A team of CoJMC advertising/public relations students is working with students in UNL’s Jeffrey S. Raikes School of Computer Science and Management in a new collaboration to become involved with the origins of program development.

The Jeffrey S. Raikes School combines the studies of computer science and business management so its graduates are prepared to create innovative technologies for business. Every student participates in a Design Studio project to create software solutions for actual clients. Now, CoJMC advertising/public relations students are embedded in three of the 11 current Design Studio projects as the Jeffrey S. Raikes School students create the solutions.

CoJMC students work with Design Studio teams for three clients – Nelnet, Speedway and Vestin. The students will develop a communications plan, as well as assist with the program development.

“Our students will bring this notion of user experience, audience and benefits to a target audience,” said Amy Struthers, CoJMC professor of advertising, and also will gain skills and work on a team in digital space.

“Our partnership with the Raikes School has grown a lot since we first discussed it,” Struthers said. They have a new mission statement that defines leadership in different ways and they want to present it to the Nebraska business community, she added.

“They hope to develop a pipeline of talent. Once the business community is aware of it, it will cultivate more student applications to the program and attract more diverse (Design Studio) projects.”

The Jeffrey S. Raikes School, formerly the J.D. Edwards Honors Program in Computer Science and Management, is open to high-ability students with specialized interests in both computer science and management.

Hailey Konnath was one of 19 UNL College of Journalism and Mass Communications students who participated in the India study-abroad experience. In this story, Hailey describes what she learned.

Photo by Matt Masin

The day I figured out my future, the humidity was 100 percent. My feet were bare. Monkeys jumped from thatched roofs in the rain. Muddy children clutched school gates. This was rural India.

From July 16 to 31, the College of Journalism and Mass Communications took 19 journalism and advertising students and three faculty members to India for a digital media class.

Teaching village children how to chant “Go Big Red” wasn’t all we did. Not even close. But visiting villages was a trip highlight for many of us. I remember meeting young women in colorful saris, determined to educate their village’s girls. I remember walking over dried rice paddies and smelling mint oil.

Digital Media India had purpose. Students produced video, photo and print stories, which were constantly uploaded to our website, digitalmediaindia.org. As representatives of UNL, the group was in India to work with the World Media Academy (WMA) in New Delhi and build relationships with the Viewspaper.net and other Carnegie-Knight partners.

Scott Winter, an assistant professor of journalism who accompanied the group to India, said the trip opened the minds of students and provided opportunities students couldn’t have gotten anywhere else.

“Students were put in very uncomfortable situations and they performed,” he said.

Bruce Mitchell, an advertising lecturer, and his wife Nancy, the UNL director of Undergraduate Education, also traveled with the group.

UNL students worked most closely with the WMA students, both past and present. These students provided us with story ideas, food recommendations, help getting around the city, translations and contacts. Many became good friends.

“It was really exciting to see firsthand how people across the world live and go about things,” said Christina Condreay, a senior journalism major.

A day spent in a village outside of Lucknow was Condreay’s favorite part of the trip, she said.

We told stories. The lives of women in a rural village. Arranged marriage. Slum life. Youth activists. Education. Power outages.

We spent most of our two weeks in New Delhi. But we also traveled to Lucknow, where we visited the nearby, rural villages. And we did touristy things too: Red Fort, Qutab Minar, the Taj Mahal and Bada Imambara.

But being a tourist wasn’t what our trip was about. Real India wasn’t taking pictures with eager locals in front of India Gate. We shook the hands of slum children. We rode in rickshaws. We crossed busy streets on foot ­– human “frogger,” we called it.

Real India was crowded. It was loud. It was also chock-full of stories for us to tell, rich in tradition and packed with diversity.

Winter said he’s never seen students’ work improve as quickly as did the work of the students over the two weeks in India. And the partnerships forged were successful, he said.

“We’re a player over there and they want us back,” he said. “And that’s good news.”

The day I figured out my future, I wasn’t in a classroom. I was on the other side of the world. I was sitting on the floor of a classroom, eating out of banana leaves. I smelled spices and sweat. And I wasn’t just learning journalistic skills I’ll use in my career. I was learning a new culture. I was discovering the world.

