NBC Correspondent Tom Costello (’87) delivered the JMC commencement keynote at Mackey Auditorium. You can see a recording of the commencement here.

The award-winning graduates and faculty are:

Outstanding graduate: Dana Elaine Anderson
Outstanding senior: Rachel Dubrovin
Outstanding faculty member (chosen by students): Brett Robbs
Ernie Pyle and Edward R. Murrow awards for teaching: Paul Daugherty and Elizabeth Skewes
William Payden  Award for Faculty Excellence: Nabil Echchaibi

A PDF of the JMC Commencements
May 2012 Recognition Ceremony Program

From all of us at Journalism & Mass Communication, congratulations on your upcoming graduation! Both the JMC recognition ceremony and the university commencement ceremony mark important milestones for you and your family, and we look forward to celebrating your achievements with you.

If you have any questions regarding your ability to graduate or your degree requirements, please meet with Jeanne Brown or Steve Jones as soon as possible. Their office hours are posted each week on their voice mail and outside their doors.

The JMC recognition ceremony will be held on Thursday, May 10, at 2 p.m. in Macky Auditorium. Please wear your cap and gown and arrive at Macky no later than 1:00 p.m.  Please advise your family and friends to arrive early as well, so they are provided with a wide variety of seating options.

This year’s speaker at Thursday’s JMC commencement is Tom Costello (’87), an NBC News correspondent based in Washington, D.C.  Costello reports for the NBC, MSNBC and CNBC. His beats include aviation and transportation. Earlier in his career, Costello spent six years at 9News in Denver.

Note: We will live stream the JMC Commencements. The live stream will be available here on the JMC’s website and on our Ustream channel during the ceremony (an archive copy will be available right away after the ceremony on the Ustream channel). If you are wielding a mobile device, there are Ustream mobile apps for iPhone, iPad, Android, and Android Tablet for watching the live stream. Guest Wifi access is available on campus.

Tickets are not required for your family and friends. However, if you need to request either special parking permits or handicapped seating, please email your request to Amy Belue, assistant to the director, at Amy.Belue@colorado.edu.

Regalia for the commencement ceremony may be purchased either in person or online from the CU Bookstore. Please be sure you receive a red tassel, which indicates you are a JMC graduate. For more information, please call the bookstore at 303-492-6411.

If you are graduating with honors or distinction, please pick up your medal from Dave Martinez in Armory Room 1B28 during the last week of classes.

JMC graduation announcements may be purchased from Vince Calvo in room 116B of the Armory for $1.50 each. University announcements and class rings may be purchased through the CU Bookstore’s online store.

Finally, to ensure that you receive your diploma, please update your permanent address at myCUinfo.

If you need further information, please call the JMC at 303-492-5007.

Once again, congratulations to the class of 2012!

Sincerely,

Rachel Dubrovin
President, Journalism Board
Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Colorado
Rachel.dubrovin@colorado.edu

The news-gathering team included 40 reporting students, broadcasters from CU’s NewsTeam Boulder and the staff of the student-run CU Independent.

The annual 4/20 marijuana smoke out has generated extra controversy this year with the decision by CU administrators to lock down the campus to outsiders in hopes of limiting the size of the event.

The JMC students’ 4/20 collaboration with the Camera and the Daily is only one of the program’s recent industry partnerships. JMC has recruited a dozen students for a student advisory board to the Daily and the Camera. Other students are creating content for a year-long web-based project about returning veterans spearheaded by The Denver Post.

CUIndependent
http://www.cuindependent.com/ 

NewsTeamBoulder
http://newsteamboulder.org/ 

4/20 Pinterest
http://pinterest.com/dnewskitchen/4-20-at-cu-boulder/

Mobile 420 Coverage on Ustream
Channel link: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/4-20-at-cu-boulder

Live video for mobile from Ustream

NewsTeamBoulder on Ustream

Stream videos at Ustream

4/20 Storify
http://storify.com/CUJournalism/an-unusual-contentious-4-20-at-cu-boulder

CoverItLive blogs:
4/20 CU coverage: Campus lockdown & protest

4/20 CU coverage – Wyclef Jean concert

The report is available at http://academicaffairs.colorado.edu/academicreview.

Moore noted that when the steering committee was formed in June 2011 he asked them to set forth a bold, transformative vision and that the committee had done so. The proposal — which Moore called “a starting point for a series of exciting discussions” — outlines a broad vision for a new college that incorporates disciplines ranging from journalism and mass communication, communication, social media and film studies to music, theatre and dance, art, art history, and experimental digital arts and technology.

