Message from journalism and communication department head Dr. Susan Polster
Welcome to our first online newsletter with hopes of connecting our alumni and friends four times each year. In the newsletter, we will update everyone on the news and events of the faculty, staff and students in the department, plus publish alumni profiles written by our students.
It is truly rewarding to write and read about our alumni and how each remembers their college experiences at Utah State University. Some were involved with the Utah Statesman and The Eagle and have fond memories of leaving the newsrooms late at night, some were members of the PRSSA club who planned and connected students to industry professionals each month, while others spent hours creating and editing content for the weekly Aggie TV News show. Recognizing student achievement is always a plus in our field with many of our students named PR Student of the Year through the Utah Chapter of Public Relations Society of America, the print journalists earned awards in the Society of Professional Journalists competition and Utah’s Better Newspaper Contests while the broadcast students received Emmys and SPJ awards.
JCOM faculty continue to publish with Dr. Candi Carter-Olson named the 2022 Outstanding Woman in Journalism and Mass Communication Education for the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and Dr. Ashley Walter named the recipient of the Maurine Beasley Award for the top women’s history paper for the American Journalism Historians Association. Matthew LaPlante was named USU’s Online Teacher of the Year.
Brian Champagne earned two Emmys, presented the Clifford P. Cheney award for service to journalism by the Utah Chapter of SPJ, plus presented at the SPJ’s National Conference in Washington, D.C. The department also welcomed Dr. Aggrey Otieno in fall 2022 whose expertise is in social media. He has already been named a recipient of the Ford Foundation International Fellowships Program.
USU JCOM’s graduates can be found worldwide using skills they developed and learned in classes taught by incredible faculty. In 2022, the program launched an online degree for students to take classes anywhere or anytime. Social media classes continue to expand with the first Tik Tok workshop taught in spring 2022. Adapt and change continue to describe this department whose focal point will always be story telling in print, broadcast and online media.
Susan A. Polster
If you want your story told, you can reach the editor at jcom@usu.edu.