alumni spotlights

Meet Griselda San Martin

Anonymous — Fri, 22 Jan 2016 22:24:36 +0000

Meet Griselda San Martin Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 01/22/2016 - 15:24

(MJour’13) • Visual Journalist • Co-founder of Transborder Media

Not long ago, Griselda San Martin travelled to Mexico City to claim a second-place award for her short film, Soldiers Without a Nation, in a competition sponsored by the Mexican government and the United Nations.

The film tells the stories of permanent U.S. residents who fought for the American military only to be deported to Mexico for later criminal offenses. The deported veterans feel lost in the middle and San Martin believes their stories are too.

San Martin, originally from Spain, lived in several countries and always enjoyed taking pictures of the people and places she saw in her travels. When she came to CU-��«��Ƶ to pursue a master’s degree in journalism, she wanted to tell stories–a certain type of story. “I don’t like hard news,” she says. “I like in-depth stories.” Some of the stories San Martin wanted to explore in-depth were the lives of immigrant and their communities in the United States.

“We’re trying to tell stories from beyond the mainstream.”
- Griselda San Martin

San Martin’s favorite class in her first year at CU-��«��Ƶ was Media and Diaspora, a media studies class that explored how media portray and impact immigrant communities. After learning how the mainstream media reported on marginalized immigrants, San Martin completely changed her own approach. Rather than talking about immigrants, as many in the media do, she realized the best way to fight stereotypes and report a more truthful story was to let immigrants tell their own stories.

San Martin teamed up with classmate Elaine Cromie and travelled to Tijuana, Mexico to meet and interview many of the deported U.S. veterans living there. The duo have since returned many times and have produced several short videos about the veterans. “We’re not activists. We’re not taking sides,” says San Martin. “We’re trying to tell stories from beyond the mainstream.”

To further that goal, San Martin, Cromie and a third collaborator—Biana Fortis—have founded Transborder Media, a company dedicated to producing written and visual media that crosses borders. Currently, San Martin is documenting the Garifuna community in New York City in portraits and a documentary. Because the Garifuna immigrated from the Caribbean and Central America, they speak English, Spanish and their own language. San Martin is translating her work into all three, as part of her dream to tell stories “that transcend borders.”

A graduate of the journalism and media studies programs who tells stories that cross borders — “We’re trying to tell stories from beyond the mainstream.”

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Meet Wisdom Amouzou

Anonymous — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 23:45:36 +0000

Meet Wisdom Amouzou Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 01/21/2016 - 16:45

Communication Graduate ('13) • Teacher & Education Advocate

Wisdom Amouzou looked nervously at the clock. It was almost 10:20 am. Clustered around him were his eighth grade students. He asked them again if they were sure they wanted to do this. They did. Amouzou had discussed civil disobedience with them for weeks. As their teacher, there was a chance he’d be held responsible if their plan went wrong.

At 10:20 a.m. his students—and many in nearby schools—walked out of class and gathered at a Denver park to protest the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. In the following weeks, student discussed their concerns with law enforcement and school officials in community meetings. “Actual people from their community were listening to their voices,” Amouzou says.

“Have a critical eye toward everything you do.”
-Wisdom Amouzou

Amouzou’s family came to the United States from Togo when he was a child. Like many children of immigrants, he felt a responsibility to find a career where he’d make good money. But two years into his engineering degree at CU, he felt a strong calling to become a teacher. He switched his major to communication, where he learned how powerful human bias can be, and learned to analyze persuasive speech and writing. A key lesson, he says, was “have a critical eye toward everything you do.”

As he studied, Amouzou realized that a successful education must give students the voice to advocate for their communities. After graduation, he joined the Teach for America program and was assigned to a Denver school where he asked students what they wanted to change where they lived. After studying the Black Lives Matter movement, they suggested the Michael Brown protest.

Today, Amouzou teaches at a prestigious international school in South Africa. He is also a co-founder of a the HackSchool project, which seeks to accelerate student learning by giving students the high-tech tools and mentors they need to tackle real problems in their community. So far, Amouzou’s HackSchool team has secured initial funding for the project and is providing 3D printers and video equipment to high school students in Denver.

In this latest endeavor, Amouzou has also found use for communication. “As we're crafting our pitches for the next round of funding,” he explains, “the narratives we frame and tell are significant to our success and ability to get stakeholders invested.” He hopes to eventually bring the HackSchool model to Africa, too.

Learn more about Amouzou on his education blog, Street Knowledge.

In 2017, Amouzou and co-founder Nathan Pai Schmitt were recognized by Teach For America as Social Innovation Award winners for their Denver-based HadaNõu Collective (HNC). The HadaNõu Collective creates centers and schools where students are solving real world problems. They received $50,000 to continue developing and expanding their reach.

Some 183 teams from around the country applied to be considered for Teach for America’s annual Social Innovation Awards this year, the largest application pool in the award’s six-year history. A panel of 12 judges (including alumni entrepreneurs, philanthropists, venture capitalists and members of Teach For America’s executive team) heard pitches from each finalist, met with finalists in small-group interviews, and made the winning selections. Judges, compelled by The HadaNõu Collective’s focus on student agency and deep learning, called the venture a “big idea” to both empower long-standing public schools to drive their own innovation, while also creating new public schools through HNC.

A recent graduate of the communication department, Amouzou is bringing innovation to education in low-income communities.

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Meet Kelly Graziadei

Anonymous — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 23:26:30 +0000

Meet Kelly Graziadei Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 01/21/2016 - 16:26

1997 graduate • Director of Global Marketing Solutions at Facebook

Kelly Graziadei had a lot going on in her life when Facebook offered her a job. But she just couldn’t turn down the company that started the social media revolution.

“Facebook was a rocket ship and I wanted to get on it,” she explains.

When you absentmindedly whip out your phone and scroll through Facebook or Instagram, you probably think you’re just killing time. But Graziadei knows something much bigger is going on. Since 2013, Americans have spent more time on their phones and computers than in front of the TV. “A media shift like this hasn’t happened since the 1950s, when TV overtook print,” she explains. “Social media is now mainstream media."

As director of global marketing solutions at Facebook, Graziadei’s job is to figure out how advertisers can best use social media. Traditionally, advertising was simply about reaching the highest possible number of people. With social media advertisers can target their messages to the most likely buyers. “We want advertising to be as good as what your friends post on your Facebook feed,” says Graziadei, who sometimes drops into advertising classes by Skype to share her knowledge with CMCI students.

“Social media is now mainstream media.”
-Kelly Graziadei

Graziadei didn’t plan on a career in technology when she left CU in 1997, but when a telecommunications company offered a job with a nice title and a good paycheck, she took it.

It didn’t work out the way she planned. “Fast forward a few months in and I found myself in a call center playing the tambourine to greet employees off the elevator in the morning … all in the name of selling Caller ID,” she recalls.

She quit that job and worked her way through a variety of increasingly high-profile companies, including time at Yahoo, before she landed at Facebook.

“I love the opportunity to build something new,” she says. “To be in an industry where so much hasn’t been done before.”

A graduate of the advertising program who is director of global marketing solutions at Facebook — “Social media is now mainstream media.”

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