The report says the new college will “advance creative practice and enhance public discourse at the intersections of arts, scholarship and civic life. Embracing approaches drawn from the social sciences, humanities, journalism, architecture and the arts, the college will address the theory, conception, creation, delivery and use of all forms of media content and artistic works.”

The report also recommends creation of a companion institute to the college, the mission of which will be “broadly interdisciplinary, including current and planned projects involving the design, development and application of information communication technology for the arts, humanities, social and behavioral sciences, natural and physical sciences, and the engineering disciplines.” The ATLAS (Alliance for Technology, Learning and Society) Institute could expand to fill the institute role, according to the report.

Moore noted that, among other things, the report moves forward the campus’s re-imagining of journalism education. Moore observed, “The journalism faculty have already made significant strides with the implementation of ‘Journalism PLUS.’ This college could create a rich technological and media environment in which our students could be exposed to the cutting edge of journalistic practice. And it would offer the kind of connection between professional training and broad education we have espoused.”

Moore also pointed out that this report goes well beyond the conversation on journalism to propose a campuswide engagement in these issues. “We will, of course, need to remain aware of the concerns of other programs. We need to remember that this is a report, not a decision, and we need to look to next steps.”  To that end, the provost will bring a panel of experts to campus to review the proposal, meet with a range of constituent groups and advise the administration on moving forward.

“I look forward to working with the faculty to think about the future of this proposal, and I hope to be able to make a recommendation to the chancellor as soon as possible,” Moore said.

Any proposal for a new college will need to go before the Board of Regents.

“I want to thank the ICJMT steering committee and its chair, Professor Andrew Calabrese of Journalism and Mass Communication, for their work in leading this visioning process. These are exciting, transformative ideas for CU-Boulder to consider,” Moore said.

-CU-

Contact:

Malinda Miller-Huey, assistant director of media relations, 303-493-3115
Andrew Calabrese, committee chair, 303-492-5374
Jeffrey Cox, assoc. vice chancellor for academic affairs, 303-492-5491

John Branch interviews former NHL player Todd Fedoruk in his home. Fedoruk was a friend of Derek Boogaard. Photo by Marcus Yam, New York Times

Journalism alum John Branch, a sports reporter for the New York Times, recently was named a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing.

Branch (MA ’96) was honored for his series about New York Rangers hockey player Derek Boogaard, whose death at age 28 stirred a debate about the dangers of fighting in hockey.

Branch spent six months interviewing dozens of Boogaard’s family members, friends and fellow hockey players. His print series in the Times, “Punched Out: The Life and Death of a Hockey Enforcer” was accompanied by online video and animations.

As a result of the story, USA Hockey and Hockey Canada are considering rules that would effectively end fighting in their junior leagues as soon as next season.

The Pulitzer judges named Branch a finalist “for his deeply reported story of Derek Boogaard, a professional hockey player valued for his brawling, whose tragic story shed light on a popular sport’s disturbing embrace of potentially brain-damaging violence.”

The winner of the feature-writing Pulitzer was Eli Sanders of The Stranger, a Seattle weekly. Sanders wrote about a woman who survived an attack that killed her partner.  In addition to Branch, the judges named a second finalist, Corinne Reilly of the Virginia Pilot in Norfolk, Virginia.

You can read Branch’s series here http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/sports/hockey/derek-boogaard-a-boy-learns-to-brawl.html?pagewanted=all. Read more about how Branch reported the series in the next edition of our alumni magazine, Bylines. Please send us an e-mail at Bylines@colorado.edu to subscribe.

Professors Stewart Hoover and Nabil Echchaibi of JMC’s Center for Media, Religion, and Culture will discuss worldwide religious issues during a quarterly show on Boulder’s community radio station, KGNU. Click to hear the first show and click here for the center’s website.

MEMO is open to all students of diverse backgrounds at Journalism & Mass Communication. The group assists students with applications to JMC, and with scholarship opportunities, career information and industry networking help. MEMO members also provide leadership and serve as mentors to incoming freshmen.
David Martinez, the Coordinator of Diversity and Inclusiveness at Journalism & Mass Communication advises MEMO students.
You can see a more information about the organization, here.

At election time, 17-year-old Anakary Valenzuela of Lafayette, Colo., sits with her grandfather — a man in his mid-60s who emigrated from Mexico decades ago — and pores over a mail-in ballot, providing Spanish translation and discussing the candidates and issues.

“It can take a while if I’m not familiar with an item,” Valenzuela says. “When I get stuck, my grandpa tells me, ‘It’s okay, miha,’ ” which is a Spanish term of endearment meaning little girl.

She Googles anything she’s not immediately able to explain, an act that comes naturally to Valenzuela through her propensity for media and information technology.

