference in London, she was invited to help with a study conducted at the University of Vienna, an opportunity she welcomed because most of her study has been in U.S. elections, she says.

While honing her adeptness with German, Chattopadhyay closely examined Austria’s multiparty political system. Focusing on the media coverage of the 2013 Austrian election, she looked at “what kinds of issues are discussed more” and sought to “establish parallels between the issue typologies in Austrian elections and the ones in U.S. elections defined by two major political parties,” she explains.

The goal of her project is to “create a bridge between the issues” in both cultures “in terms of ownership of the issues,” she says.

A Diederich professor compares the issues in U.S. elections to those in multiparty Austria.

Dr. Sumana Chattopadhyay is no stranger to the machinations of political campaigns.

The Diederich associate professor of digital media and performing arts/media has studied political engagement through debates and performed a meta-analysis — a synthesis of existing research using statistical methods — of political advertising.

Her latest research reflects a broadening of scope. Chattopadhyay spent the fall 2014 semester on sabbatical in Vienna, Austria, comparing the structure of the political system in the central

For instance, in a pluralistic party system, the issues owned by liberal and conservative parties aren’t as predictable and clear cut. In Austria, “issues that are Democrat owned in the United States, such as women’s rights, might also be embraced by conservative parties in Austria in cases where they’ve been in a coalition with a more liberal party,” says Chattopadhyay.

The other area of study begun during her sabbatical is — like her research on the issue typologies between Austrian and American elections — based on data from the Austrian National Election Study, or AUTNES, which was collected during the 2013 election. The study examines voter attitudes like cynicism, efficacy and trust in government and how those attitudes are affected by the media.

A change agent looks back Dr. Lori Bergen’s six years as dean left the Diederich College a changed place and earned her a reputation for fostering innovative programs such as the O’Brien Fellowship and Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service.

Yet Bergen characterizes her time here as a learning experience that left her grateful. “I remember hearing Father Wild say once that we are preparing our students to serve those who are waiting for them. I will always remember how important that is — the preparation of students not just for careers, but for a life of service.”

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She brings these lessons to her new role as founding dean of the new College of Media, Communication and Information at the University of Colorado Boulder, whose vision “is based on collaboration, innovation and interdisciplinarity or the very things that I learned most about from being at Marquette and in the Diederich College,” she says.

Proudest of student contributions to everything from Diederich Ideas and NNS to stage performances and national competitions, Bergen sees the college continuing to excel through the support of “a real community of people who love Marquette and want to make it the best it can possibly be.”

Says Bergen, “The future of the college is truly in the hands of those alumni and donors whose vision to support a worldclass communication college assures its continued success.”

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CRITIQUING OUR ERA OF QUALITY TV

ACTIVIST AUTEUR

Dr. Amanda Keeler

Joseph Brown

By Chris Jenkins

By Chris Jenkins

A faculty member and her students unlock the meaning of the shows that keep us glued to our couches.

Filmmaker in residence helps students keep creativity in focus by telling real stories.

Asking students to critically analyze television programs in the age of binge watching presents unique challenges to Dr. Amanda Keeler. For Keeler, assistant professor of digital media, the days of students seeing the same show at the same time are gone.

Joseph Brown wants students to embrace the idea that creativity can be cultivated.

“It’s impossible to talk about it as sort of this collective audience these days because we’re so scattered,” she says. “We have so many channels and so many options, which means that everyone gets a little something of what they want. But it means that there’s no overarching thing I can rely on in the classroom.”

But she doesn’t want to discourage students from exploring culturally significant TV series on their own by giving away spoiler alerts in class. So, usually, she shows pilot episodes.

In her Film and TV Aesthetics class, Keeler had students analyze The Wire and Twin Peaks. In her Global Television class, students explored the Danish roots of the series The Killing and discussed the popularity of Dallas in Europe in the 1980s.

Keeler, who also teaches scriptwriting, didn’t always envision herself an expert in critical TV analysis. In fact, she studied only film until the second year of her doctoral work at Indiana University, when she took her first television class — suddenly stumbling onto a topic she found to be much more approachable.

“I sort of never looked back,” she says.

Keeler never can get a read on how students will react. Some classes will love a particular show, and others will hate it. But there’s one show she seemingly can’t get any of her students to like: the bad movie-mocking snarkfest Mystery Science Theater 3000, a show she admiringly used as the basis of an academic paper in 2011.

“You can’t believe the cultural changes and how the stuff that we grew up watching doesn’t at all resonate with them,” Keeler says.

“I haven’t found a way to teach it yet.”

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Brown, the Diederich College’s visiting professional in residence in digital media and performing arts, asks students if they consider themselves creative. Too often, he hears them say no.

“We’re trying to break that down,” he says. “I didn’t start off doing film. I was doing many other things first. I didn’t think of myself as creative. But the more you do it, it’s like math. You just get better at it.”