Photo by Tom Tidball

Paige Cornwell stood on the beach in Trincomalee, a port city in eastern Sri Lanka, armed with a camera and a notebook, talking to a man whose house had been wiped out by the 2004 tsunami.

“I kind of just stood there and thought, ‘Wow, three years ago this was a war zone, six or seven years ago, this was the sight of a massive tsunami. How many journalists have been at this spot right now? I’m so lucky to be able to be here.’”

Cornwell, a junior news-editorial major from Leawood, Kansas, was there with eight other students from the College of Journalism and Mass Communications as part of a trip through Sri Lanka, Singapore and Malaysia to learn about culture, media consumption, press rights and consumer insights on the other side of the globe. It was led by Sriyani Tidball, a Sri Lanka native and CoJMC advertising lecturer.

“When you have a college that offers international experience to its students, that makes you stand out,” Tidball said. “For our trade, we have to be international. Students have to be international.”

The trip was the epitome of hands-on learning: There was no textbook and no classroom. The mission was immersion, to learn by doing, and according to Cornwell, the students did just that.

“In beginning reporting class, you learn how to be sensitive in an interview. But I don’t think you can fully get that until you’re interviewing someone who doesn’t have a leg because they walked on a landmine, for example. Or until you’re trying to talk to someone who doesn’t have a home anymore.”

When on a CoJMC trip to Cambodia, Indonesia and Singapore in 2010, Cornwell interviewed street vendors, some with missing limbs, selling remnants of the Cambodian genocide. She also spoke with young males who’d been forced into prostitution.

On her most recent trip with the journalism college, which lasted 17 days in May and June, Cornwell collected “notebooks and notebooks” of material from her more than 20 interviews with Sri Lankans affected by the country’s civil war or displaced by the 2004 tsunami.

One of those interviews was with the man on the beach. He now sells boat rides to tourists. He requests 2000 rupees for each journey, about $40, but he’ll settle for half that, Cornwell wrote in her blog.

Each student was required to maintain a personal blog, posting roughly every other day about the people and places they visited.

In her blog, titled “Ayubowan,” a Sri Lankan greeting for “welcome,” Cornwell addressed topics as varied as the controversy over abuse at an elephant orphanage the group visited, her pseudo-celebrity in Malaysia (locals liked taking pictures with “tall” Americans), the privatized nature of Malaysian education (the “business of education” is booming) and Malaysia’s and Singapore’s press freedoms (or, at times, lack thereof).

Other students wrote about rural poverty, the battle between boosting tourism and eroding local identity and locals’ kindness.

Students also had to take hundreds of photos at each stop on the trip and post a selection of them to their blogs. A listing of the student’s blogs, with photos, are available from the SE Asia Study Abroad 2011 Facebook page.

Before her trips through Southeast Asia, Cornwell “barely knew how to use a camera at all,” she said. But while abroad, she learned from Tidball’s husband, international photographer Tom Tidball, that photos always need a dominant subject, that the human element is what makes an image great. She learned how to shoot from different angles to add interest to her photos, and she learned to perfect the images using digital editing software. Tidball is an adjunct instructor in the CoJMC.

In addition, Cornwell learned about press rights from journalists at major Southeast Asian news outlets. Students visited the Straits Times, an English publication and Singapore’s best-selling newspaper, to talk with review editor Janadas Devan. They discussed press freedoms in Malaysia, too, when they toured The Star newsroom in Kuala Lumpur.

Students also went to advertising agencies McCann Erickson Singapore, part of McCann Worldgroup, a global marketing company, and BBDO Singapore.

Publications in both Singapore and Malaysia must annually apply for printing permits from the government – the same government they might criticize in their pages, Cornwell explained in her blog. In Malaysia, politics and race are sensitive topics. In Sri Lanka, race and religion are taboo.

Although the trip was media-focused, there was plenty of time to stop at tourist destinations and increase UNL’s profile abroad.

The group visited the Petronas Twin Towers, King’s Palace and the Batu Caves in Malaysia; a Buddhist-Taoist temple and a botanical garden in Singapore; and Polonnaruwa, an ancient city, and Sigiriya, an ancient fortress and ruins, in Sri Lanka.

