Al-Baaj, 35, and her family are living proof that Iraqis can successfully adapt to the U.S. / Photo courtesy Nebraska Mosaic–Gabriel Medina

Since the 1980s, thousands of refugees have rebuilt their lives in Lincoln. They’ve come from Afghanistan, Vietnam, Bosnia, China, Sudan and dozens of other countries, placed by resettlement agencies, or relocating in Lincoln from elsewhere in the United States after receiving good reports from family or friends.

But Lincoln’s refugee communities aren’t immediately visible — at least they weren’t to Jacyln Tan, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln student working on her master’s degree in journalism.

And over the course of the past semester, she’s learned why.

“They’re not in the grocery stories or downtown,” said Tan. “They’re in their own communities.”

This semester, Tan and six other UNL journalism students are working to make those communities more visible. Their medium is an online community called “Nebraska Mosaic,” which strives to be a resource for both non-refugees and refugees in Lincoln, said Tim Anderson, UNL associate professor of journalism. The site went live on Nov. 3, the same day as a celebration of the project at the Ross Film Theater.

The site currently features stories and videos by Tan and others about refugees’ lives in Lincoln. Among the first stories posted to the website were a profile of an Iraqi refugee who was helping to build his own family’s Habitat for Humanity house and a story about the recent influx of the Karen refugees — an ethnic minority who live mostly on the border of Thailand and Burma — into the Lincoln public school system.

The project began unofficially more than a year ago when Anderson and journalism professor Jerry Renaud taught a multimedia class together and required their students to write half of their stories about immigrants.

“What we discovered was that these were very rich and robust stories,” Anderson said.

That class piqued both Anderson’s and his students’ interest in Lincoln’s many refugee communities. It also spurred him to apply for a grant from J Lab, which aimed to fund journalism efforts based in communities that had either lost their voice or never had one, Anderson said.

The College of Journalism and Mass Communications received the grant, and last fall Anderson and advertising professor Phil Willet offered a class, evenly divided between journalism and advertising students, that researched the refugee communities in Lincoln. The class’s goal: Find out what kind of news and information the refugees wanted.

Martha Riek of the South Sudan is learning English / Photo courtesy Nebraska Mosaic–Becky Gailey

This fall, with additional funding from a Knight Community Information Challenge grant, matched by the Lincoln Community Foundation, Anderson has been teaching the journalism class not only on campus but also at a Community Learning Center in Lincoln. At the Community Learning Center refugees join the college students to become involved in telling their own stories.

The semester has been a learning experience, Anderson said. He and many of the students initially envisioned writing dramatic, emotional stories about refugees’ lives before relocation. But the research last fall indicated that Lincoln’s refugee communities, particularly those of Iraqi, Sudanese and Karen people, weren’t particularly interesting to refugees: Nearly all of them had had painful and dangerous experiences before moving to Lincoln.

“What they were more interested is what is life like here,” Anderson said.

So the students have focused on stories like the Habitat for Humanity house, about a local Baptist church that has seen its congregation swell with Karen refugees, and about the Family Literacy Program, which recently lost its funding.

Charlie Litton, Anderson’s graduate assistant, said it was also important for non-refugees to be more aware of their new neighbors.

“They’re not really welcome in their own countries, and they don’t quite fit in this one,” he said.

For his master’s project, Litton is working on an interactive map for the Mosaic website, which will include bus routes, listings of free and inexpensive community events and activities and other services that refugees might find useful.

In time, Anderson said, he hopes that refugees will want to contribute their own stories to the website.

Haider Al Haider, an Iraqi refugee who came to Lincoln with his wife and five children 19 months ago, attended the Nov. 3 launch event.

He first became acquainted with Nebraska Mosaic when Litton wrote the story about the Family Literacy Program, which had helped Al Haider’s own family, losing its funding.

It’s important for people outside the refugee community to be aware of circumstances like that, he said.

But he said it was also important for his family to be part of the Nov. 3 event, where he was joined by refugees from other countries, by UNL students and faculty and by others who live and work in Lincoln.

“I think it is necessary,” he said.

A reporter these days has an awfully lot of ways to tell a story.

Traditionally, a print reporter used words and still photos, and a broadcast journalist used words and video. Now, of course, journalists can and do use video clips, audio slideshows, and, increasingly tweets, Facebook posts and more.

And that holds true for many communications jobs, said Gary Kebbel, dean of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln College of Journalism and Mass Communications. Jobs that once required curiosity and strong writing skills now also require skills in video and audio editing, photography, social media and perhaps a bit of Web design, too.

