Dear Alumni and Friends,
Spring has sprung, and we are busy preparing for in-person commencement ceremonies. Our graduate students will have their degrees conferred at 4 p.m. on Friday, May 7, at Pinnacle Bank Arena, and our undergraduates will participate in a ceremony at 10 a.m. on Saturday, May 8, at Memorial Stadium. While interactions at both ceremonies will still be limited, I’m so happy our students will get to physically cross the stage this year.
Our students are also busy preparing for life after college. We polled our seniors and found that many of them are planning to make a move after graduation. Please sign up to help them make that transition. We will be hosting Zoom sessions in April for our alumni and soon-to-be-alumni. Any advice or assistance you can offer regarding how to search for jobs, where to live, where to eat, how to find a hairstylist and more would be greatly appreciated.
Spring is also award season for our students, and this newsletter is filled with recent student accomplishments from the Perry Photo Challenge, Roper Sports Writing Competition, Broadcast Education Association Media Arts Festival, Hearst Writing Competition and much more. We are also pleased to announce that Jacht, our student-run agency, was recently named a Public Relations Student Society of America Nationally Affiliated firm. This designation gives Jacht access to a client referral system and national opportunities.
Our faculty and staff have also been making waves this month. Trina Creighton completed the Cornell University certificate program for diversity and inclusion training, Frauke Hachtmann moved forward in the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) Peter Lang Scholarsourcing Competition, Laurie Thomas Lee and Maria Marron presented research at the AEJMC Southeast Colloquium, Valerie Jones was featured on the local news for her research on using technology to ease loneliness and six of our faculty and staff received Family and Friends Recognition Awards.
You can learn more about what our faculty are working on each month by attending Knowledge on Tap. This Thursday at 5:30 p.m., Maria Marron will lead a conversation on her new book, “Misogyny across Global Media.” Please RSVP to join the discussion.
As always, please let me know if you ever have questions or just want to learn more about what’s happening at the college. I would love to hear from you.
Go Big Red!
Shari