But one of the most notable stops was at Taylor’s College in Malaysia, home to a host of UNL international alumni and prospective students. The group enjoyed a “Husker Night” party, celebrating all things Nebraska with Malaysian UNL graduates and students who would be coming to Lincoln this fall.

“That was so cool,” Cornwell said. “I talked to this one guy, he went to school in the ’90s and he still has his national championship sweatshirt, and it’s still in perfect condition.”

For Cornwell, the focus throughout the trip was always the people – meeting them, understanding them, learning from them.

“They were so willing to tell their stories,” she said. “So many of those people have gone through what most Americans can never even imagine. I spoke with a kid on the beach, he was first in his family to go to high school, and he wants to go into hospitality and open a hotel in the U.S. Then there was the 28-year-old woman with two kids who wanted to leave her husband but couldn’t.”

Cornwell used the young mother as a subject in a profile she wrote about an apartment in Colombo, Sri Lanka, that was destroyed by the tsunami and rebuilt with $100,000 provided by Lincoln residents. The story was published in the Lincoln Journal Star, where Cornwell is a reporting intern.

Thanks to her CoJMC adventures abroad, Cornwell said she has a better understanding of Asian cultures, contacts at major publications in Southeast Asia and a growing desire to be an international correspondent.

“These trips are life-changing,” she said. “They give you a unique opportunity that I don’t think you could get anywhere else. Very few people can say that they have been in Angkor Wat in Cambodia or that they’ve interviewed genocide survivors in Cambodia or that they’ve been to a former war zone in Sri Lanka and seen a line of soldiers with AK-47s and talked to those people.”

She continued, “I think that’s one of the reasons why the journalism school is so great – not only do they teach you and give you opportunities here, it’s that they create opportunities elsewhere, too.”

My first opportunity to write for the New York Times was a stroke of luck. I was in the right place — Arkansas — at the right time, when the New York Times was in need.

My invite to write for the publication was quite a shock since I didn’t personally know anyone who worked for the Times.

When the email came and the subject line read “From the New York Times” I figured it was spam.

Still curious, I opened it. After reading for a few seconds I almost spit out my post-lunch coffee.

“Hi Alissa,

I’m the retail reporter for the New York Times. I read some of your clips online and liked them, and was hoping you might be free next Thursday and Friday to cover Wal-Mart’s shareholders’ meeting in Fayetteville. I usually go, but I have to cover a couple of stories elsewhere. Would you let me know if you’re free and interested, and I can give you more details?

Thanks!
Stephanie Clifford”

Interested? Yes!

I received the email while I was working at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette as an intern. I had been working my tail off and had no idea if the paper would allow me to take two days off to report for the New York Times.

My editor said I could go this one time as long as I made up the hours I missed. So it was official. Less than a week later I was off to Northwest Arkansas.

The first day of the event was a prep day for the actually shareholders’ meeting. I talked with Wal-Mart top executives and took notes elbow-to-elbow in a Wal-Mart Express store freezer with reporters from Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, the Times of India and many other journalists.

I had an hour to write a story about Wal-Mart’s new express stores while riding on a charter bus. After I got off the bus, I ran to my car to find an Internet connection so I could file. I ended up filing at a gas station a minute before deadline.

The next day, I was up at 4 a.m. ready to venture into what felt like the MTV awards intertwine with an official business meeting.

In between listening to top Wal-Mart executives speak, Will Smith cracked a few jokes as the host of the event, and the Black Eyed Peas, Alicia Keys and American Idol winner, Scotty McCreery took the stage.

Employees from around the world were at the meeting waving flags, cheering and doing the Wal-Mart squiggly dance. The African employees kept tooting their vuvuzela horns.

There I was — the rookie— standing with my notepad and pen in one hand, and smartphone in the other ready to write and tweet furiously about the Wal-Mart shareholders’ meeting for the New York Times.

The experience was unforgettable. I learned a lot and realized I have a lot to learn about business reporting. I often read about the stock market, but the Wal-Mart shareholders’ meeting was my first experience reporting and writing about hard business news.

Before the meeting, I felt that I didn’t know what I was doing.  But hey, the story turned out great. I knew more than I thought about stocks and shares, and I figured out what I didn’t know along the way.

I learned from this entire experience to always do my best on every story I write — I advise other journalists to do the same. Who knows, a New York Times reporter could be paying attention to your work.

