September 2023 College News

College of Fine Arts and Communication | 15 Media Game . The new book, available in spring 2024, is Kaufman’s third book with Kendall Hunt. It will be used in his MC4329 Sports Media course and marketed to other universities as well. Kaufman's other titles with Kendall Hunt are " deapower: A Practical Guide to Building Public Relations Campaigns , and Engaging Public Relations: A Creative Planning Approach , a book once co-written by Dr. Bruce Smith. Trainers from Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) returned to campus to spend two days teaching students a variety of topics as part of an IRE on Campus grant. Texas State was the only university in the nation to be awarded a second grant-funded visit. The initial IRE on Campus event was held in the spring. Kym Fox coordinated both events. Fall workshop sessions included interviewing, source building, and covering historically marginalized and underrepresented communities. Gilbert D. Martinez and Jon Zmikly took 14 undergraduate and graduate students to Japan, as part of the Study Abroad Program in June. Students wrote 13 daily blog posts and 54 feature stories about Tokyo and Kyoto, and created 13 minidocumentaries and social media content. In addition, the group visited the Tokyo bureau office of the Wall Street Journal , Time Out Tokyo and the Kyoto Shimbun . Students also had the chance to interact with Japanese students from Rikkyo University and Chuo Gakuin University in Tokyo and visit numerous Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines and other cultural sites, including Daibutsu (The Great Buddha) in Kamakura. All student content can be found on the class website: www.sjmcjapan.com [2] David Nolan presented his work-in-progress documentary film Exploring the Retracing of Russell Lee at the 2023 Visual Communication Conference in Mammoth Lakes, California. The film uses archival images, audio, and video from the Wittliff Collection’s Carraro/Weller “Retracing Russell Lee” Project collection from the early 1990s, as well as Lee’s Farm Security Administration images from the Library of Congress. In 1991, a team of student photographers and oral historians from then Southwest Texas State University set out to retrace Russell Lee’s steps in the Depression-era communities of Pie Town, New Mexico and San Augustine. The team, inspired by Lee’s FSA images, visited these same two towns, and in some cases the same people photographed by Lee, taking photographs and conducting oral histories of the current inhabitants. The students were led by professors Francine Carraro and Eric Weller. Using the team’s original content from the project, this film shines a light on the original project and highlights the work of one of the most important photographers of his time. Debra Price and Jennifer Scharlach took public relations students on the first-ever Study in America trip to Seattle, where they explored careers with communications pros at Amazon, Expedia, Microsoft, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and top tourist attractions. [3] STUDENT ACCOLADES A safety message created by public relations student Abbie Taylor appeared along Texas roadways during the first week of the Barbie movie debut and encouraged Texans to drive safe because even Barbie buckles up. The messaging came from a project that students completed for the Texas Department of Transportation in the PR research class led by Vanessa Higgins Joyce. The Texas State PRSSA chapter was selected as a Star Chapter winner out of 34 chapters, the highest award a chapter can receive. The award is given to chapters that meet numerous criteria including chapter growth, participation in national events, diversity programming, outreach, and professional development. Carson Jones , the past president of the Texas State PRSSA chapter, was selected for the Gold Key award, the highest individual award given by the Public Relations Student Society of America. This is the second year in a row that a Texas State PR student has been selected for this national award. ALUMNI ACCOLADES Over the summer, Kiana Fitzgerald published her first book, Ode to Hip-Hop: 50 Albums That Define 50 Years of Trailblazing Music , commemorating the 50th anniversary of the music genre. Fitzgerald is a freelance journalist who is frequently heard on NPR and has written for a variety of publications from Texas Monthly to Rolling Stone . She graduated with a journalism degree in 2011 and a master’s in mass communication in 2013.