WORD ON THE STREET The Department of Communication's Monthly Newsletter

M A Y . 1 5 , 2 0 1 9

FACULTY & STAFFUPDATES

STUDENT UPDATES

FORENSICS & DEBATE UPDATES

REMINDERS &UPCOMING DATES

I N T H I S I S S U E

"RUMOR HAS IT..."

The Journalism program and the Journalism

Institute for Media Diversity hosted a successful

Spirit of Diversity event at Saint Andrews Hall

on April 12, 2019. Our Spirit of Diversity Award

honored political commentator and columnist

Julianne Malveaux, PhD. The recipients of our

Working in the Spirit of Diversity Awards

recognized Al Allen from Fox 2 and Vince

McCraw from the Detroit News. Faculty members

also recognized the 2019-2020 Journalism

scholarship recipients. The department awarded

19 students a total of $70,000 for the next

academic year, in addition to the scholarships

awarded by Alicia Nails and the JIM program.

End of the YearCelebrations! In this issue...

Faculty, Staff, Student& Alumni Updates

Election Results

Academic Senate Updates

Rumors and more!

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P H O T O B Y M A R T I N R . S M I T H

Faculty Updates

Professor Loraleigh Keashly was honored with a

Distinguished Service Professor award! These are awarded

to recognize exemplary service! This classification is

used in rare instances to designate senior members of the

university faculty who have made extraordinary

contributions to the university outside their own

disciplines or who, by unusual service outside of the

university, have brought great honor and recognition to

the institution. The title of Distinguished Service

Professor is bestowed upon the recipient by the president

of the university upon the advice of the provost.

Congratulations to Dr. Keashly for this great honor!

Faculty, Staff Receive Honors & Awards The Communication Department swept the competition at the Academic Recognition Ceremony!

Distinguished Service Award- Vicki Dallas,

The Outstanding Graduate Director Service Awards- Fred Vultee,

Career Development Chair- Stephanie Tong,

The Murray E. Jackson University Creative Scholar in the Arts Award- Juanita Anderson

The Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award- Kelly Young

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P H O T O B Y M A R T I N R . S M I T H

Faculty/Staff Updates

Rahul Mitra, gave a talk on Apr. 23 at the 2019

Population Health Forum. The talk was based on Rahul

Mitra's and Kelly Donellan's ongoing Detroit Water

Stories oral history project, and it also debuted a short

teaser which can be viewed

here: https://vimeo.com/331881292

Rahul is also serving as a mentor for Erie Hack, a multi-

city hackathon and competition to produce technology

solutions to problems affecting the Great Lakes.

The semi-finals will be held on June 5 at Cobo Center; for more details and to register,

see https://eriehack.io/ In addition, he is serving as an "educator judge" for the 2019 National

Invention Convention, which is an annual celebration of K-12 inventors; for more details,

see https://www.stemie.org/2019-nicee/

Bill Warters and the MADR students celebrated his retirement! You will be missed in

the department.

Happy Retirement, Bill!

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P H O T O B Y M A R T I N R . S M I T H

Faculty/Staff Updates

Longtime Detroit Sports Journalist Perry Farrell will be joining

the Department of Communication in the fall as the new

internship coordinator and journalism faculty member. Farrell

has been an adjunct instructor at Wayne State, most recently

teaching a special topics course in sports reporting. He is

transitioning into full-time teaching following a 30 year

reporting career at the Detroit Free Press:

https://www.freep.com/story/sports/2019/01/04/perry-farrell-

free-press/2476068002/

Kelly Gottesman & Gary Cendrowski presented on the new Hilberry Gateway Performance

Complex renovation and proposed Midtown Studios. A project 2-years in the making, they

gave a sneak peek into the audiovisual, video, and audio decisions that need to made when

building a new ground-breaking performance center & studio for students and the community.

It's with sadness, that we announce Brandon Hensley's

Grandmother, Imelda “Sally” Oglesby passed away peacefully in

her sleep on the morning of April 10, 2019, on her 96th

birthday. Our thoughts are with Brandon and his family.

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P H O T O B Y M A R T I N R . S M I T H

Faculty/Staff Updates

Mary Stanko is getting married on July 26 to Piper

Grenfell! Congrats to you both!

Karen McDevitt, was quoted in a Detroit Free Press

article! You can read it here:

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2019/04

/17/rachel-mcmahon-buzzfeed-quiz/3150688002/

Anita Mixon was awarded a Dean’s Creative Research

Award at the 2019 CFPCA Spring Assembly.