And who knows what’s to come?

It’s an exciting time for the communications world for sure. But it’s a time that presents a bit of a challenge for journalism educators, too.

“As educators, how do we teach (students) to be ready for that environment? How do we prepare them for jobs that don’t exist yet?”  Kebbel asked.

For at least part of the answer, he decided to call on the college’s alumni.

Over the past few months, he’s approached graduates at the top of their fields as well as a few non-alumni who have been leaders in Web and social media journalism. The group met for the first time in early November, saw several UNL journalism student presentations, and discussed what the college was doing well and what it could be doing better to prepare students for the media world these professionals already live in.

LaSharah Bunting

LaSharah Bunting, a 2000 graduate and national news editor at the New York Times, said that UNL, like many other top journalism schools, has been quick to incorporate new technology and ways of telling stories — audio features, short videos, interactive graphics and more — into the classroom. The downside of that kind of broad preparation is that it may spread students too thin.”

“The problem is that they come out of school being mediocre at a lot of things and not great at anything,” she said.

It’s important, she said, that the basics of good storytelling don’t get lost in the effort to keep up with rapidly changing technology.

That has provided a challenge, Kebbel said. As the journalism industry is changing and requiring more versatility of its students, colleges and universities — including UNL — are trying to limit the number of hours required of their students for graduation. At UNL, most journalism students take 13 journalism classes, Kebbel said.

“That’s not that many classes,” Kebbel said. “You could spend all 13 honing reporting skills.”

Faculty and staff are still figuring out the balance, he said.

Greg Andersen

They’re getting plenty right, said Greg Andersen, a 1990 UNL grad and current CEO of BBH, New York, an advertising firm that counts Google, Axe and Sprite among its clients.

Among the things Andersen was most excited to see at UNL was the new JACHT Club, a student-run advertising firm in which student members create real advertising campaigns for real clients.

Andersen said it was good for students to experience the real excitement of deadlines and successful campaigns before entering the job market. And just as importantly, he said, it was important for them to experience real mistakes and to learn from them.

Andersen agrees with Kebbel that students need to be adaptable and stressed that looking outside the journalism college could be one way to help students succeed in a changing business. For example, Anderson said, the journalism school could work more closely with the computer science department to ensure that CoJMC students know more than just the basics of Web design and programming.

“Those are the realities of how the business world is aligning,” he said.

Kebbel said the advisory board will meet again in 2012, and between now and that next meeting, board members said they are excited to continue to offer feedback. Many have offered to Skype into classrooms to speak  with students directly.

In the meantime, journalism faculty will do their best to prepare students to be adaptable and flexible to the demands of a changing workplace, Kebbel said.

“We want to be able to teach students to be leaders in a culture of constant change,” he said.

“What we are teaching are survival skills for the future.”

— James B. Milliken, President, University of Nebraska

Follow Joe's adventures at joeweber.org

JOSEPH WEBER WON’T BE IN HIS OFFICE on the second floor of Andersen Hall today.

In fact, he won’t be in his office all of this fall semester, because the UNL College of Journalism and Mass Communications associate professor is teaching at Tsinghua University’s School of Journalism and Communication in Beijing, China.

University of Nebraska President J.B. Milliken and University of Nebraska–Lincoln Chancellor Harvey Perlman place great importance on international collaborations and international experiences for both students and faculty, as does the College of Journalism and Mass Communications.

Weber said he hopes this is the beginning of a university relationship that will allow students and more faculty members to take part in exchanges with Tsinghua.

Weber, who specializes in business and economic reporting, is teaching graduate students in the Global Business Journalism program, which was organized by the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) in Washington, D.C.

“I am doing this because it is a remarkable opportunity to learn, from the inside, about one of the world’s most important and intriguing nations. I get the chance to work daily with Chinese students and teachers for nearly four months and to see the country the way they see it,” Weber said.

In a recent blog post, Weber wrote: “Each morning, I hop on my bike and trundle over the journalism school at Tsinghua University. The ride takes me a bit over a mile through what may be the prettiest campus in the world.”

His communication skills are improving, too. He started this adventure with a “rudimentary” knowledge of Mandarin, the dialect spoken in Beijing, after having taken a class through the Confucius Institute at UNL last spring and a beginning class at Rutgers University in the 1970s. Weber blogged that “communicating with people has been surprisingly easy. Somehow, the shopkeepers know how much to charge me and I know how much to pay. I know now how to order hot black tea – “hong cha” – and I can understand when they say ‘here’ or ‘to go.’” He wrote that he has found a Subway sandwich shop and can communicate well enough to get the sandwich and fixings he enjoyed in the U.S.