You can read about their adventure at http://cojmc.unl.edu/russia/ . Photo by Luis Peon-Casanova

New media is a global phenomenon, and CoJMC students have seen firsthand how journalism and advertising professionals are working to embrace the change across the Atlantic.

Seventeen students from the College of Journalism and Mass Communications traveled to Moscow and Sochi, Russia, in May to learn about and analyze mobile media’s popularity and applications, especially as the country prepares for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games.

Although Russia has been slower than the U.S. to accept platforms such as blogs, Twitter and Storify as legitimate outlets for news and advertising, the students quickly learned that digital tools are a growing force even in a country with an altogether different media climate.

“New media has hit there, definitely,” said Pat Radigan, a senior news-editorial major from Sioux Falls, S.D. “Media outlets have to use these new platforms to stay ahead. They make their content and then push it through all these new channels.”

But, he said, “the way people view the things they’re creating is still in the traditional way. If something’s coming from a newspaper, they still read it like a newspaper story. If it’s from a television station, it’s understood as a TV broadcast.”

There was nothing traditional, however, about the way the CoJMC students approached mobile media. They completed assignments using Storify, a digital tool that allows users to write original content and drag and drop in information, Tweets, photos and videos from other sites to form one cohesive story.

“They had a chance to see how they might tell a story using elements of social media in addition to their own reporting,” said Amy Struthers, an assistant advertising professor. Struthers and advertising lecturers Adam Wagler and Luis Peon-Casanova led the Russia study trip. “They got to practice shooting and editing their own videos, shooting their own photos and uploading it all to the web,” Struthers added.

Three group projects focused on the changing face of Sochi in anticipation of the Olympics.

One examined how the city was marketing itself domestically and abroad. Text explained Sochi’s strategy, but the group pulled in a Russian advertisement promoting a unified Russia, an image of the Olympics logo and a video from national sponsor Russian Railways to show – rather than simply tell – what Sochi was up to.

Another set of students used text, Tweets, photos, videos and a blog excerpt to describe the bond between Sochi and sports. (After the Olympics, Sochi will host the Russian Formula 1 Grand Prix and the 2018 World Cup.)

The third group told the story of the city’s pre-Olympics makeover using text, photos, links, website excerpts, videos, Tweets and Facebook posts.

Students also used Storify individually to document their cultural experiences.

Of course, in accordance with the the trip’s theme, students used mobile devices to execute the assignments.

“We were using iPads to produce text and video,” Radigan said. “We were using cell phones to upload stuff to Twitter as we were at places; we were checking in on foursquare. We got to see how it worked to actually do something using digital platforms instead of just conceptualizing a mobile project.”

The students shared four Droid smartphones and two iPad2s provided by the journalism college.

The trip included eight nights in Sochi and seven in Moscow. In both cities, in addition to media spots, the group sought out tourist locales including the Kremlin, the All Russian exhibition center, which features a cultural bazaar, and Mount Akhun, a castle-like tower offering panoramic views of Sochi.

In Sochi, the group toured under-construction Olympic sites and spoke with officials about the city’s transition from mid-size resort city to world-class sports host.

At Moscow State University, they heard from MSU and UNL faculty and local digital reporters about the history and structure of Russia’s press, its current evolution, website promotion and social media best practices.  They also toured TV news network RT (formerly called Russia Today) and advertising agency McCann Erickson Russia.

The UNL group worked closely with Moscow State University students, swapping experiences and observations about culture and media.

“The (Nebraska) students really got an idea of what life is like for a Russian ad, PR or journalism student,” Struthers said. “They formed some really strong friendships in a very short time. From us, I think the Russian students learned maybe a different attitude toward school. They saw the American students as perhaps more energetic, more innovative in their thinking, more real-world, hands-on.”

She continued, “What happens on these trips is just so far beyond what can happen on campus,” Struthers said. “Of course on-campus courses are essential, and people can get some very extraordinary experiences on campus. But to be able to offer students this mix of opportunities I think is significant because our students had the opportunity to meet people involved in a curriculum similar to ours and yet quite different, in a whole different political context.”

