» (11/18/08) Graduate teaching assistants Melissa Kampa, Curtis Nash, Kate Sies, and Trevor Setvin's proposal, titled, "Get a...Second Life?: Integrating the Avatar and Second Life in the College Classroom and Campus," has been accepted for the 2009 Teaching and Learning Symposium, to be held on January 7, 2009, at the DoubleTree Conference Center in Bloomington.

» (11/17/08) Elizabeth Chupp, was awarded the top graduate student research paper award this past October at the Illinois Speech and Theater Association Conference. Her paper was entitled, “Critical Thinking as an Educational Tool: A Justification for the Revival of Speech and Thought Paradigm”.

» (11/17/08) Scott T. Makstenieks, of the College of Arts and Sciences, School of Communication, was a college winner of the James L. Fisher Outstanding Thesis Award Competition for his thesis entitled, “Apology For the Appalling: President George W. Bush’s Image Repair Responses To The Abu Ghraid Scandal”.

Suess

» (11/10/08) Steve Suess, the News and Sports Operations Director at WZND, Illinois State University’s student-run radio station, has been awarded first place in the Broadcast Education Association’s (BEA) National Public Service Announcement (PSA) Contest. Suess, a Mass Communication/Radio major from Reddick, IL, received his award from the National Association of Broadcasters Education Foundation on Nov. 7 during the Illinois Broadcasters Association Student Convention, which was held in the Bone Student Center on the ISU campus. Suess won first place in the radio division and received a $3,000 scholarship for his PSA

Anderson
Anderson

» Kyle Anderson, News and Sports Operations Director at WZND, has been given the Mark of Excellence Award by the Society of Professional Journalists. The story Anderson wrote, called the “Parade Wrap,” is about the 33rd Battalion coming home from active duty. Anderson was also the recipient of the 2008 Vicki Kelley Memorial Scholarship.

 

Haley Drucker, Rachel Johnson, and Joanna Styczen

CASNews interns complete assignment

(12/08/08) Three ISU students—Haley Drucker, Rachel Johnson, and Joanna Styczen—have completed a semester-long internship in the CASNews office. Drucker and Johnson completed their assignment as part of the requirement of the undergraduate Publishing Studies emphasis in the English Department. Styczen, a senior majoring in journalism, participated in fulfillment of the requirements for the School of Communication’s field experience program. The three interviewed faculty, staff, and students throughout the College and wrote many of the stories that appeared in CASNews. They also took photographs and mastered a number of computer programs as they produced 16 issues of CASNews containing over 100 stories.

» (11/10/08) ISU’s student run radio station, WZND, took home nine awards at the Illinois Broadcaster’s Association annual awards ceremony. These awards were won in the categories of Best Radio Aircheck, Best Radio Spot, Best Radio News Story, Best Radio Sports Story, Best Television or Radio Sales, and Best Radio or TV Promotion Campaign.
 
WZND was awarded all three nominations for Best Radio Spot, with John Swengel receiving first place for his “Watercooler Promo”, and third place for his commercial, “Culver’s”. Mark Long took home the second place award for his commercial for the Normal Public Library.
 
The News Department for WZND won two awards in the category of Best Radio News Story. ISU graduate, Kyle Anderson, won first place for his story, “33rd Comes Home”, and Justin Smith, won third place for his story, “ISU Vigil”.
 
WZND’s News and Sports Operation Director, Steve Suess, received second place for Best Radio News Story for his piece covering the ISU Women Basketball Team’s participation in the NCAA tournament entitled, “NCAA Wrap”.  
 
Best Radio Aircheck was awarded to Sarah Kritzman. The WZND Sales Department won third place for Best Radio or TV Sales Presentation. This department was headed by Mike Dotson and Noelle Korpela.
 
Ed Leiser and Stina Hodal won third place for Best Radio or TV Promotion Campaign for the Z106 “Gorilla Bike Bonanza”.

» (11/03/08) Mass Media senior and WZND veteran John Swengel won First Place-Radio Commercial for "Linden Street Grill" at the National Broadcasting Society Regional Convention in Omaha, Nebraska on October 25th. Region Five includes Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri,Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
John is a production intern at Connoisseur Media (BOB-FM, Magic 100.7, and 96.7 I-Rock) in Bloomington.

 

Speech

(11/10/08)The ISU Speech Team had an outstanding weekend at the 61st Annual LE Norton Invitational Tournament at Bradley University.  The team captured 4th place beating 44 teams from across the country including Arizona State University, University of Texas at Austin, Northwestern University, University of Wisconsin at Madison, University of Nebraska at Lincoln, and the University of Illinois.  
 
Comm Studies Senior Amara Thomas took 5th place in Pentathalon.  To be eligible in Pentathalon students must have five events entered in all three genres of public speaking (oral interp, public address and limited prep).  Of the hundreds of students entered in the tournament, only 40 were eligible for Pentathalon.  Amara took 5th place in After Dinner Speaking and 4th place in Poetry Interpretation.
 
Senior Ryan Henneberry was a semifinalist in Impromptu Speaking and Rhetorical Criticism and was Tournament Champion in Program Oral Interpretation (going straight 1's in every round).
 
Other team semifinalists were junior Mike Spinelli in Informative Speaking, sophomore Joe Cozza in Extemporaneous Speaking, and junior Clayton Sanders in Dramatic Interpretation.
 
Our freshmen also had notable accomplishments:  Blake Kelley earned 5th place in Novice Prose, Ethan Wallace took 2nd in Novice Informative Speaking and Ryan Cashman was Tournament Champion in Novice After Dinner Speaking.
 

Debate

The Illinois State Debate team travelled to Kansas City this past weekend to compete at its second tournament of the year.  The program built upon its strong success in its first tournament to bring home several individual awards.   Marlon Harris (Freshman, Business) was awarded fourth speaker and his partner Scott Siebert (Sophmore, Political Science) took home eighth place speaker honors.  Freshman Justin Lange (Biology) finished as the fourth place speaker in the first year division.

 Perhaps the most impressive honor was awarded to the team of Amanda Ams (Junior, Communication Education) and Stevie Anthony (Senior, Communication Studies).  The team was awarded the overall “Excellence in Competition” award.  This award is for the team that most exemplifies the principles of character, integrity, and competitive excellence as voted on by their peers.  The award is given to one team, and Amanda Ams and Stevie Anthony won the award in a division of 24 teams representing over a dozen Universities including Vanderbilt, Kansas State, Missouri State, Kansas, Southern Methodist University, and the University of Missouri – Kansas City.

 This year the students are debating about United States federal Government support to Agricultural programs.

f   a   g   d   s   h