Prior to joining the CoJMC in 2009, Weber worked for magazines and newspapers for 35 years. Twenty-two of those years were spent at Bloomberg Businessweek, with two of those years as Toronto bureau chief.

The program at Tsinghua is backed by Bloomberg, Weber said, and one of the teachers in it is a Bloomberg bureau chief. But the Bloomberg connections don’t end there.

Joyce Barnathan, who runs the International Center for Journalists, was one of Weber’s bosses at Business Week before it became Bloomberg Businessweek, Weber said. Bob Dowling, one of the program’s early teachers, was another of Weber’s editors at the magazine.

Weber is teaching (in English) as many as 40 students in the business and economic journalism class he’s teaching this semester, and 15 in his multimedia journalism class.

“I am looking forward to getting a better handle on this place, which can be overwhelming at times. My students – probably the most diligent and eager I have ever encountered – will teach me a lot about it. I am keen to see the journalism they produce. And I’m thrilled about the prospect of seeing more of this at-times magical place,” Weber blogged.

Weber’s 35-plus years of practicing business and economic journalism “has given me a worldview that the students may find useful as they embark on their careers,” he said. “I expect most of the students will go on to report for Chinese news organizations, though some could wind up at Bloomberg, Reuters or Dow Jones,” he said.

Besides the possibility of continued collaboration, he said, “I believe I will be a better teacher with more experience to share with Nebraska students because of this global exposure.”

You may follow Joe’s adventures at joeweber.org.

The Innovators in Residence program brings students and media innovators and entrepreneurs together. Innovators in Residence in the college to date are Shiv Bhaskar Dravid, founder and chief executive of The Viewspaper – The Voice of the Youth of India; Susan Poulton, head of National Geographic’s digital sites and projects; Jessica Mayberry, founding director of Video Volunteers in India; Oh Yeon-ho, founder of South Korea’s citizen journalism website OhmyNews; and Alexander Zolotarev, founder and CEO of SochiReporter.ru in Russia.

Poulton and Dravid both visited the UNL College of Journalism and Mass Communications in September 2011.

NatGeo Digital VP Fourth CoJMC Innovator in Residence
Susan Poulton, vice president of content and production for National Geographic digital media, visited the CoJMC September 19-21 as the college’s fourth Innovator in Residence.

Poulton joined National Geographic in 2006 with more than 14 years of experience in online media, developing digital strategies for both the nonprofit and entertainment industries.  Before joining National Geographic, she worked for AOL, rising from a line producer in 1997 to the position of director of programming in 2004, where she worked until she became director of feature programming and promotions for National Geographic Digital Media in 2006. She became vice president of content programming and production in 2007.

Media entrepreneur Dravid is Fifth Innovator in Residence
Shiv Bhaskar Dravid, the founder and chief executive of The Viewspaper – The Voice of the Youth of India, was the fifth Innovator in Residence at the College of Journalism and Mass Communications. He visited UNL Sept. 26 and 27.

Theviewspaper.net presents opinions of youth on a variety of subjects that include politics, environmental issues, entertainment and literature in India and the United Kingdom. The website itself is a combination of documentaries and videos, music, games and photos.

The Viewspaper is India’s largest youth paper with a network of 6,000 contributors, 149,000 Facebook followers and a small paid editorial team. The Web paper plans to expand into the U.S., Dubai, Australia and Singapore.

Founded only four years ago, The Viewspaper is gaining national recognition from the global entrepreneur community. In 2010, Dravid was a finalist in the Staples Young Social Entrepreneur Competition, and The Viewspaper made the short list of the TATA NEN Hottest Start-up Awards. TATA is an Indian business group with international ties, and the National Entrepreneurship Network is India’s leader in entrepreneurship education.

The Viewspaper generates revenue from advertising placed on the website and became self-sustaining in 2010.

Dravid is a graduate of the University of Delhi’s Shri Ram College of Commerce.

More details at: http://go.unl.edu/cze

Sue Burzynski Bullard (l) and Michelle Hassler (r)

Sue Burzynski Bullard and Michelle Hassler won a third place award in the Teaching News Terrifically in the 21st Century competition, held by the News Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). The award was announced at the AEJMC meeting in St. Louis in August.