It also is a role that should have great meaning for political campaigns, according to a University of Colorado Boulder study showing that Latino adolescents serve as “civic information leaders” among immigrant families through their tendency to share knowledge from the classroom, media and information technology.

“If you really want to make a difference in promoting civic engagement among immigrant Latino families, don’t try to reach parents directly,” says Mike McDevitt, the study’s lead author and an associate journalism professor. “Instead, reach out to teens. This can trigger a trickle-up influence to their parents.”

The study recommends figuring out ways to preserve family cohesion, cultural identity and parental leadership while taking advantage of young Latinos’ leadership.

“For decades, political scientists and strategists have often ignored the family in tactics for promoting political participation or have viewed the family as a barrier, as a private domain that must be overcome,” McDevitt says. “The family is not something to overcome. It’s not a deficit; it’s a resource for political engagement.”

Yet most political candidates struggle to see the value of investing in young people who aren’t yet of voting age, according toSteve Fenberg (EnvSt’06), founder of New Era Colorado, a civic engagement organization. It’s a strategy they should rethink, he says.

“When it comes to Latino youth and issues that hit close to home, such as immigration and education, they’re extremely passionate and have some serious opinions,” says Fenberg. “These findings are one more indicator that reaching out to Latino teens is one of the most cost-effective things candidates can do. They may earn the loyalty of future voters who’ll also bring their family members along.”

The study was conducted primarily with Latino participants from the I Have a Dream Foundation of Boulder County who attend Centaurus High School in Lafayette, Colo. Surveys completed by 74 students served as the basis of four focus group discussions involving 53 students and parents. In addition, 12 students completed diaries tracking their media and information technology use over 48 hours.

The student participants, including Valenzuela, were surveyed on their use of media and information technology, measuring their consumption of traditional resources — radio, newspapers, magazines and television — and newer tools — the Internet, MP3 players, cell phones and texting.

They also were surveyed on their political views, activities and willingness to discuss civic issues in school and in family settings. Participants rated their willingness to listen to opponents, initiate discussions and to disagree, among other questions.

“Young Latinos have a steady pulse on news, government and politics, and it doesn’t stop at being in the know,” McDevitt says. “They involve themselves in matters they care about.

They deliberate with parents on how their life choices and career aspirations fit into their cultural identities, and this has a modeling effect among family members.”

This rings true for Valenzuela who has modeled civic participation as she has grown older. At age 12 she participated in a national walkout to support immigrant workers. In more re­­­­­cent years, she’s discussed her views on abortion and gay marriage with her grandfather. In the future, amid a culture that often emphasizes family unity over academics, she plans to be a pediatrician.

“It’s a lot of weight on your shoulders,” she says tearfully. “I feel I have a responsibility because I’m the oldest among my siblings. I’m the one who tells my parents what’s going on, like at school or if there’s news on immigration legislation, a war or a new president.”

She is regularly in touch with the world around her through school, the numerous student groups she follows on Facebook, her cell phone, bilingual news radio and television, online newspapers and music and film from the Internet.

Her level of connectedness sets her apart from the grandfather whom she helps to vote, as well as her immigrant parents, who tune into limited amounts of Spanish-language news in the scant time they have between the four jobs they hold, Valenzuela says.

In the construct of Latino teens as information leaders, however, a pitfall emerges when parental authority is perceived as undermined, according to the study.

“Family communication can be thwarted when Latino youth act as information leaders, changing the usual structure of authority,” McDevitt says. “But the upside is that these provocations can promote reciprocal influence in the family because parents want to keep up with their kids and retain a leadership role, particularly about controversial political issues.”

Meanwhile, young, media-savvy Latinos like Valenzuela are leading the way among their communities by helping immigrant family members assimilate culturally and engage civically.

“I love my grandpa,” Valenzuela says. “When I help him vote, I do it for him and my family. I think it’s really cool because it gives them a voice.”

This piece originally appeared in the December 2011 Coloradan magazine

The Journalism Job and Internship website is up and running!
Bookmark it- http://jmc.colorado.edu

New Internships and Jobs are added frequently.

Marketing and Public Relations Intern
Rose Medical Center is currently seeking a motivated and energetic intern to join the marketing and public relations department.

E-Commerce Intern
The Ecommerce intern will assist in the marketing and operation of the new outdoordivas.com website.

Design Strategy Intern
Egg Strategy, Inc. is a boutique brand strategy and innovation firm that partners with Fortune 500 clients to unleash the momentum inside their brands.

Production Assistant Job
KMTV-TV in Omaha, NE is seeking a full-time Production Assistant.

Remember… It’s not a job or internship, it’s an adventure!

Cheers!

Daniel Schaefer

JMC Communications Office