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Getting a Seat at the Table

Anonymous — Wed, 27 Apr 2022 22:58:12 +0000

Getting a Seat at the Table Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 04/27/2022 - 16:58

By Malinda Miller (Engl, Jour’92; MJour’98)
Photos by Kimberly Coffin (CritMed, StratComm’18)

Over three decades in public relations and corporate communications, Kelly Ladyga (Jour’86) has navigated high-level corporate negotiations and sticky crisis management situations. She’s designed successful public relations campaigns for dozens of organizations and built her own digital communications firm, 105West Marketing.

Now Ladyga and her colleagues are leveraging decades of combined experience to help launch CMCI’s Master of Arts in Corporate Communication. The new, fully online degree program is designed for working communications professionals—the type of program Ladyga wishes she’d had access to as a junior professional.

“I think [a program like this] would've given me some fundamentals that I had to learn as I went along, as opposed to having access to those tools early on in my career that can really help propel you further as a corporate communications practitioner,” said Ladyga, who will be teaching Corporate Communications and Ethics.

Launching in fall 2022, the program consists of a 10-course, 30-credit curriculum of core and specialized classes that will provide conceptual knowledge, practical instruction and skills that can immediately be applied to day-to-day work.

“It’s designed to be flexible so that students can advance their careers while balancing work and other demands in their lives,” said Burton St. John, professor of public relations and director of the corporate communication master’s program.

The online classes are offered in seven-week terms, with two terms each semester, and students can complete the program in as little as 19 months.

St. John added that all instructors have at least 10 years of corporate communication experience.

“I'm very excited to be teaching corporate communications and ethics. It's really been a great process for me to look back on my career, and especially my 20 years at Vail Resorts, having been involved in the acquisition of 12 mountain resorts, endless hotel properties, all kinds of issues and every crisis you can imagine,” said Ladyga, who also worked with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Colorado Ski Country USA and Schenkein PR in Denver.

The ideal candidate for this is somebody with some professional experience who can bring those experiences to the table and have something of a professional vocabulary to leverage into the mix."
-Richard Khleif (MJour’99, PhDMediaSt’07)

“It’s my hope that this program gives communications professionals the knowledge, skills and confidence they need to have a legitimate seat at the table with C-suite leaders.
-Kelly Ladyga (Jour’86)

Richard Khleif (MJour’99, PhDMediaSt’07), senior director of global marketing, communication and engagement at Oracle Corporation, has also helped build the curriculum and will teach the introductory course, Strategic Corporate Communication Management.

During long-time stints as an instructor at the University of Colorado and the University of Denver, Khleif has taught communication courses for more than 20 years while leading teams in corporate communications, marketing, learning and development, sales, services, and other business areas.

“The teaching informs the work I do in my industry life, and the experiences and interactions I have there absolutely inflect [my] teaching,” Khleif said.

He believes the program is a good match for an early- to mid-career professional looking to “take it up a level” or for someone with professional experience outside of communications who wants to switch career directions.

“The ideal candidate for this is somebody with some professional experience who can bring those experiences to the table and have something of a professional vocabulary to leverage into the mix,” he said.

The degree is launching at a time when the demand for communication professionals is growing. The U.S. Department of Labor projects that public relations jobs will increase by 7% at the national level and by 20% in Colorado from 2018 to 2028.

An increasing need in the market, St. John said, is for professionals who can provide a higher level of counsel and problem-solving to C-suite leadership. This degree program aims to help professionals position themselves to move into these higher-level positions.

“It’s my hope that this program gives communications professionals the knowledge, skills and confidence they need to have a legitimate seat at the table with C-suite leaders,” Ladyga said. “In today’s fast-paced, multi-channel communications world, it’s critical that they be a strong, steady voice of honesty, integrity and compassion for their organization and its stakeholders."

To request information or apply, go to the Master of Arts in Corporate Communication website.

The College of Media, Communication and Information is launching a brand-new degree program this fall: The Master of Arts in Corporate Communication. Designed for the working professional, the program and its faculty experts will assist corporate communicators as they pursue the next step in their careers.