The two CoJMC faculty members were recognized for “How to Pitch Stories in a Multimedia World,” an assignment they use in a multimedia reporting class at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. The assignment combines traditional journalism values – what makes a good story – with 21st century tools. Students, who will need to learn to tell stories in multiple platforms to succeed in today’s world, learn to develop story ideas with different media in mind. They become comfortable with newer tools like RSS readers, Twitter and blogging systems and see the possibilities they offer in helping the reporting process.

“They essentially learn to ‘crowdsource’ their ideas by posting them publicly for review. All of these skills will be useful to them in internships or jobs,” Hassler said.

AEJMC reviewers took note of the way the idea updated a familiar journalistic task, according to Susan Keith, Rutgers University associate professor and Teaching tri-chair in the AEJMC Newspaper Division. The project was evaluated on the basis of seven criteria, including originality, innovative nature and adaptability.

Joe Starita learned about social justice from his mother.

The CoJMC professor recalls a time when he was about 10, playing outside with his brother in Lincoln’s Havelock neighborhood. He remembers three African American workers from a nearby construction project going door-to-door that summer day, trying to borrow a can opener to open the can of tuna they planned to share for lunch.

Three or four neighbors had turned the workers away before the men knocked on the Staritas’ door. Rather than handing them a can opener, Helen Starita invited the three into the kitchen, made tuna sandwiches for them and filled out their lunch with whatever she was feeding her sons that day: something to drink, some vegetables and a piece of pie, as her son remembers it. He also remembers how grateful the construction workers were.

“That had an absolutely lifelong impact on me,” Starita said. “It was so simple, and yet what it showed me has been a lifelong thank-you.”

“It was like “Oh, that’s how it’s supposed to work. You’re supposed to treat people this way, and if you do, that’s what will happen.’”

The lesson Starita learned from his mother has been a major force in his life, leading him to practice investigative journalism, to write two books about Native Americans and, since 2000, to teach his skills and share his passion with students at the College of Journalism and Mass Communications. Along the way, his work has garnered recognition for him and the college, the most recent in the form of a civil rights award from the National Education Association, presented in July.

It was his work with the students who produced a magazine and website about Native American women — titled Native Daughters — that caught the eye of the NEA, Starita said he had been told. The Leo Reano Award recognized the teaching that resulted in both good journalism and a project designed to enhance opportunities for Native Americans.

Starita gave credit for the award to the exceptional students in the depth-reporting class and to all the Native people who have been willing to tell their stories to him and his students over the years.

The University of Nebraska–Lincoln also benefits by projects like Native Daughters and awards like the one Starita received. Prem Paul, vice chancellor for research, told the CoJMC faculty in August that the university is thrilled with the award and the work that prompted it. It demonstrates that “we care about quality and excellence,” Paul said, congratulating Starita and the college.

An abiding passion for Native Americans and their stories
Starita’s interest in Natives goes back about as far as his memories of his mother’s kindness to strangers. He can’t remember a time he wasn’t fascinated by the people who were the first residents of the Plains.

When he was 11 or 12, he read Mari Sandoz’ Crazy Horse: Strange Man of the Oglalas and loved the story — and the storytelling — so much, he didn’t want it to end.

“I’d only let myself read one page a night,” he said.

When his sixth-grade teacher assigned a five-page biography of an important person, Starita chose to write about Crazy Horse.

“I did a 40-page paper because I was so swept up in the power of his story,” he said. And that interest never waned.

As New York City bureau chief for the Miami Herald in the mid 1980s, Starita kept thinking about how he could find time to write a book about Indians. The seed for his 1995 book, The Dull Knifes of Pine Ridge – A Lakota Odyssey, was planted while Starita walked the streets of Manhattan.

After his stint in New York, Starita spent four years as an investigative reporter for the Herald in Miami, helping to put behind bars unethical doctors and lawyers who were using impoverished and illiterate Haitian immigrants to scam insurance companies.

“The opportunity to use good, hard journalism as a weapon against injustice is a very powerful one,” Starita said. “It absolutely bled over into ultimately writing stories about Natives.”

Judi gaiashkabos, executive director of the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs and Starita’s long-time friend, recognizes his passionate interest in her people. “As he says, he drank the Kool Aid,” she said with a smile.

Starita has been able to develop a mutually respectful relationship with Native people, gaiashkabos said. “He doesn’t try to act like he’s an expert, and he’s not a ‘wannabe.’ He’s a journalist first, but he has said he’s always admired the Indian. He eats, sleeps and breathes this.”