Fred Vultee was awarded a Dean’s Creative Research

Award at the 2019 CFPCA Spring Assembly.

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Doctoral Student, Kelsey Husnick will be presenting a

paper from the RISE Lab at ICA in Washington, D.C., titled

"Structurational Resilience in Graduate School: How

Communication Graduate Students Manage Stress." (Other

authors: MA graduate Alexei Berg, Patrice M. Buzzanell,

Rahul Mitra)

P H O T O B Y M A R T I N R . S M I T H

Student/Alumni Updates

Master's Candidate, Office Assistant, and Web Guru

Allison Elam has been selected as a 2019-2020

Communications Fellow with the National Cancer

Institute. She will be moving to D.C at the end of June!

Undergraduate student, Slone Jo Terranella received a

Detroit SPJ scholarship award at the Excellence in

Journalism Banquet, where she also won an award for her

community reporting efforts. Slone is currently a junior

journalism major, member of the Honors college, and JIM

member; Editor of the South End!

Alumna, Kristin Shaw was named one of Crain Detroit's

Twenty in Their 20s! Shaw is the Manager of Digital and

Social Media at the Cobo Center Read her article here:

https://www.crainsdetroit.com/awards/kristin-shaw-2019-

20-20s

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Congratulations to Dr. Tabitha Cassidy, who graduated

this month after defending in March!

P H O T O B Y M A R T I N R . S M I T H

Student/Alumni Updates

Congratulations to Dr. Idrissa Snider, who defended het

dissertations this month!

This year's conference has a lot of great speakers (Matt

Yockey, and potentially Boots Riley) as well as some

excellent paper presentations that most of the

Dr. Ashleigh Day successfully defended her dissertation

and accepted a tenure-track assistant professor position

starting this fall with the University of Texas at Tyler!

Alumnus, Dr. Lukas Pellico and his wife, Gina welcomed

their daughter,Asunta Danila Pelliccio, who was born on

May 15th at 3am. She is happy and healthy with a full

head of hair!

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FPCA Winter Election Results:

Graduate Council-

Fred Vultee 09/01/2019-05/01/2022

Academic Senate-

Elizabeth Stoycheff 08/19/2019- 08/17/2022

Member-at-Large- Vicki Dallas

08/17/2017 08/16/2020

Academic Staff Promotion and Employment

Security Status Committee-

Vicki Dallas

Academic Staff Salary Advisory Committee-

Jessica Greenwald 05/01/2019-04/30/2020

Results of the Undergraduate Curriculum

Committee Vote:

(for the 2019-2020 AY. Denise Vultee is continuing

and will become Chair of the committee)

Member At Large- Brandon Hensley

Representative from Communication Studies-

Rosie Jahng

Representative from Journalism-

Michael Fuhlhage

Representative from Media Arts and Studies-

Kelly Donnelllan

Results of the GSA election

President- Ariel Seay

Vice President- Kelsey Husnick

Treasure- Laura Bruns

Secretary- Scott Burgess

Colloquium (Chair)-Lacey Brim

International liaison- Clara Martucci

MA representative- Tara McManus

Election Results Question: I’ve heard a rumor that the

university/department is trying to move us into the

old business school (Prentiss?).

Answer: At this point, there are no immediate

plans for a move (i.e., over the next 5-10 years).

The building is aging, however, and has its

problems. But sources indicate that a move is not

imminent (and may not happen during my tenure

as Chair)

Question: I hear that there are rumors about a

writing retreat for faculty over the summer and the

graduate students were wondering a) if this is

happening and b) if they can get in, too and/or c) if

there are writing spaces with snacks or some such

over the summer that the department organizes.

Answer: I have talked about this informally with

my own graduate students, but if there is interest

in doing a monthly writing retreat in the

department for both faculty and graduate

students, I am open to the possibility.

Question: Just about everyone on our floor

experiences the strange "black substance" rain on

their desks. Do we know what this is? Is it

harmful when inhaled (it is particulate matter,

after all, and thus in the air)?

Answer: The entire building experiences this and

it's usually worse when AC blowers ramp up in

summer. You may see more of it now because all

of the belts were recently replaced on the

blowers. Environmental Health has been in

Manoogian to test these kinds of particles many

times over the years and they have been deemed

not harmful. It's just (?!) the gunk lining the

heat/cooling ducts and something we have to live

with. Unfortunately, the building would have to

go off-line and be shut down in order to replace

all of the ducts and vents.