As a result of the trip, UNL and Moscow State have an exchange partnership that will allow Russian professors and students to come to Lincoln and vice versa. The college is trying to arrange a month-long visit from a Moscow State professor next year, Dean Gary Kebbel said.

Radigan said he is considering enrolling at Moscow State or Sochi State University in the future. But for now, he’s working on mastering the language.

He is taking Russian courses this fall at UNL so that he can return to Sochi in a few years and volunteer during the Olympics.

“I always used to say Russians seemed cold and brusque, just kind of guarded,” Radigan said, “But I realized they aren’t, and the country was actually more expressive than Paris and Rome. (Russians) want to get rid of the idea that they’re cold and stagnant. It’s lively and exciting, and I want to go back.”

Belinda Wright

When Belinda Wright left small-town Nebraska for a UNL education in public relations she had no idea she would be representing herself and her state on a national stage. In May 2010 Wright had the opportunity to participate in the Miss USA Pageant in Las Vegas. But one week before competition began, she got a call that would send her back home to Scotia, Neb. Her father, Harry Wright, had been killed in a farm accident.
Harry Wright was a farmer who loved history and hunting, but he was also a great listener who helped his daughter through stressful times. “He was also my biggest fan and believed in me no matter what,” she said.

“After I started thinking about it, I realized that I knew he would want me to go back and compete. At that point, there wasn’t a question that I would go back,” she said.

“Dad was really proud of her,” said Wright’s older brother, Maceo. “His chest got real big when he talked about her. He wouldn’t have wanted to have been the reason she didn’t compete.”

Belinda Wright returned to Las Vegas with the support of her town and many surrounding communities.

Wright competed on the national stage, becoming the first Miss Nebraska-USA to place in the top 15 in more than 30 years. She also became the first Miss Nebraska-USA to receive the Miss Congeniality award. Wright said she was honored that her fellow competitors, now some of her closest friends, chose her for the award. “That was something that meant even more to me than making the top 15,” she said.

Wright came to the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 2006 to study textiles and advertising. She said people usually first associate her with public speaking and fashion and are later surprised to learn she’s from a small town and has these interests.

In 2008, Wright landed a summer internship with Indigo Wild, a company specializing in making all-natural soaps and lotions. That internship would change her future.

“I was doing public relations there and I met a former Miss Kansas and Miss Missouri and they kind of talked me into doing Miss Nebraska,” she said.

Wright researched the pageant and realized it encompassed many of the things she wanted to accomplish:  community service, public speaking, modeling and making an impact on Nebraska.

Her decision made, Wright started intensive preparation for the 2009 Miss Nebraska-USA competition. The winner of the state competition goes on to represent Nebraska in the Miss USA pageant. The winner of the Miss USA title goes on to compete in the Miss Universe pageant.

In preparation for the pageant, Wright began spending more time volunteering, developed a platform on education she could promote in case she won, wrote her opinions on current events each evening, exercised daily and practiced public speaking. Although she didn’t win the 2009 title, she tried again and her work resulted in the title Miss Nebraska-USA 2010.

“I had watched the Miss USA pageants on TV, but I never thought I’d be doing it one day,” she said.

Winning Miss Nebraska-USA 2010 on Oct. 25, 2009, meant more work and more preparation, this time for the May 2010 competition and the title of Miss USA. Wright said being enrolled in the College of Journalism and Mass Communications gave her an advantage.

“As far as communication skills go, we always have to do presentations in both my textile and my journalism classes,” she said. “And I actually went to some of my professors for advice on public speaking and they were able to help me.”

All 51 contestants arrived in Las Vegas two weeks before the Miss USA competition began.

“We’d have 12-hour rehearsals,” Wright said. “With 51 girls, it’s a pretty big task to get everyone on the same page. And since you don’t know who’s going to be in the top everyone has to know what to do if you move on.”

“I just had so much support from all these small towns across the state,” she said. “I was getting thousands of messages and e-mails. They played it (the pageant) at a theater in a surrounding town and I know they said the theater was packed. I think I was really blessed in that aspect because that was just the power that small towns have. They back up anyone that comes from a small town, and so I think that really helped me get through.”

Wright’s reign ended Oct. 24, 2010, when she helped crown Miss Nebraska-USA 2011. Wright said the end was bittersweet, but she doesn’t plan to compete in any more pageants. After her December 2010 UNL graduation, her plans include graduate school and possibly a different side of pageant work.