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#TunedIn: Spring 2022

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 07:19:57 +0000

#TunedIn: Spring 2022 Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 04/19/2022 - 01:19

Explore CMCI research and creative work with #TunedIn, curated for your reading and viewing pleasure. Dive in!

How ‘Don’t Look Up’ plays with the portrayal of science in popular culture

Adam McKay's new movie uses science fiction and comedy to explore elements of our current society—but it's not alone. Could we be in a new golden age of sci-fi entertainment? CU ��«��Ƶ Today spoke with CMCI's Rick Stevens to find out.

Tips to avoid your ex on social media this Valentine’s Day

Did you just see a Facebook “memory” of your ex from Valentine’s Day—from three years ago—and now you’re bummed or just annoyed? Blame the algorithms, says Anthony Pinter, a doctoral student in the information science department and soon-to-be ATLAS faculty member.

CMCI alumnus shares the story of Dearfield, one of Colorado’s first Black settlements

Pulitzer Prize winner and Marketplace General Manager Neal Scarbrough (Jour'84) shares the history of Dearfield, a thriving Black settlement in Colorado in the early 1900s. As Scarbrough says, it’s a story of, “Yes, we can.” Watch via:

Competing in the Winter Paralympics: Meet CMCI alumnus Spencer Wood

After graduating from CU ��«��Ƶ, Spencer Wood (StratComm’21) didn’t head straight into a full-time job. Instead, he dove into weeks of training on the ski slopes before competing in the 2022 Beijing Winter Paralympics.

How has the Black community navigated racism from Jim Crow to today?

Listen to Shamika Klassen, an information science PhD student, discuss her research on how Black Twitter, a community of predominantly Black users and allies on the social media site, is used as a modern-day Negro Motorist Green Book. Watch via:

CMCI researchers dive into ‘dual experience’ of LGBTQ users on TikTok

In a study published in January, researchers Ellen Simpson and Bryan Semaan, both with the College of Media, Communication and Information, analyzed how LGTBQ people adopted and experienced TikTok. They found that, while the participants enjoyed some aspects of the platform, they never quite felt at home.

Recent events

Spring semester holds some of the biggest events of the year, like the Student Leadership Summit, the Bateman Competition hosted by the Public Relations Student Society of America and TEDxCU’s 10th Anniversary Event. This spring, CMCI was on the ground for these annual show stoppers, plus career fairs, classroom activities, student group events, capstone presentations, student showcases and more. Explore student life with this selection of photos by CMCI multimedia production editor Kimberly Coffin (CritMed, StratComm’18).

Media design student Luna Nguyen creates calligraphy during a Design Club workshop, called Persian Typography Through Zar Font, led by instructor Parisa Tashakori on April 8, 2022.

CMCI student ambassador Gracie Ramos tests out equipment in February using one of three podcast booths available to students in the Center for Academic Success & Engagement.

Paul Bontempo, director of programming for TEDxCU, poses for a photo in Old Main minutes before the TEDxCU's 10th Anniversary Event on April 2, 2022.

Fresh snow falls in front of Old Main, the oldest building on campus and the location of the University of Colorado’s first journalism classes. In 1922, the university created the Department of Journalism, which is celebrating its centennial anniversary this year.

Explore CMCI research and creative work with #TunedIn, curated for your reading and viewing pleasure. Dive in!

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Stitch, Strut, Slay the Runway

Anonymous — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 20:46:04 +0000

Stitch, Strut, Slay the Runway Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 03/28/2022 - 14:46

CMCI assistant professor uses sewing to empower LGBTQ youth

By Shannon Mullane (MJour’19)
Photos by Kimberly Coffin (CritMed, StratComm’18)

With pink stage lights, the horn chorus of Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love,” and a confident high-heeled strut, they were off.

Eleven LGBTQ teens from the ��«��Ƶ County area took to the stage in November’s Slay the Runway event, the final act of a program designed to celebrate both fashion and empowerment.

“Some of the kids were dreadfully shy, and by the end, they were stomping down the runway to Lady Gaga,” said Steven Frost, Slay the Runway coordinator and a faculty member in the College of Media, Communication and Information. “It was awesome.”