Telling the Natives’ stories
Starita’s lifelong interest in Native Americans, his commitment to social justice and his love of good storytelling came together when he returned to Nebraska in the mid 1990s and began research for The Dull Knifes of Pine Ridge. That’s when John Carter, a historian at the Nebraska State Historical Society, got to know Starita and began to follow his work. Carter calls The Dull Knifes a “benchmark book.”

“It struck me as one of the very few honest-to-god American Indian histories,” Carter said. Rather than tracing events that had an impact on the Lakota Sioux tribe, the book travels with generations of a Lakota family through important historical events.

In addition, the book gives readers a look at history through someone else’s eyes. “It makes you realize it’s where you’re standing and who you are that affects your perception of what’s around you,” Carter said.

“I was familiar with all the events, but that wasn’t really what the story was. Those were just the stage on which the real human drama emerged, and it had to do with those powerfully interesting people.”

Carter also remembers when Starita started thinking about Standing Bear as the subject for his next book. The facts of the Ponca chief’s life were no secret, of course, but no author had tried to figure out their real meaning and significance until Starita set out to solve the puzzle and tell the story. I Am a Man: Chief Standing Bear’s Journey for Justice was published in 2010.

“It’s not until you really get to know Standing Bear as a human being that you understand what a powerful story that was,” Carter said of the book.

Native Daughters
With two significant books about Native Americans behind him, it seemed natural that Starita would jump at the chance to lead a class of journalism students through a three-semester project that resulted in a 140-page magazine and complex website about Native American women, funded by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Starita and his co-teachers, gaishkobos and UNL history professor John Wunder,  took their 10 students to visit the Omaha, Santee and Winnebago reservations in northeast Nebraska and the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, just north of the western Nebraska border. And they brought a dozen Native women to campus, helping students understand the culture they were to write about.

Astrid Munn, a second year law student at Washington University in St. Louis, plans someday to practice tribal law. Munn, who graduated from UNL in December 2009, was part of the depth reporting class that produced Native Daughters. She remembers the visit of Darla Black on the first day the class met.

“She was a very strong, very intimidating-looking Native woman,” Munn said. “She comes in with a blanket and a drum, and she goes into a Lakota song with the drum. The room is filled with her voice. It was a great introduction to expose us to the culture as it exists now. Darla is a modern woman but still singing in the Native language.”

The idea behind the project was to tell a story that has almost never been told, Starita said. “The American narrative was bereft of the voices of Native American women. Yet, they were so vital in allowing their culture to survive, it was almost unimaginable that they didn’t have a seat at the narrative table of American history.”

The students who enrolled in the class, he said, were committed, engaged and passionate. “It’s hard to overstate what happens when you marry a good idea to an exemplary group of students,” he said. “Time after time when we have given this magazine to a Native woman, she has opened it, flipped through the pages, and in 30 seconds, you can see tears.”

A Native woman herself, gaiashkabos agreed that the magazine has had a powerful effect. “I can’t say enough good about what it does to educate the average person in Nebraska who is mostly clueless about Indian culture and Indian women.”

Molly Young, another of the students in the class and now a reporter at The Oregonian in Portland, is also a Native woman. She, too, was impressed with what the group produced.

“It’s something we should be proud of,” she said.  “Each woman in the magazine or on video has a deep story to tell. I know we only skimmed the surface, but it’s humbling to have been part of the process.”

The students benefit from a project like this as much as the readers, Starita said. Not only do they put their burgeoning journalistic skills to intense use, but they learn firsthand the potential power of telling a story about something that matters.

“You collapse the distance between the abstract concept of social justice and concrete, specific real-world social justice.” Students get a real rush from that, he said. “It connects them to something bigger than themselves.”

Helping students connect the theoretical to the real is what the NEA award was about, Starita said. The award recognized not just the products — the magazine and website, both designed and constructed by another journalism class, taught by Scott Winter — but the process and the learning that were involved.

Native Daughters II
The products, though, have a power of their own, a power that has generated plans for a Native Daughters II project. Ginette Overall, a Native business owner in Tulsa, Okla., was so impressed with the first magazine that she offered to fund a second project, this one to focus exclusively on the Native women of Oklahoma. Work is scheduled to begin in fall semester 2012.

The project will provide fertile ground for more good storytelling, Starita said, because Oklahoma is home to more federally designated tribes — 38 — than any other state. He said the plan is to look at the history of Native women in Oklahoma, then explore the stories of Oklahoma Native women of today who are successful businesswomen, teachers and lawyers and then try to project what the future may be for a 16-year-old Native girl growing up in Ponca City today.