“Maybe later on I would think about coaching girls through the pageant,” she said, “but as far as competing in another pageant, I don’t see myself doing that because Miss USA is kind of the Super Bowl of pageants.”

One of her journalism professors, Ruth Brown, said she believes Wright will be successful in whatever she pursues.

“She’s just a modest person with a lot of abilities,” Brown said, adding that she’s also a Facebook friend with Wright and often follows her activities. “She presents herself so well. She’s an excellent role model who does more than say the right things. She lives the right life to back them up.”

Garrett Durst

One decision may certainly throw you; turn your life inside out, upside down. This was made literal for senior broadcasting major Garret Durst, around midnight on August 9, 2009.

Earlier that day, Durst had nothing but high expectations as he geared up for his final year in the UNL the College of Journalism and Mass Communications. He was a former scholarship gymnast with the UNL men’s gymnastics team and held an internship with the Channel 8 sports team, as well. It was just supposed to be a fun night out with friends at Pla Mor Ballroom. That is, until he became a passenger in a car, not knowing about events that would unfold.

“I figured he (the driver) was fine,” said Durst.

Durst had previously been in a vehicle with the same driver, who occasionally “jumped hills” on the country roads for fun. On this night, however, he had lost control of the car, which rolled several times. Durst landed in a 10-day coma while the other four passengers suffered less severe injuries.

“They thought I was dying that night. They really did,” Durst reflected.

He also spoke of the reactions by family and friends, including his coach, who burst out of his hospital room in a rage of anger. Durst does not remember waking up from the coma.

“I was in some weird place, had no idea what time it was or where I was at.”

For six months after the accident, Durst was in a wheelchair and unable to speak.

Despite his serious injuries, Durst pulled through, even surpassing the prediction that he would never again live a normal life. Many of his doctors and nurses at Lincoln’s Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital did not expect him to return to school anytime soon. In fact, Durst enrolled in two courses in the spring semester of 2010. Although he was not planning on returning to the UNL men’s gymnastics due to another injury before the accident, he has been keeping in shape, too.

“I always knew I would be fine,” said Durst.

He didn’t become optimistic right away. Many days in the rehabilitation hospital proved to be frustrating. As he continued to persevere, healing became easier. Today, Durst amazes the people in his life by continuing his education. He will graduate from the College of Journalism and Mass Communications in May 2011.

Although proud of the gains he has achieved, Durst does realize the impact of his decision to step into that vehicle on the night of August 9, 2009.

“When the kid was driving, I had to have been thinking ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ They (my parents) always thought I made good decisions.”

Durst was not wearing his seat belt that night. He had not generally worn seat belts before the accident, either.

“Most people don’t come out of comas as quick as me,” he said. “In a way, this wreck was a blessing because of how it changed my life. I am more focused and determined to being better than I was.”

And that is what Durst continues to strive for today: to be better than he was. Many family members, friends and acquaintances of Durst have pointed out that he is an example of a student who did not give up when obstacles got in the way. Faith and good people are what gave him the ability to pull through.

“I think God played a big role in this,” he said. “If I can overcome something this bad, they can, too.”

Associate professor of broadcasting, Richard Alloway, agrees.

“I think he’s an inspiration to everyone in this college to be able to jump back into such a demanding major. We were delighted to see him return.”

Emily Ingram (photo courtesy ACES UNL)

As a University of Nebraska student, Emily Ingram was one of just five students nationally to win an ACES scholarship last April.

Just a few months later, she was hired as an overnight producer at The Washington Post. She’s come a long way from Franklin, Neb., a town of about 1,100 people where Ingram grew up on a farm not far from the Kansas border. It’s a one-stoplight town, she said, if you count the light that only flashes red or yellow depending on the direction you’re driving.

Moving to D.C. has been a cultural shift.

“It is strange being in a city where so much of the town is — in one way or another — government-related,” she said in an e-mail. “Look left and you see an embassy, look right and there’s some sort of a federal agency.”

But the biggest change hasn’t been about adjusting to D.C. It’s been reorienting to post-college life. She credits her student involvement with ACES for helping her make the transition to the big leagues smoothly.