Slay the Runway launched in fall 2021 as an eight-week program in fashion design, performance and sewing for LGTBQIA+ teens ages 12 to 18. Community groups, including several at the ��«��Ƶ, collaborated to enlist experts in fashion and sewing, videography, drag performance and more.

Stitch by stitch, the program aimed to create a new way to bring the area’s LGBTQIA+ community together, while helping teens celebrate their place within it.

“To feel like they can take up space in the world can be dangerous if you’re trans or nonbinary,” said Frost, a media studies assistant professor in CMCI. “To surround them [the students] with people who were celebrating them—and to show them they can really be ostentatious and bold and perform their fantasy—was really an awesome experience.”

Frost, who uses they/them pronouns, specializes in using textiles and weaving to explore topics like queer history and tactile memory. They had just returned from working with queer youth in Maine when they met with Elaine Waterman, executive director of the Firehouse Art Center, to discuss a new queer youth program in ��«��Ƶ.

Waterman, a fashion designer turned arts educator and activist, was looking for artists to help her expand her idea for an LGBTQIA+ youth fashion show.

“Having that personal experience of having a kid that wanted to express themselves but didn’t really know how to—Slay the Runway came from that,” said Waterman, founder of Slay the Runway.

The pair received a $22,000 Arts in Society Grant through RedLine Contemporary Art Center to fund the inaugural program, and Arc Thrift Store donated vouchers so the students could buy materials.

They brought on LeeLee James, an undergraduate student in computer science at CU ��«��Ƶ also known as Twirling Tech Goddess, to help with design and performance. Elle Hong (MFADance’21) and Alnite Alliance, a Colorado nonprofit focused on LGBTQ advocacy, drag and alternative performance, jumped in to help with the performance and make-up.

“Especially for young people who are queer, being able to make your own clothes is so important,” Frost said. “Access to clothes for people who are not gender binary is really hard. … The ability for queer people to refit and make their clothes is a really good skill to have.”

The organizers faced a yearlong delay because of the coronavirus pandemic, but by September 2021, the teens were altering clothes, choosing patterns and designing their final looks at the Firehouse Art Center in Longmont and ��«��Ƶ Public Library’s BLDG 61 Makerspace.

In the days before the performance, the B2 Center for Media, Arts and Performance at CU ��«��Ƶ’s Roser Atlas Institute suddenly featured a full fashion runway with professional lighting—and a dozen teenagers tweaking their final looks at sewing tables in the lobby.

“It looked like Project Runway. It was totally wild,” Frost said.

On Nov. 13, about 70 community members and families gathered around the stage to see the show. The teens strutted and stomped down the runway in their own creations, sporting looks that ranged from flowing, tulle dresses to goth-inspired creations.

“The parents were so immensely proud of them. I think for a lot of the parents, they had never seen their kids’ queerness celebrated in this way,” Frost said. “I just wanted to sit in that moment forever. …It was like love and tears. It was joyous.”

As a parent of a nonbinary child, Waterman wanted to build a space where LGBTQ kids could be creative and meet role models who found success while presenting their truest selves to the world.

“I wanted to provide that safe space for the kids to design and create clothing that expresses who they really are,” Waterman said. “But I also wanted to make sure that caregivers and parents had a space to ask questions to help them create that safe space at home.”

To that end, Slay the Runway held its first caregivers conference in early March to help share resources with families, Waterman said.

The program is also gearing up for its second year, Slay the Runway 2022 from June 27 to July 8. In the future, the organizers hope others copy their program as much as possible, Frost said.

“(This program) brings visibility of queer youth, and it also brings people together intergenerationally,” they said. “Our hope was that this would provide other people the ability to see this model and do it on their own.”

Sometimes all it takes to bring a community together is a lesson in sewing and the catwalk. In collaboration with local partners, CMCI Assistant Professor Steven Frost used fashion design to help LGBTQ teens celebrate their own identities through a new program, Slay the Runway.