Rumors

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We are welcoming our distinguished

guest scholar Dr. Linda Steiner

(University of Maryland) and our 16

participants to our 2019 Summer

Doctoral Seminar! The theme of the

seminar is Transgressive Feminisms

and we are looking forward to

productive discussions on the state of

feminist communications across old

and new media.

Please join us for a public reception

on Monday, June 3, 2019 at 4:30

p.m. in the Greek Room, 1st floor,

Manoogian Hall to mingle with Linda

and student participants. Light

refreshments will be served.

2019 SummerDoctoral Seminar!

Academic SenateUpdates

The last academic senate meeting of

the year was held on the 9th. Some

highlights from the meeting include,

the Warrior Way Back Program and

new construction and new

developments across campus, and an

informative Q & A session.

You can view the video for the

meeting here:

https://echo360.org/media/3724940c-

d414-41e0-9cff-2b26038fc02d/public

Wubdates Allison has been busy trying to make the

Com department's website new and

improved before she leaves the department.

You may notice that our homepage has

gotten a (much needed) face lift! You can

now scroll through photos and banners

(which have all been updated)

Allison also has added clickable

promotions on the programs, admissions,

and student pages, that make it easier to

access information--if you would like any

information updated or added--reach out to

Allison ASAP @ ez6857@wayn.edu

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EVENT REMINDER!

The Celebration of Excellence recognized accomplishments from across the department. Formerly known

as the Lambda Pi Eta honors ceremony, we expanded the event this year to include undergraduate and

graduate scholarships. On April 23, we inducted 23 new members into the 2019 class of Lambda Pi Eta

and awarded two Skinner scholarships, the Plochocki scholarship, the Stanley H. Marx Endowed

scholarship for two dispute resolution students, the Jane Fitzgibbon Endowed Student Award for two

communication studies students, and the Dan Sicko Memorial scholarship to two media arts and studies

students. A wonderful celebration was had by all!

Celebration of Excellence

Wayne State Journalism students had the opportunity to interact with three editors from the New York Times

on May 2, 2019, during a Meet and Greet Reception at the Student Center. The Times Deputy Managing Editor

Matt Purdy, Associate Masthead Editor/National Marc Lacey, and Race/Related Editor Lauretta Charlton

answered questions about a wide ranging number of topics, including news values, the political climate, and

the field of journalism. The event was part of the New York Times Midwest staff meeting held on campus and

was hosted by the Department of Communication, the Journalism program and the Journalism Institute for

Media Diversity.

NYT Meet & Greet!

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EVENT REMINDER!

Michigan Film OfficeAdvisory Council meeting

spirit of Diversity

Area head Juanita Anderson also presented at the

Michigan Film Office Advisory Council meeting,

hosted at Techtown in conjunction with the festival

on Friday April 12th. As a result of the presentation,

council chair Bill Ludwig (former CEO of Campbell-

Ewald who now runs the advertising firm Ludwig +)

requested an invitation to speak to our advanced

students about freelance opportunities for

cinematographers and editors. He spoke to two of our

classes on Tuesday April 16th.

Anderson's presentation also garnered interests in

internships from representatives of two firms.

Spirit of Diversity More photos from this year's Spirit of Diversity Event!

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EVENT REMINDER!

Freep Film Festival Thank you to all who volunteered at

the WSU venues!

Highlights of our collaboration with

the Freep include the Allesee Dinner,

the works-in-progress session

moderated by Allesee chair-holder,

Thom Powers, where Two of our

Alumni discussed their film on the

legendary Detroit photographer Leni

Sinclair!

The Celebration of the Life and Work of Joel Silvers was

part of the Freep Film Festival and was attended by more

than 200 people including Joel's family and friends!

To make a donation to support student creative work in

honor of Joel, visit: https://giving.wayne.edu/donate

1. Make your personal selections

2. “Choose your Designation*” box: select “OTHER”

3.Next box (“other Designations or notes about gift”)

indicate

“Department of Communication, in memory of Joel David

Silvers".

For assistance email: ao3728@wayne.edu

To see the Joel Silvers Tribute at the Freep Film Festival,

visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=5qUHnneaQxE&list=PL1pKw3le4CMexHIiDeyKkc18MlD

VqcbP8&index=14

Honoring Joel Silvers