Working on a documentary about a former eco-terrorist who is working to outlaw wolf hunting, Brown hopes to get students involved in the editing process. Other projects include a documentary about racial disparities in Wisconsin and a short film about Marquette carillonneur Mark Konewko attempting to play a piece of experimental music in the university’s bell tower.

Brown also launched in the spring the Great Lakes Environmental Film Festival. (See related story on page 7.)

Brown teaches an intermediate video production class and a senior capstone class. He emphasizes the dedication it takes to make it in a challenging field, especially when it comes to keeping on top of the latest technology.

But he also acknowledges that technical know-how doesn’t matter without a compelling story to tell.

“There’s a million YouTube videos out there, but, what, 10 of them are worth watching?” he says. “So I stress the technical. I stress the changing technology, and I make sure they know how to make things look good as best I can. But I also say, ‘Look — you could have the best-looking video in the world, but if the story’s not there, and people don’t know what it’s about, then who cares?’ ”

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LASTING IMPRESSIONS

By Katharine Miller

Dr. James Scotton

Dr. Robert Shuter

Three colleagues with nearly 100 years of combined Marquette experience wrap up their college careers.

After 40 influential years in the Department of Communication Studies, which he chaired for an astonishing 29 years, Dr. Robert Shuter became a professor emeritus earlier this year. Arriving as an assistant professor in 1973, Shuter soon worked to help elevate the department’s reputation and became chair just one year later.

“We brought in the best and brightest in the field, changed the curriculum, and expanded the graduate program,” recalls Shuter, who served two separate stints as department chair — most recently in 2010 — while drawing professional distinction with his research on communication across cultures, including more than 75 publications in the field.

Although he says it was a team effort, colleagues praise his distinct contributions. “It’s not an exaggeration to say he’s responsible for the very existence of the communication studies program,” says Dr. Lynn Turner, professor of communication studies.

In addition to being highly popular, Shuter’s courses, such as Interpersonal Communication, “challenged his students to learn deeply … increasing their understanding, empathy and care for others,” says Dr. Steve Goldzwig, professor of communication studies.

Shuter will continue to teach doctoral students in the Hugh Downs School of Communication at Arizona State University while maintaining ties to Marquette through his emeritus position. He also has been awarded a Fulbright Specialist award to introduce the Hong Kong Baptist University School of Communication to a specialty he helped found, intercultural new media studies.

diederich.marquette.edu

Donna Turben

Serving as department chair, graduate program director and dean of what was then the College of Journalism, Dr. James Scotton “restored the luster to the college” by getting it reaccredited in 1985, after accreditation had been lost in the 1960s, says Dr. William Thorn, associate professor of journalism and media studies.

Dr. Bob Griffin, professor of journalism and media studies, calls Scotton the “consummate colleague” who continued “to bring a scholarly vision to our faculty while enhancing the quality of our teaching, research and service.”

Scotton received four Fulbright awards as a faculty member, an honor he ranks as his proudest from his time at Marquette. Fittingly for someone whose work involved international study, Scotton will work on a book about Africa when he retires after the fall semester.

In more than 20 years at Marquette, Donna Turben was integral to the administrative operations of the college and known as the “face of Diederich.” Turben began her career in the college in 1995 as an administrative assistant supporting faculty and students in the Broadcast and Electronic Communication and Communication Studies departments. A few years later, she added responsibilities in advertising, public relations and journalism. She received an Excellence in University Service Award in 2002 and became assistant to the deans in 2003.

“Donna will be impossible to replace,” says associate dean Dr. Joyce Wolburg. “She is the backbone of the college — anticipating people’s needs and solving problems before they’ve even happened.”

Turben says she will miss the students, faculty and co-workers from the college and university. She is eager to spend more time with her family, travel and complete some “long overdue projects.”

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Majoring in meaning Reflections on choosing a major and deciding what to do after graduation inspired by a few wise prescriptions from Sister Peggy O'Neill.

“Get a life. A real life:” Sister Peggy O’Neill of Suchitoto, El Salvador.

Every year, around spring commencement, the headlines pop up like dandelions in my Twitter feed: “Why college is a waste of money” and “The 13 most useless degrees.” Journalism, education and fine arts are always in the top five. Google “best college majors,” and you’ll find nearly every article leads with a discussion of salary.

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But I’ve never heard a commencement speaker say: “Let us mark this milestone, your graduation, the day you begin your lifelong quest to get, and keep, a nice safe desk job.” Imagine Marquette’s motto if we championed the notion that your salary is what makes your life count. “Be self-centered.” “Men and women for money.”

diederich.marquette.edu

I once had a student who should have gone to art school. But her parents made her major in journalism believing it would be more practical. (Perhaps they didn’t see those articles.) She slogged through four years, passed her classes and got her degree, but her heart wasn’t in it.