“My involvement with ACES has, of course, pushed me to improve my skills as an editor,” she said, “but more than anything, it helped me get to know professionals while I was still a student.”

Ingram was paired with Paula Devlin, online news editor at the New Orleans Times-Picayune, in one of the first ACES mentoring matchups.

“Our sessions always seemed to revolve around issues of managing her time and managing people, not the nuts and bolts of our craft,” Devlin said in an e-mail.

“Emily is one of those people who wants to learn everything, and to excel at everything. She has a drive and an enthusiasm that is refreshing and, frankly, a bit frightening,” Devlin said. “That’s because she truly is good at everything she does: web design, reporting and editing for print and video, producing, online writing and editing, managing social media platforms – and she enjoys training others in what she has learned. I don’t know when or if she sleeps.”

Both benefited from their relationship. When Devlin moved to the online desk, Ingram offered her pointers.

Ingram was an officer in the ACES chapter at UNL and even created the chapter’s website. She attended regional and national conferences and came away with lessons she uses in the real world.

“When I’m attaching graphics to stories online, I remember Bill Cloud’s examples of common errors in graphics — and I make sure ours don’t have any of them, “ she said. “How to watch for libel, how to figure common math problems, what makes a good headline online — ACES has taught me about most all the things I handle on a daily basis.”

Before landing a full-time job at the Post, Ingram had several copy editing internships. She worked for the Lincoln Journal Star, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Meeting professional editors at ACES meetings helped her understand how newsrooms operate and made transitions easier.

“It always helps to have someone on the inside who can give you advice or put a good word in for you,” Ingram said. “ACES provides a place for you to make those connections.”

After spending a year at UNL’s student paper working as a Web editor, Ingram was hired last summer as a Web producer intern at the Post. The paper offered her a full-time job before the internship even ended.

Ingram sees many similarities between copy editing and working as a Web producer. In both cases, you’re the advocate for the reader.

“You’re saying does this make sense? Is it logical? Would a graphic here make a complex scientific topic more understandable? As a Web producer you’re doing many of the same things.”

As the number of editing jobs shrinks, Ingram suggested students who like copy editing might want to think about web producing, too – especially if they are a bit “geeky.”

“A lot of the same questions you would pose as a copy editor you can pose as a web producer, too. “

Devlin said Ingram’s career offers lessons for others.

“Emily’s path through college and beyond shows the value of opening yourself up to all forms of journalism, to find what you have a passion for and what you’re best at,” Devlin said. “Her desire to seek an ACES mentor illustrates her lack of ego despite all her accomplishments, and her belief that there is always something more to learn. “

And now, like many copy editors, Ingram is learning to adjust to strange hours. She starts her shift at 11 p.m. As an overnight producer, she loves the weeks when big news happens overseas. When President Obama was in Asia for 10 days, Ingram was exceptionally busy with breaking news.

That’s a far cry from the laid back pace of rural Nebraska.

Now, Ingram said, if only she could get back to Lincoln for more Husker game days, life would be just perfect.

Kruse placed first in the Hearst Broadcast News National Championships in New York City June 8-12. She earned a $5,000 prize and a Hearst medallion, and won an additional $1,000 prize for Best Use of Radio for News Coverage in the semifinal round of competition. Kruse was one of five finalists in radio from across the nation to compete. In her own words, Kruse describes her experience.

Brandi Kruse

I was thrilled after being selected to compete in the 2009-2010 Hearst championships in New York City, and honored to represent the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. The four radio finalists that joined me absolutely represented the best of the best in broadcast journalism and I had a blast getting to know the people behind the voices I had been hearing throughout the year.

The first day was a whirlwind as we checked into our fabulous hotel — the Jeremiah Essex House — and met the rest of the competitors, judges and members of the Hearst Foundation. Tuesday nigh was all business after getting our assignment from the judges. We were to report a story about security in New York City following 9/11 and the failed bombing in Times Square. It was a fantastic assignment and I immediately got to work looking for a human angle to drive the story.

I left the hotel early Wednesday morning in search of a street vendor named Duane Jackson who had alerted police to the suspicious (Nissan) Pathfinder parked in Times Square, which the county later learned had been wired to explode. After finding and interviewing Mr. Jackson, I had found my angle. My final story reflected the importance of public vigilance in keeping the city safe.

