Media College eNews

The age gap between millennials and baby boomers can make it difficult to target both generations for a retail career, but four College of Media students easily maneuvered the hurdles and successfully dreamed up a winning answer to this real-life dilemma.

The challenge was part of the second-annual Target Case Study Competition held at WVU earlier this semester. Participants were asked to increase recruitment and retention of younger and older generations of employees at Target. The contest was open to undergraduates of all majors, and students worked in groups of two to four people.

Strategic communications senior Hannah Toney and her teammates won first place. Toney credits her classes at the College of Media for her team’s strong performance.

The Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and the WVU Center for Black Culture and Research will sponsor a public lecture with Tim Wise, an Anti-racist essayist, author and activist, entitled, “A Powerful Inside-Out Look at Race and Racism in America.” This event will be held Monday, April 4th, from 7-9 p.m. in Ming Hsieh Hall, Room G-21.

Wise has spoken to more than 800 college and high school campuses and has provided anti-racism education to teachers, physicians, medical industry professionals and law enforcement officials on methods for dismantling racism in their institutions. In this spellbinding lecture, the author of the bestselling, “White Like Me: Reflections on Race From a Privileged Son,” offers a powerful inside-out look at race and racism in America, surveying the damage white privilege has done not only to people of color but to white people themselves.

A faculty roundtable with Mr. Wise will be held from 5-6 p.m. in the Mountainlair’s Blackwater Room. Seating is limited on a first-come-first-served basis.

Maker. Creator. Entrepreneur. Boss. West Virginia University’s Reed College of Media wants to empower young women to see themselves in these roles and to help them become leaders in the space where media and technology intersect.

To do that, the College of Media is partnering with MediaShift to co-host ””Hack the Gender Gap: Becoming Makers — A Women’s IoT Makeathon,” which brings together college-age women from around the country to envision their role and influence in the emerging “smart-world” market.

The three-day event kicks off on Friday, April 1, and will take place at the College’s Media Innovation Center. It will focus on the new but accelerating market in the Internet of Things and its potential impact on journalism and media, including sensor journalism, reporting with networked smart objects, storytelling with beacons and more.

Senior Director of Creative Strategy for The New York Times Liz McDonnell will visit the West Virginia University Reed College of Media to discuss trends in advertising and her role at The Times’ native ad unit T Brand Studio on Thursday, April 14.

Advertising has fundamentally changed in recent years, and it continues to evolve at a breakneck pace. The once-critical captive audience is a thing of the past, as unlimited on-demand content options across multiple screens constantly splinter our attention.

McDonnell’s presentation, “What’s Trending? Advertising and Marketing in 2016,” will begin at 7 p.m. in room G21 Ming Hsieh Hall on WVU’s downtown campus and is free and open to the public.

Students at West Virginia University’s Reed College of Media are researching and reporting on water concerns through the College’s StreamLab project. Now they will join forces with journalists, watershed groups and citizen scientists to take a look at the opportunities, challenges and potential community role in using sensors to tell environmental stories.

“Sensing the Environment: Investigating Community Water Stories With Sensor Journalism,” is a free public workshop that will be held at the College’s Media Innovation Center April 30. This event is open to journalists who cover science and environmental stories, watershed groups, citizen scientists, journalism, science and engineering students.

The event will examine America’s growing water crisis, from the Elk River chemical spill in Charleston, West Virginia, to the lead contamination in Flint, Michigan. Our expert panel will discuss elevating environmental reporting and engaging citizens in science stories.

One of the America’s leading aerospace manufacturing companies is joining forces with West Virginia University, one of the country’s leading public research universities, to offer online graduate degrees in five niche disciplines that match the company’s needs.

The agreement waives the application fee for Boeing employees, and honors in-state tuition rates for Boeing employees around the globe, Associate Provost Sue Day–Perroots said in announcing the program.

“These graduate degrees are a perfect fit for employees who want to advance their careers with Boeing,” Day-Perroots said. “Boeing employees can take most of the coursework online and, in some cases, supplement it with some on-campus, hands-on residencies. We are very excited to be partnering with Boeing in this strategic venture.”

Reed has served as dean of the College of Media, formerly the School of Journalism, since 2004 and has been a member of the faculty since 1993. Under her leadership, the College has developed a national reputation for its hands-on curricula, quality online programs and focus on media innovation.

Reed has a professional background in television journalism and is an award-winning documentary producer. She frequently writes about current media trends for “MediaShift” and speaks on the subject nationally. In January, Reed was named one of three finalists in the national Scripps Howard Foundation Journalism & Mass Communication Administrator of the Year Award.

Since Reed’s tenure as dean, the college has experienced record enrollment in its graduate and undergraduate programs, including its master’s degree programs in Integrated Marketing Communications, the nation’s first online IMC graduate program. Beginning this fall, the College will be launching the nation’s first master’s degree in Data Marketing Communications.

Freelancing: Getting your Foot in the Newsroom Door event is April 7 at 7 p.m. in Martin Hall room 205. The event will discuss how to find freelancing and stringing opportunities in news, 
land assignments, perform the tasks well- and turn them into long-term jobs. This event is cosponsored by the Society of Professional Journalists and the Radio Television Digital News Association.

Panelists

Chuck Scatterday (BSJ, 1992)
Operations Manager and Executive Producer, West Virginia Illustrated

A guided tour of a photojournalism exhibit focused on people coping with the effects of war will be held at 10 a.m. on March 23, at WVU’s Downtown Campus Library.

The exhibit, entitled “Fractured Spaces: Stories of Resistance and Resilience,” is a retrospective of photos by WVU Reed College of Media Shott Chair of Journalism Lois Raimondo. She took the photos during her travels in Iraq, Afghanistan, Tibet and Pakistan.

The free tour will be led by Carroll Wilkinson, director of strategic library initiatives. Those interested in participating should meet in the lobby.