The Reed College of Media and College of Creative Arts will merge to form the new WVU College of Creative Arts and Media as of July 1, 2024. Get details.
As part of Scholastic Journalism Week, Feb. 19-23, the WVU Reed College of Media recognized alumni who began their journalism careers in high school, including Teran Malone (BSJ, 2023), John McPherson (BSJ, 1979; MS Integrated Marketing Communications, 2013), Michael Rinker (BSJ, 2020) and Olivia Sneed (BSJ, 2019).
During his freshman year at Magnolia High School in New Martinsville, West Virginia, Malone enrolled in the only journalism class available. Within a year, he and his team converted the struggling newspaper into a television production-based course, and he was promoted to student advisor and sports director. During his senior year, he was named the Wetzel County Youth of the Year for his work in sports media. Malone majored in Sports and Adventure Media at WVU and interned with MetroNews, where he accepted a full-time position as an overnight radio operations manager and sports reporter upon graduation. He is now the MetroNews director of creative content for WVU Lacrosse and vice president of the MOV2GO Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides cost-free education, scholarships and grant funding to Ohio and West Virginia high school journalism students.
From an active-duty U.S. Air Force member to a first-generation college student, the 2024 WVU Reed College of Media IMC & DMC Scholarship recipients run the gamut in terms of life and work experiences, but they each demonstrate the drive to advance their careers and the desire to make a positive impact on their communities.
Recipients Erin Dunsey of Peoria, Arizona, and Sierra Snigier of Seaford, Delaware, are enrolled in the College’s online Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) master’s degree program. Erica O’Brien of Houston, Texas, is enrolled in the online Data Marketing Communications master’s degree program, and Izabella Workman, a U.S. Air Force member in Suffolk, United Kingdom, is part of the IMC program’s Defense Information School (DINFOS) cohort of military affiliated students.
New student teams of anchors, beat reporters, producers and directors for the spring
2024 semester have been named for “WVU News” and “Mountaineer Playbook.”
Students in both courses spend the first few weeks learning the foundations of television
news production before auditioning for their roles, which they maintain for the
rest of the semester.
Advertising and public relations students in Elizabeth Oppe’s fall 2023 capstone
course crafted campaigns for three different nonprofit organizations: Get Moving!,
GATC Health and the NorthHills Association. The course operates like a firm where
students have direct contact with clients and produce tangible results and deliverables
on a deadline.
“The students established relationships and were committed to their clients,” said
Oppe, a teaching professor in the Reed College of Media. “This happens organically
when the students have a genuine interest and passion in helping the community
and their client. Each team went above and beyond to meet their client's needs
and expectations, with an ever evolving and changing set of circumstances. It is
a truly rich learning experience.”
West Virginia University
recently announced that the new college that merges the College of Creative
Arts (CCA), the Reed College of Media and three programs from the Davis College
of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design – Design Studies; Fashion, Dress and
Merchandising; and Interior Architecture – will be called the College of Creative
Arts and Media, effective July 1, 2024.
Additionally, the Reed College of Media will become the Reed School of Media and
Communications, one of four schools in the new college along with the schools of
Art and Design, Music, and Theater and Dance.
Sierra Worden, a journalism senior, is the recipient of the 2024 West Virginia University Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship. This award is given annually to an undergraduate student who has demonstrated an active interest and meaningful involvement in areas of human rights, civil rights, social justice and/or world peace, or other activities exemplary or reflective of the ideals and life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Worden, who plans to graduate in May 2024, is the social media coordinator for both the WVU Black Student Union and HerCampus. She is also the communications coordinator for the WVU Student Government Association, Editor-in-Chief of Mirage Magazine and a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.
Ashton Marra, a teaching assistant professor in the West Virginia University Reed
College of Media, is one of 11 journalists named a 2023 Solutions Journalism
Network Complicating the Narratives (CTN) Fellow. She will use the fellowship funding
to award microgrants to journalists who want to investigate addiction in their
communities.
In September 2021, Marra partnered with Jonathan J.K. Stoltman, director of the
Opioid Policy Institute, to launch Reporting on Addiction, a collaboration of addiction
science experts, professional journalists and journalism educators who aim to improve
the way journalists cover news related to substance use.
WVU Reed College of Media alumnus Jeff Geisler returned to campus to host an advertising
and public relations agency simulation that was open to all majors and local high
school students and sponsored by the WVU Chapter of the Public Relations Student
Society of America (PRSSA).
Throughout his career, Geisler (BSJ, 1993) has held various brand and marketing leadership
positions with such companies as McCann Erickson, BBH New York, Jay-Z’s Roc Nation,
Crispin Porter + Bogusky, and Saatchi & Saatchi. Currently, he is working for
Super Serious, a creative studio founded by actor and host Terry Crews, which promotes
brands through entertainment projects, including commercials, television programs
and movies.
Students in Shott Teaching Assistant Professor Chuck Scatterday’s class traveled
to Fayetteville, West Virginia, to cover Bridge Day for their “Mountaineer Playbook”
class. The annual event occurs each October and attracts bridge jumpers and spectators
from around the world.
Scatterday developed and teaches the “Mountaineer Playbook” capstone course for Sports
and Adventure Media (SAM) majors. Throughout the semester, students report, operate
cameras, direct and produce to cover all 17 Division I WVU athletic teams and regional
adventure events. Student reporters Elizabeth Carey and Riley McIlmoyle and videographer
Jake Held covered Bridge Day for the show, and Max Murphy and Adam Cooley, students
in the college’s Video Storytelling course, also attended. Each student was required
to produce a finished package, consisting of action video and audio, as well as
any additional content necessary to accurately and thoroughly tell the story.
John Temple, a veteran investigative journalist, non-fiction author and professor
in the West Virginia University Reed College of Media, recently added screenwriter
to his bio, and he’s transferring these skills into new course offerings at WVU.
Since joining the College’s faculty in 2002, Temple has authored four non-fiction
books. One of those, “American Pain,” documents how two young felons built the
largest pill mill in the United States and traces the roots of the opioid epidemic.
Temple sold the 2015 book’s film rights several times, including to Warner Brothers,
and last year co-wrote a screenplay with his wife, Hollee Temple, a professor at
the WVU College of Law. Temple was also a staff writer for the Showtime drama TV
series “Waco: The Aftermath,” which premiered on the network earlier this year.