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A Healing Lens

Anonymous — Fri, 11 Mar 2022 04:37:25 +0000

A Healing Lens Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 03/10/2022 - 21:37

By Lauren Irwin

Ross Taylor, a photojournalist and faculty member at the ��«��Ƶ, spent months documenting community trauma and healing in ��«��Ƶ after the city experienced a mass shooting in 2021.

The shooting, which took place at the Table Mesa King Soopers March 22, 2021, left 10 people dead and the community reeling. In the days after, Taylor, an assistant journalism professor in the College of Media, Communication and Information, documented the community’s response and quickly realized there was more he could do. He began a long-term documentary project, gathering photos of the community as it recovered and hoping to aid in the healing process.

“I do know that when people experience trauma, if they feel less alone, it can aid to some degree in their healing,” Taylor said.

His initial project has transformed into ��«��Ƶ Strong: Still Strong, Remembering March 22, an exhibit in March and April at the Museum of ��«��Ƶ. ��«��Ƶ Strong includes artifacts from the memorial wall next to the grocery store and over 70 portraits of people tied to the event, from CU ��«��Ƶ students to mental health professionals and local police officers. The portrait project relied upon local groups, like the Museum of ��«��Ƶ and ��«��Ƶ Strong Resource Center, a multi-agency resource hub that aims to help community members heal, Taylor said.

“The response from the community has been incredible,” he said.

Taylor has won international and national awards for his photojournalism, including the National Press Photographers Association’s national photojournalist of the year award. Prior to joining CMCI, he worked for prestigious visual newspapers such as The Hartford Courant. His work has also been featured in The New York Times, The Denver Post, The Washington Post, USA Today and many others.

Taylor has frequently documented intense, emotional and intimate experiences. Working in Kashmir, India, he witnessed gun violence and poverty. He was assigned to document war scenes and trauma hospitals in Iraq and Afghanistan. Later, he documented families as they navigated pet euthanasia.

“I was very impressed with how sensitive he was and how sympathetic he was,” said senior journalism student Anna Haynes, who viewed the shooting from her apartment across the street and was one of Taylor’s participants. “He really was concerned with my response and my healing process and my relationship to [the shooting].”

In an interview with CMCI, Taylor offered a deeper look at the ��«��Ƶ Strong: Still Strong project. Responses have been edited for clarity and length.

How did this portrait project come about?
After I took photos that week along the memorial wall, I just felt like there was something more to be done. And so I thought about the idea of doing a portrait project, but I felt like I needed a partnership to help elevate the mission. I approached the Museum of ��«��Ƶ because they're the record of history in ��«��Ƶ.

Who is featured in the portrait project?
At first it was smaller, but the more people heard about it, then it just exponentially grew and grew fast. We now have around 70 people, and we have key people anywhere from the store manager of the King Soopers, to the district attorney, to the person who shot the suspect, to many of the first responders, to mental health workers who are aiding in the healing of ��«��Ƶ. I'm heartened by the response of the community.

How has your past work helped prepare you for this project?
Stepping out of the daily role that I had as a staff photojournalist and working at the university has offered me the opportunity to think in different ways and think of other ways of documenting events. This project, ostensibly, was meant to explore aspects of healing in the documentary form. Because I do know that when people experience trauma, if they feel less alone, it can aid to some degree in their healing.

What is important about this type of photojournalism?
Journalists are trained to be responsive to the events at hand or events that are about to happen a lot of times. We're less focused on looking back—that's not to say that never happens because people do memorial journalism all the time—but I don't think it's as active, and it's not a space that is promoted as much in newsroom culture. I think if anything, this project shows the community can oftentimes really rally behind an idea of a memorial or an archive approach to an event.

What have you learned throughout this process?
It shows the rippling effect of such a devastating event. I'm honored to better understand the individual [level] of this experience—one at a time, making these portraits and seeing just how deep and how impactful this event was for so many people. It just makes my heart go out to them. I care a lot more for ��«��Ƶ now.

What would you recommend to your students or younger journalists who will have to cover tragedies in their careers?
It's twofold. One is to always move with care and respect for those experiencing trauma. But then also to move with care and respect towards themselves as a witness and someone who experienced it through others—to not minimize it and to take care of themselves.