The awards ceremony took place Friday night at the unbelievable Hearst Tower. Following a wonderful reception and dinner, I was honored to have been selected as the broadcast radio news champion. It was an unforgettable experience and I cannot thank the Hearst Foundation enough for making our week in New York a memorable one, and for recognizing the work and talent of college journalists across the country! Receiving the Hearst Award was the highlight of my college career and reflects the outstanding faculty and staff we are lucky enough to have at the University of Nebraska.

Mitch Smith is a journalism major who will begin his second year at UNL in August. Originally from Overland Park, Kan., Smith was the winner of Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof’s annual Win-A-Trip contest. Smith, who had never left the United States before, was selected from nearly 900 applicants based on his entry essay.

Smith spent 12 days reporting with Kristof in four African countries in May, covering issues ranging from conservation to maternal health to education. While in Africa, he filed a daily blog post for the Times. You can read his entries at http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/author/mitch-smith/.

Mitch with new-found friends at a mud-hole on Republic of Congo’s Highway No. 1. The truck behind them had been stuck for the last month.

When I was checking in for my flight to Libreville, Gabon, the ticket agent politely asked one of my traveling companions, “Where the hell is that?”

There I was, totally out of my league, standing in the middle of one of the world’s busiest airports, and the person giving me my boarding pass didn’t have a clue where I was going.

If you, like the geographically challenged airline employee, aren’t familiar with Gabon, don’t feel too bad. It’s a relatively wealthy West African nation slightly larger than Nebraska in area but a little smaller in population.  It gained modest notoriety as a host site for Survivor and received some coverage for setting more than 10 percent of its land aside as national parks.

But aside from a few old National Geographic articles, the CIA World Factbook and clips from that ridiculous CBS reality show, I really didn’t know much more about where I was going than that ticket agent did.

I was born in Omaha, grew up outside Kansas City and returned to Nebraska for college.  Driving through the Midwest, I have paid an admission fee to see a five-legged cow, marveled at a cliff with five presidents’ faces carved on the side and spent hours wondering why I have to go through Missouri and Iowa to get to Lincoln when my home state of Kansas borders Nebraska in the first place.

But spending 12 days traveling overland from Libreville through the Republic of the Congo and into the Democratic Republic of the Congo put the five-legged cow and the rest of my Midwestern roadside adventures to shame.

In Africa, I saw camps of the purportedly dangerous “Ninja” rebels who were unarmed and underfed. I encountered six-foot-deep muddy gorges on Congo’s National Highway No. 1 that had ensnared some trucks for more than a month.

And, perhaps most poignantly, I watched a pair of teenagers in a remote village tell me of how they dreamed of attending college and of the hunger that gnawed at their bodies. Their story made my heart sink when I walked into the Selleck dining hall on the first day of my summer class, making me wonder why I had access to a university education and a buffet of endless food when those two teens struggled for both.

Because I had never left the United States before, much of my experience seemed surreal at the time. Things that would be illegal (14-year-olds having children with adults) or unthinkable (a swarm of bats flying out of the roof of a hospital) back home coexisted alongside cell phones and friendly locals. Some parts of Africa were uncomfortably foreign, but always nearby were things that felt not unlike Lincoln or Kansas City.

It was that human side of Africa that transformed my perspective on the world and on my life. I hope to use that fresh outlook to my advantage as I return to my comparatively tame life in the States. But even more, I think this trip transformed the way I look at a story and at journalism.

For years, I had wanted an opportunity to practice “real” journalism and to cover global issues for a wide audience. I was frustrated with the seeming insignificance of things like the investigative project I wrote for my high school newspaper about crosswalks.

This summer, I got the chance to cover those big-picture issues. I learned what I do well, what I need to work on and what it’s like to have my work read by thousands of discerning eyes while writing on tight deadlines and no sleep.

Now I can come back to school and work on making those improvements and finishing my degree. But I feel I do so as a much different person than I was when that ticket agent asked just where we were going.

My ideas about what is important in this world and what journalism can accomplish have changed, and I know that will help dictate where I go from here.

And, hey, if nothing else, I now know where Libreville is in case any other curious airline employees inquire.