That means more social justice, more Native history and more storytelling — very appropriate to the topic, Starita points out. Native culture reveres storytelling and is awash in powerful narratives, he said. It’s still largely an oral-based culture.

The new project also means more teaching. “The best thing about joining a special project with a special group of students is that it gives you hope for the future,” Starita said. When students complete a project like Native Daughters, they realize that “they’ve done something that will make life a little bit better for one person or 10 people or 100 people.”

Sort of like what Helen Starita did for three construction workers in her Havelock kitchen 50 years ago.

To purchase a copy of Native Daughters, send a check for $7 per copy to:

Cheri Oltman
147 Andersen Hall
University of Nebraska
Lincoln, Nebraska 68588-0443

Contact Cheri for more information at 402-472-3051or by email at coltman3@unl.edu

Gary Kebbel, dean of the College of Journalism and Mass Communications, earned a master’s degree in journalism in 1976 and a master’s degree in political science in 1977, both from the University of Illinois.

Barney McCoy, CoJMC associate professor of journalism, earned his master’s degree in telecommunications management from Michigan State University.

Sue Burzynski Bullard, CoJMC associate professor of journalism, earned a B.S. in journalism from Michigan State University in 1974. She received the Outstanding Alumni Award in 2007 from the Michigan State University College of Communication Arts and Sciences. Sue returns to MSU in the summers to teach a master’s-level class for high school journalism teachers on emerging technologies. Her husband and children also have degrees from Michigan State, “making us a true Spartan family,” she said, “at least until I became a Husker!”

* * *

Sue Burzynski Bullard, journalism professor, was awarded first place in the promising professors teaching competition for new faculty from the Mass Communication and Society Division and Graduate Education Interest Group of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications last August.

Frauke Hachtmann, CoJMC advertising professor and chair of the college’s graduate program, has written a chapter called International Advertising Pedagogy, which will be included in H. Cheng’s Handbook of International Advertising Research, to be published by Blackwell Publishing.

Hachtmann has given presentations locally about using mobile media in the classroom and has presented papers at several conventions, including:

International Advertising Education: A Research Agenda, to be presented at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Convention in August, 2011

The Effect of Short-Term, Advertising-Focused Study Abroad Programs on Students’ Worldviews, presented at the Admerica! American Advertising Federation National Conference

Acing Assessment: How to Measure, Document and Improve Student Achievement of Learning Outcomes, presented at the 2011 Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications Convention, Advertising Division and Small Programs Interest Group

Online Teaching: Lessons Learned, presented at the UNL Summer Institute for Online Learning

Streamlining Course Management and Instructor-Student Interactions with a Combination of Tablet and Cloud Services, presented at the UNL Distance Education Faculty Demonstration and Luncheon

Using PEARL as a Tool for Re-Accreditation in Journalism and Mass Communications, presented to the UNL “Enhancing Teaching and Learning: A Look Back and Forward” symposium.

When Words Collide: Instructors’ Writing Expectations and Students’ Writing Experiences, presented to the UNL “Enhancing Teaching and Learning: A Look Back and Forward” symposium.

Hachtmann is also the recipient of a Faculty Leadership Award from the Faculty Leadership in Writing Initiative, a UNL Program of Excellence.

Michelle Carr Hassler is now coordinating undergraduate recruitment for the college, in addition to teaching. She works closely with UNL Admissions staff, students and faculty to present a variety of recruiting events and develop promotional materials for prospective students.  In addition to teaching NewsNetNebraska, a capstone multimedia news course, she works with students in the journalism learning community. She continues to coordinate the college’s participation in the News21 project, a Carnegie-Knight program that stresses news innovation. Last spring, she co-taught a News21 distance learning seminar with professors from Arizona State and the University of Maryland to prepare reporters from the three schools for a national project that investigated food safety issues.

Stacy James, advertising professor, received the Outstanding Service Award from the Advertising Dividion of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (AEJMC)last August.

Joseph Starita, CoJMC professor of journalism, received the Leo Reano Memorial Award from the Natiional Education Association on July 1 during the NEA’s annual Human and Civil Rights Award banquet. The award recognized Starita’s work to provide equality of education for American Indians. Starita wrote the 2009 book I Am a Man – Chief Standing Bear’s Journey for Justice, which was selected as the 2010 One Book One Lincoln. The book also received the Nebraska book award as the state’s nonfiction book of the year. Starita founded the Standing Bear Memorial Scholarship Fund for Nebraska Native American high school students and all proceeds from the book, as well as fees from his speaking engagements, are donated to that fund.

