College-News-September-2021

1 Dale Blasingame and Sara Shields are co-PIs on a $190k grant approved by Texas Sea Grant 2 Professors Kym Fox , Daniel Carter , and Carrington Tatum present in the frst of two sessions on data journalism 3 Dr. Judy Oskam gave a masterclass on Creating Successful Habits with Behavior Design 12 | September | College News JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATION Advertising, Digital Media Innovation, Electronic Media , Mass Communication, Journalism, & Public Relations FACULTY ACCOLADES Dale Blasingame and Sara Shields [1] are co-PIs on a $190k grant approved by Texas Sea Grant. Tey will work with the principal investigator, Dr. Jessica Dutton from Aquatic Biology, to study mercury and selenium concentrations in fsh species along the Texas Coast. Blasingame will produce drone video and photography for the grant, and Shields will build the public-facing website for the project. Dale Blasingame taught a drone workshop September 10th at the Round Rock campus for the LBJ Institute’s NASA Stem Engagement and Educator Professional Development Collaborative. Te workshop covered FAA certifcation, safety rules and usage of drones in the classroom. NASA education specialists also got to spend time fying a drone. Blasingame will now develop an asynchronous online training course for the NASA specialists to study before they take their FAA certifcation exam. Professors Kym Fox, Daniel Carter, along with SJMC alumnus Carrington Tatum [2] , presented at the national Society of Professional Journalists conference in September. Te session, Data Journalism in a Day, a Week, and a Semester, featured faculty from four universities and focused on teaching methods for data journalism. Tatum, former University Star editor, is a Report for America fellow at the non-proft news organization MLK50 in Memphis and discussed how he applies the data journalism skills he learned in the course taught by Carter and Fox. Te SPJ conference was held virtually. Dr. Vanessa de Macedo Higgins Joyce presented her research New Challenges and Networks of Learning: Transnational Journalistic Collaborations Across Latin America at the JOLT-CICOM conference in Spain, held online this September. Kelly Kaufhold won top research paper in the Community Journalism Interest Group at the annual meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Te conference was held online this year. Te study, Locating the Media’s Role in Empathy for Immigration, quantifed the relationship between local media use and attitudes about immigration. Tis study builds on earlier research co-authored with Debra Price . Cindy Royal, along with co-author Damon Kiesow of the University of Missouri, published the article From Boundary to Bridge and Beyond: Te Path to Professionalization of Product Roles in Journalism. Te paper presents the results of the News Product Alliance Community Survey and brings light to product functions as they become more central to journalism's mission. Te article is published as part of a special issue on Reconsidering Innovation: Situating and Evaluating Change in Journalism in the journal Journalism Studies . Te Digital Media Innovation program in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication celebrated its ffh anniversary. On August 4, 2016, the program received fnal approval from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and launched into fall 2016 with two students. Since then, the program has grown to an enrollment of more than 300, with several hundred students having graduated with the degree. Alumni of the program now work in innovation roles for Gannett, Austonia.com, OJO Labs, Petco, GoDaddy, Big Commerce and more. Read Part I of our series spotlighting alumni successes. Nandini Bhalla will present in the virtual panel of the monthly webinar by the Institute of Public Relations and PRSA Educators Academy in September. Te topic of this panel is Exploring the perspectives of immigrant and frst-generation. Tis panel features faculty from three universities. Race in the PR Classroom, a monthly webinar series for educators focuses on how to incorporate race in the current state of PR education. In August, Dr. Judy Oskam [3] ended her second term as an Association for Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication representative on the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. She has served on the accrediting council since 2015. ASJMC is a non- proft, educational association composed of some 190 JMC programs at the college level. Te majority of the association's members are in the United States and Canada. ASJMC promotes excellence in journalism and mass communication education. Dr. Judy Oskam gave a masterclass on Creating Successful Habits with Behavior Design for the Early Career Women Collective in July 2021. Te Early Career Women Collective is a leadership development community for early career women led by a global mentoring network of successful women leaders. Oskam also serves as a mentor for the organization. Sandhya Rao was featured in an article celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Fulbright program; her father was also a Fulbright Scholar in the early years of the program. Dr. Amber Hinsley presented her paper "Cued up: How audience demographics infuence reliance on news cues, confrmation bias and confdence in identifying misinformation" at the International Symposium on Online Journalism in a research panel that was held virtually. Te paper was published in the conference's peer-viewed journal. Hinsley also is part of an interdisciplinary research team that recently had two research articles accepted by the journal Health Communication : "Interpersonal Communication Infuence on Health-Protective Behaviors Amid the COVID-19 Crisis" and "Harnessing an Integrated Health Communication (IHC) Framework for Campaigns: A Case of Prescription Drug Decision Making Health Communication. College of Fine Arts and Communication | 13