I don’t criticize her parents. They want the best for their child.

But the trouble with their logic is that her lack of interest would inevitably show up in her work, making her an unlikely candidate for a journalism job, even if she were actually to apply for one.

She does love photography and she has a good eye. She may wind up in this career anyway. If this had been her major, she could have started so much sooner. If she’d gone to art school, she could have gained expertise so much faster.

I, on the other hand, was free to study whatever seemed interesting. Painting and sculpture were my thing so I earned a bachelor of fine arts. Now I design websites and apps and teach part time. I found my way to my digital career in my last year of college when I took my first Photoshop class and was instantly hooked. Later, I landed a web development internship at one of Milwaukee’s first digital startups because of the connections I made — as a bartender.

My manager Tom has a similar story. He jokes that the Internet was the savior for all Gen X liberal arts majors. But, the truth is, in those pre-web days, he found work in broadcasting, just as I had found work teaching art in an alternative high school, designing ceramic tile and painting portraits. There are many ways to earn a living using creative skills.

The point of these anecdotes is that that the path to vocation can be indirect. And we all know a college degree doesn’t guarantee secure employment. So what then is the purpose of a university?

Many would say it’s to provide graduates with high-salary jobs and employers with skilled labor.

But one might be surprised to learn that 60 percent of millennials give considerable weight to purpose when choosing a job, according to a 2014 Deloitte study on generations in the workplace. A similar report from the Brookings Institute said they are the least likely cohort, compared with other age groups, to say “money is the best measure of success.” They want meaningful work in line with their values.

Last fall, I traveled to El Salvador with a group of Marquette faculty, staff and students. We went to honor a housekeeper, her daughter and six Jesuit leaders of the University of Central America 25 years after they were murdered by government forces whom the priests had opposed for terrorizing and oppressing citizens. One of the leaders, Rev. Ignacio Ellacuría, S.J., proclaimed, years before he was killed, that the true purpose of his university was to “set about solving the unacceptable problem of injustice in countries throughout Central America.” And to do this he said, “we must educate professionals with a conscience who will be the immediate instruments of such a transformation.”

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This is a powerful way to think about why a university should exist and why to study at one.

Imagine if the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service were raided for reporting on the unacceptable problem of poverty and segregation in Milwaukee (which it does). Or imagine being a target of government violence for teaching your subject — and then doing it anyway because it’s that important.

What if that story on the best college majors were reframed in this way? Journalism might get top rank. The story might highlight Meg Kissinger’s investigative reporting in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on the city’s troubled mental health system. It would show how her work changed policy and led to systemic reforms. It would remind us that a government by the people, for the people and of the people cannot exist without a free press and brave journalists like James Foley, Arts ’94, who hold governments accountable.

It would point out that the best major is the one that helps us find that “place where our deep gladness meets the world’s deep need,” as Frederick Buechner said. It would say the best major best equips you to do your very best work — for others. It would assert that to have an education is to have an obligation.

It would say the most useless major is the one you only do for the money.

In El Salvador, we visited Sister Peggy O’Neill, SC, who runs an arts center to help residents heal from the trauma of civil war.

She was also Marquette’s spring 2015 Commencement speaker.

“Get a life,” she advised graduates, “a real life. Not just the manic pursuit of the next promotion, the larger house, the greener lawn, the bigger paycheck. Get a life in which you are generous.

Give yourself away. Bless others, like Jesus did, with the very substance of your life.”

It would be cruel to dismiss the practical concerns of parents and students, especially because their tuition contributes to my security. So I’d like to end with a few last thoughts rephrased from Sister Peggy’s address. May her words give us strength in uncertain times. “Oh, those most quoted words of the Declaration of Independence, would that it read: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of meaningfulness. The pursuit of truth. The pursuit of justice.

And, oh, yes, happiness will follow.”

Daria Kempka is accustomed to wearing multiple hats at Marquette: She is director of digital strategy in the Office of Marketing and Communication, she teaches digital journalism as an adjunct professor in the Diederich College, and she received her M.A. in mass communication in 2012.

Originally created for Comm magazine, this essay has also been featured on Medium as part of a series honoring Pope Francis' visit to the United States with reflections on lives transformed by Jesuit education. Find it at go.mu.edu/majoring.

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Marquette University Diederich College of Communication, P.O. Box 1881, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201-1881 USA

MASTER THE ART OF

COMMUNICATION.

In any industry, culture or situation, communication is the most essential skill. A master of arts in communication from the Diederich College of Communication immerses students in an environment that encourages risks and demands excellence. The program prepares students for intellectual, artistic, professional and ethical leadership in a complex technological and multicultural world. Specialize in one of two areas: communication professions and society or digital communication strategies. Here, you will be equipped with the vision and agility to stay ahead, the ability to speak for the unheard, and the wisdom to know what to say.

Start your mastery. Learn more at marquette.edu/diederich.