Adam Wagler, CoJMC advertising and public relations lecturer, was selected for the 2011 Apple Distinguished Educator program. He joins 76 other educators nationwide, focusing on uses of new technologies in the creation of engaging learning environments that promote student achievement and academic scholarship. Apple partners with the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism to host the program’s Summer Institute in Phoenix, Arizona in July.

In the fall of 2010, CoJMC Associate Professor of Journalism Joseph Weber took four students to New York City for a Collegiate Business Journalism Conference. This is part of the growth of business and economic journalism offerings in the college, which now includes a new course and the creation of a business concentration for students. Business and economic journalism provides hundreds of job opportunities, Weber said. One of Bloomberg News’ top executives, Tom Contilliano, visited the college to interview students and will return to the college next spring.

Weber was one of 15 professors nationwide selected for a fellowship to attend the Reynolds Foundation Seminar for Business Journalism last January. The seminar was held at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Arizona State University, home of the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism.

Weber has been elected to a four-year term on the board of trustees of the Omaha Press Club Foundation.

Adam Wagler

Imagine a world where news only comes in the form of a newspaper in the morning and the evening news at night. Getting directions takes a paper map or a stop at a gas station.  And Facebook? What’s Facebook?

It may be hard to believe that for most people, this was all reality only about five years ago.

In a society that revolves around anything that is quick and convenient, mobile media and the apps that comprise it are a prime target for anyone looking for the instant news, games, social networking or information that a mobile app can supply.

That’s exactly where CoJMC professor Adam Wagler’s Mobile Communications and Social Media class comes into play.

“In a nutshell, what we really do is spend time thinking about the mobile space, and that includes social media. A lot of people believe that most of what mobile is right now is a social space so anything you do on mobile should be social, and anything you do on social should be mobile,” Wagler said. “They kind of go hand in hand.”

The class – called Mobile 491 by students – was made available by a push from Dean Gary Kebbel, who added a number of new electives to the CoJMC.

“The mobile class was one of them, and I was excited to develop the new course,” Wagler said. “I expressed my interest in teaching it, and Dean Kebbel had talked with the Omaha World-Herald about a class conceptualizing mobile solutions for them. Those two things initiated the class and took off from there.”

Wagler said the course is for any CoJMC student who is interested in mobile and social media. During the Spring 2011 semester, he said he taught a mix of journalism and advertising, graduate and undergraduate students with an array of different interests.

Senior advertising major Sara Leimbach decided to take the class to broaden her scope and hopefully, make her more employable after graduation. She said it’s given her the opportunity to learn about new technologies that are currently breaking ground in the advertising industry.

“A lot of employers are looking for young professionals who can understand the digital world, and I think Mobile 491 offers you a chance to learn the skills needed to impress prospective employers,” Leimbach said.

She thinks it’s important that students learn about mobile technologies because it is so closely integrated in the industry, and it gives students a fresh view that others within the field might not have.

“By learning and keeping up to date with new and upcoming trends, we offer prospective employers a perspective that older generations may not have,” she said.

Senior News-Editorial major Marcus Scheer agreed and acknowledged that it is getting harder for someone with only one skill to get a job.

“This class not only gives me a better chance of getting a job, it focuses on the things I [find] interesting: technology, data and new/interesting ways to present information. And if I can write and edit my own story, shoot photographs to accompany it, develop and code my own app to aggregate and present my information, I can not only make myself more likely to get a job, I can almost create my own job, business or outlet,” Scheer said. “Plus, everything continues to change – especially in the mobile world.”

Over the course of the Spring 2011 semester, the class worked to develop an app for the Omaha World Herald. Wagler said the class worked closely with Jeff Carney, the Assisting Managing Editor at the Omaha World Herald.

“The semester went really well, I think the students got a lot out of it and will benefit from having an entire semester to think strategically about this new medium,” Wagler said. “The students presented their plans to Jeff Carney and he was thrilled with the directions they pitched. Jeff and I plan on getting together this summer to discuss future directions and collaborations between the CoJMC and OWH.”

No offense to Europe, but Kay Kemmet isn’t impressed. The junior news-editorial journalism major wants to go somewhere raw, somewhere changing, she said. This summer, that somewhere is India.

