SESSION LEADERS
University of South Alabama Mobile, Alabama September 22, 2014
Lauren Erdman, is the Volunteer and Outreach Activities Coordinator at Bay Area Food Bank. She graduated from the University of Alabama in May with a Journalism degree and is from Mobile. She hopes to work as a PR or communications professional for a non-profit organization in the future. Fun fact: She is obsessed with anything Disney and actually lived in Orlando and worked at Disney World for a six-month internship.
Emily Hill is a reporter for the Mobile Press-Register and AL.com. She’s a 2014 graduate of Spring Hill College where she received her bachelor’s degree in journalism. Throughout her college career she had work published on AL.com and the Mobile Press-Register, in Mobile Bay Magazine, Sense Magazine and the Lagniappe. She also received the John Will Journalism Scholarship, the Public Relations Council of Alabama Award of Merit for a website project, the Catholic Press Award, and was inducted into the National Communication Association Honor Society Lambda Pi Eta. Erin Coggins, MJE, advises the yearbook and newspaper at Sparkman High School in Harvest. She is president of the Alabama Scholastic Press Association Board of Directors. She has been named the Susie DeMent Adviser of the Year twice and was recently recognized as a Special Recognition Adviser by the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund. She was also awarded the 2007 Columbia Scholastic Press Association’s Gold Key, and she is a Dow Jones Distinguished Adviser. Meredith Cummings, CJE, journalism instructor at The University of Alabama, is President of the Society of Professional Journalists Alabama Professional Chapter and advises the Capstone Association of Black Journalists. She directs the National Elementary School Press Association, the Alabama Scholastic Press Association and the Multicultural Journalism Workshop at UA. Cummings was a newspaper, online and magazine reporter for 16 years before her current position, and she writes for AL.com where her blog, The Up Beat, won second place nationally in the 2014 National Federation of Press Women contest. Connie Nolen is an English teacher and chair of the English Department at Pelham High School in Pelham, Alabama. She is the Pelham Community Columnist for the Shelby County Reporter and the Pelham Reporter. She is also the vice-president of the Alabama Scholastic Press Association, a member of the RUMC Christian Writers and the Southern Christian Writers associations. She lives in Pelham and describes herself as “a teacher, an avid reader, a writer, a mom, a community volunteer, a runner and an exerciser.”
Alabama Scholastic Press Association 2014
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