Anything else you want to share?
I'm just reminded of the power of documentary work and how it can be a tool in healing, for sure. But I'm still working on the archives, so if somebody were to see this and want to participate, they can contact me.

Assistant Professor Ross Taylor turns a lens toward healing as the ��«��Ƶ community recovers from the mass shooting at the Table Mesa King Soopers on March 22, 2021.

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Inside the ��«��Ƶ Reporting Lab

Anonymous — Sat, 26 Feb 2022 04:47:42 +0000

Inside the ��«��Ƶ Reporting Lab Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 02/25/2022 - 21:47

By Lauren Irwin

Journalist Stacy Feldman moved to ��«��Ƶ at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and quickly realized she wasn’t getting the information she needed from local news as the global crisis intensified.

So, Feldman set out to create something new: The ��«��Ƶ Reporting Lab.

“I spent most of my career helping to build a national news organization called InsideClimate News, and I started to wonder if I might want to build a local news startup here in ��«��Ƶ because there seemed to be great demand for it,” said Feldman, who moved to ��«��Ƶ to join CMCI’s Ted Scripps Fellowship in Environmental Journalism.

Pulling from her experience with InsideClimate News, a Pulitzer Prize-winning publication she co-founded in 2007, Feldman raised money and joined nonprofit foundations, like the Google News Initiative, to create a financially sustainable business. Without advertisements, subscriptions and paywalls, she says BRL aims to reinvent the modern news model and audience experience.

BRL launched in November 2021 as a nonprofit, online publication with a small staff of four reporters. In the months since its launch, the outlet’s audience is growing rapidly, and readers are contributing their thoughts and sharing articles with friends, Feldman said.

Now, it offers hyperlocal news about the city and county of ��«��Ƶ, covering the economy, environment, housing and health. When wildfires struck ��«��Ƶ County in December, BRL was there, providing extensive coverage for the community.

BRL photographer Anthony Albidrez

“I was there in the evacuation zone taking photos, and then of course, doing photojournalism of the aftermath,” said Anthony Albidrez, a CMCI master’s student interning at BRL. “The coverage of the Marshall fires was pretty difficult, being in that trauma that was so fresh.”

Prior to the Marshall Fire, Albridrez helped gather ��«��Ƶ-themed stock photographs to build BRL’s multimedia archive. He said working with a small start-up, rather than a long-running publication, was a really unique learning experience.

“How often do you get to experience a news organization from the ground up?” Albidrez said.

As the BRL continues to grow, Feldman said she wants to strengthen its relationship with CMCI reporters.

In addition to Albidrez, BRL has worked with three other CMCI students—Harry Fuller, Henry Larson and Ryan Ernstes—during semester-long internships and freelance projects. The news outlet is also working with the Center for Environmental Journalism to offer a fall 2022 course for graduate students.

“We would love to, in the near future, formalize a relationship with the program at CU, both undergraduate and graduate, to provide a place where students can publish their work,” Feldman said. “We're already getting started on this through our collaboration on a special projects course that will work with graduate students to examine potential health impacts from the Marshall Fire."

For Albidrez, helping the BRL begin to tell those stories has been a significant journalistic experience.

“It's been awesome to work alongside these well-seasoned reporters,” he said. “Seeing it go from ‘This is what we want to do,’ versus, ‘This is what we are doing,’ is really inspiring.”

Stacy Feldman moved to ��«��Ƶ in April 2020 to join the Ted Scripps Fellowship in Environmental Journalism at CMCI. As the COVID-19 crisis intensified, she realized she wasn’t getting the information she needed from the local news. So, she started something new, the ��«��Ƶ Reporting Lab, and decided to reinvent the modern news model in the process.

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Getting a Seat at the Table

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#TunedIn: Spring 2022

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Stitch, Strut, Slay the Runway

CMCI assistant professor uses sewing to empower LGBTQ youth

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A Healing Lens

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Inside the ��«����Ƶ Reporting Lab

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Inside the ��«��Ƶ Reporting Lab