March 2019 College News

1 Members of the SXTXState project covering segments of South By Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Conference and Festival 2 Undergraduate students working to assist with social media coverage for SXSW 3 Triston Giesie and Yunuen Alvarado represent the Texas State SPJ student chapter at the Leadership Institute Conference JOURNALISMANDMASS COMMUNICATION Advertising, Digital Media Innovation, Electronic Media , Mass Communication, Journalism, & Public Relations FACULTY ACCOLADES Kym Fox was appointed to the Higher Education Coordinating Board’s Field of Study Advisory Committee for Journalism. Te committee determines the lower-division courses for journalism undergraduate degree programs at public colleges and universities in Texas. Fox is the program coordinator for the journalism program at Texas State. Dr. Vanessa de Macedo Higgins Joyce study on Young Latinx social media use and efcacy is out in print. She co-authored the study and book chapter with two SJMC Master’s students: Issa Galvan and Jené Shepherd . Te chapter, entitled “Somebody Is Bound to Call You Out: Young Latinos’ Digital Media Use and Political Participation” was published in March 2019 by Routledge, in the book Race/Gender/Class/ Media: Considering Diversity Across Audiences, Content, and Producers . Judy Oskam , Professor and SJMC Director, was the 2nd place recipient for the Scripps Howard Foundation Administrator of the Year award. Te Scripps Howard Foundation, in partnership with the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, gives awards for Teacher of the Year and Administrator of the Year. Cindy Royal had the chapter “Teaching Mobile App Development in a Mass Communication Program” published in the online textbook Coding Pedagogy (codingpedagogy.net) . Te chapter discusses tools and techniques used in the Mobile App Development course. STUDENT ACCOLADES For the 12th consecutive year, SJMC graduate students covered the South By Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Conference and Festival at SXTXState.com where they were exposed to a range of speakers discussing policy and social implications of technology. [1] In addition to the students competitively selected for Cindy Royal’s special course - Jessica Knight , Christina Noriega , Stephanie Robinson , Mairi Vannella and Vincent Verduzco - veteran students of the project were assigned to cover specifc tracks for Booz Allen Hamilton. SJMC graduate Jacque Myers of the consulting company arranged for a $7500 Booz Allen Cares grant to fund the project for adjunct instructor Jordon Brown and graduate students Megan Boyle , Logan Self and Sean Smith to cover government, defense, transportation and aviation segments. And for the third year, led by Dale Blasingame and Jon Zmikly , 20 undergraduate students were selected to work directly for SXSW to assist with social media coverage. [ 2] Five SJMC students went to Austin for a “Meet the Pros” event before the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors state convention. Students Jakob Rodriguez , Sabrina Anderson , Laura Figi , Christopher Green and Megan Wehring met with newspaper editors from Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, Victoria, College Station and Corpus Christi in the session at the Belo Center for New Media on the UT campus. Editors reviewed resumes and talked about job opportunities and skills in high demand. SJMC lecturer Terry Scott Bertling joined the students at the event and attended the state convention as a longtime member and a past president of Texas APME. Triston Giesie and Yunuen Alvarado represented the Texas State SPJ student chapter at the Leadership Institute Conference on February 22-23. [ 3] ALUMNI ACCOLADES Robin Loving (1975) recently launched as a Nonproft Efectiveness Coach with three clients, the cornerstone of which is Impact Austin, a Central Texas women’s philanthropy organization for whom she will be working to initiate its innovation incubator to fund high impact collaborative eforts that provide a systems approach to advancing equity for women and girls of color. SCHOOL ACCOLADES Te University Star was a fnalist in four categories for the SPJ Region 8 Mark of Excellence Awards. Carrington Tatum won for general news and will now compete at the national level. National winners will be announced in May 2019. In addition to the individual fnalists for SPJ Awards, Te University Star received an honorable mention for best collegiate newspaper from the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors on March 2. Places were as follows: First Place: Te Collegian | Tarrant County College Second Place: University Press | Lamar University Tird Place: Baylor Lariat | Baylor University Honorable Mention: Te University Star | Texas State Te University Star also received third place recognition from the Freedom for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) Commit to Expression Campaign for our Soapbox Soundof event on campus. JACKDOUGLASAWARD Debbie Hiott , a Texas State alumna and the former editor of the Austin American-Statesman , won the prestigious Jack Douglas Award for service to Texas journalism at the Texas APME convention. Te board of Texas APME chooses the annual award recipient. Hiott, who had worked for more than 25 years at the American-Statesman and served seven years as its editor, is now the executive director of media operations for the Moody College of Communications at UT. She is also general manager of KUT 90.5, Austin’s NPR station, and KUTX 98.9, its music station. 12 | March | College News College of Fine Arts and Communication | 13