“Not that I have anything against Europe, but that’s for vacation,” she said. “India is for reporting.”

From July 16 to 31, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s College of Journalism and Mass Communications took 19 students and three faculty members to New Delhi, India for Digital Media India, a three-credit-hour class. The trip was led by Scott Winter, an assistant professor of journalism, Bruce Mitchell, an advertising lecturer, and his wife Nancy Mitchell, an advertising professor and the director of general education in the Office of Undergraduate Studies.

The trip will significantly help the college’s goal of forming a partnership with India, Winter said.

In New Delhi, the group met up with the World Media Academy Delhi. Originally a pilot project funded by the Knight Foundation and managed by the International Center for Journalists and named the International Media Institute of India (IMII), the program was expanded and improved. Todd Baer, a graduate of the UNL College of Journalism and Mass Communications, is a Knight fellow assigned to the WMA Delhi. He is an international television correspondent who has worked for Al Jazeera English, CNN and ABC News Radio. Christopher Conte is the other Knight fellow and a former correspondent and editor for the Wall Street Journal.

“In many ways this is a dream come true for me,” Baer said. “I am passionate about international news and I want to share my experiences with anyone who’s interested.”

The plans for the trip have evolved over time. Originally, the IMII was located in the Delhi suburb of Noida. It has now been expanded, renamed and moved to South Delhi. Additionally, courses don’t start at the academy until August so past, present and future students have volunteered to work with the UNL group on stories.

“Everything that you plan when it comes to an international reporting venture tends to not work out,” Winter said. He said the key is to be able to readjust plans, even with little notice.

“Great reporters are kind of like marines,” he said. “They adapt and overcome.”

Bruce Mitchell said the uncertainties of the trip have been slightly nerve-wracking. The hotel, who the group will be working with and even the WMA Delhi’s facilities have all been somewhat up in the air.

Kemmet is not only a student on the trip; she took it as an independent study class and assumed a leadership role in the planning. Kemmet had never traveled out of the country, so it has been a learning experience, she said. And before, during and after the trip she is responsible for the web and social media content.

“I designed a website and will post all the stories from the trip so we can share our reporting and experiences with the world,” she said.

The group also traveled to Lucknow and Agra, other Indian cities.

Winter said he was most excited for the food and the friendships the travelers formed with local journalists and others. He hopes students form lasting relationships with Indians that will change their world perspectives.

“Until you actually experience it, I don’t think you have a true understanding of what India is all about,” Mitchell said.

Kemmet summarized the trip before the group left Nebraska.

“We are going to work with Indian journalism students, see New Delhi, Lucknow, and the Taj Mahal, and tell the most amazing stories of our college careers,” she said.

More information is available on the CoJMC_India Facebook page and Twitter.

Dean Gary Kebbel

We wanted to give you an update on what’s going on in the college – and ask for your help with an alumni-student mentoring program we are launching.

But first up: the latest big news!

• The college finished second in the national Hearst Journalism Awards competition, which includes 112 accredited journalism schools. That was the best finish in our history and was based on students placing in a series of competitions during the year, including a first place finish in broadcast news. We beat all of our Big 10 colleagues.
• Advertising students placed seventh in the 2011 National Student Advertising Competition in San Diego, Calif., after taking first place in the April district competition. This is the third year that a J school team has won its district and has competed for the national title.
• Journalism professor Joe Starita was honored by the National Education Association (NEA) with the Leo Reano Memorial Award, which acknowledges his work toward the education and achievement of equal opportunity for American Indians.
• Adam Wagler, an advertising and public relations professor, has been selected for the Apple Distinguished Educator program, joining 76 newly selected members for the class of 2011.
• We are planning to hire two new professors in public relations, starting in 2012.

Now we’d like to ask your help for a new program to benefit the 18 students who will be members of the Journalism Learning Community in the fall. We’re looking for alums who would be willing to mentor these students during their college career at Nebraska. We’re not expecting this program to be structured and time-consuming for you; rather we envision an informal relationship established primarily through periodic emails. The goal is for students to know that they have supporters in their fields with whom they can seek college and career advice should they want it.

If you’d like to be considered as a mentor, please send us an email with a brief career bio (including your hometown), so we can match you up with a student with similar interests. Send your information to Michelle Hassler at mhassler3@unl.edu by Wednesday, Aug. 31.

As always, thank you for your support. Be sure to keep up with the latest news about the college by following us on Facebook or Twitter.

Sincerely,

Dean Gary Kebbel