Miami Student Media
Studying Journalism at Miami University
Miami University’s Journalism Program has a strong commitment to professional training across all media and to liberal arts education. Our emphasis is on educating students broadly as capable writers and critical thinkers. Our faculty grounds students in basic reporting, interviewing, storytelling and editing skills for print, electronic and digital media. Many classes produce stories for regional media to give students professional experience, along with internships and study-abroad experiences. Learn more about the Journalism Program.
Journalism Graduates Launch Diverse Careers
Twenty-nine Journalism majors graduated on chilly May 11.
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About half of the Journalism majors - who must double major at Miami - had landed jobs or been accepted to graduate programs. Many who were seeking journalistic positions were still in the throes of interviews or hunts.
Peruse the list of 29 May 2013 and five December 2012 Journalism major graduates.
Journalism Major Wins Miami's Great Seal Contest
Amanda E. Hancock, a Journalism and English Literature double major, on May 8, 2013, won the Grand Prize in Miami's Great Seal Writing Contest. It challenged students to write about the wisdom they have gained from the university’s heritage that they most would like to pass on.
The Grand Prize Essay will be inscribed on a book in the full-size replica of Miami's Great Seal that will be embedded in the rotunda floor of the new Armstrong Student Center. The center is scheduled to open in 2014.
Hancock, a sophomore from Lexington, Ky., was one of 84 students who entered essays. She wrote in her We, On a Path to Wisdom essay about the arc of uncertainty as a Miami freshman to confidence in facing the future as a graduating senior, using Robert Frost's poetic descriptions of Miami's bucolic campus as a metaphor.
Meanwhile, senior Olivia Kerrigan, a Mass Communication major, won the senior prize in the same contest, which recognized winners at each grade level.
Read Hancock's essay. Read Kerrigan's essay.
Ten Students Win Prizes; 5 Elected to Phi Beta Kappa
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More than $28,000 in scholarships and prizes were awarded to Miami University Journalism students May 2, 2013, at the annual Journalism Program Recognition Event.
Journalism faculty and students also honored Associate Professor John Lowery, who is retiring this month after decades of teaching journalism at Miami.
Among the awards honoring student academic and journalistic success:
- The $1,800 Timothy J. Rogers Scholarship: Amanda Schumaker
- Memorial Tournament Scholarship Finalists: (not selected yet; $2,000 to two of four finalists) Emily Crane, Amanda Schumaker, Jenn Smola and Kelsie Walker.
- $1,000 Emily J. Cordes Scholarships: Emily Crane and Jenn Smola
- $2,000 Lawler-Galesse Scholarships: Victoria Slater and Kelsie Walker
- $500 Michael Kelly Prize: JM Rieger
- $1,400 Reid-Heckler-Gambrell Scholarships: Victoria Slater and Ashley VanBuskirk
- $1,000 Reid-Heckler-Gambrell Scholarship: Josh North
- $2,500 Global Initiatives Summer Student Abroad Credit Scholarship: Josh North
- $1,400 Scott Swanson Scholarship: Freshman Jessica Gould
- $6,128 Carl R. Greer/Andrew D. Hepburn Senior Prize in English: Emily Crane
Five Journalism seniors were recognized for being elected to Phi Beta Kappa, which honors the height of academic achievement over four undergraduate years. They are Ashleigh Achor, Lauren Ceronie, Amanda Grandjean, Colleen Rasa and JM Rieger.
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Generations of Miami journalism students have taken news, advanced storytelling and journalistic criticism courses with John Lowery. On May 2, Journalism Program Director Richard Campbell spoke to the dozens of students and faculty gathered about Lowery developing and directing the university’s first journalism program, and his many years running its highly successful internship program.
Download the PowerPoint event presentation.
Environmental Science Major Wins Writing Award
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Dominic D'Amico, a senior Zoology and Environmental Science double major at Miami, on May 1 won the English Department's Senior Prize for Outstanding Creative Work for a nature essay he penned in the new course Journalism 429/529 Environmental Communication.
D'Amico, who is from Garfield Heights, Ohio, wrote about a kayak trip he took off the coast of Cape Tribulation in Queensland, Australia. He encountered a saltwater crocodile and, while trying to appreciate its role in the ecosystem, could not help but remember the 1945 case in which more than 400 Japanese soldiers were killed by saltwater crocodiles lying in wait in the mangrove swamps of Ramree Island.
Miami's Environmental Communication course, offered for the first time in fall 2012 by Journalism professor Annie Blair, is designed to teach science majors how to communicate their work. The course is cross-listed with IES and English.
Miami Senior Journalism Major Wins SPJ Award
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JM Rieger, a senior at Miami majoring in journalism and political science, won a 3rd place writing award April 6, 2013, at the regional Society of Professional Journalists conference in Dayton, Ohio.
Rieger, a long-time Miami Student editor and sports commentator for WMSR radio, won for sports column writing, large student media category.
Hundreds of journalists and students from four states attended the conference at the University of Dayton. It featured panel discussions on ethics, post-war coverage, branding yourself as a journalist, open records issues and coverage of the rape case in Steubenville, Ohio. Peruse conference photos on Facebook. Visit the conference website.
Unique Course To Produce Freedom Summer Film
Miami history and filmmaking professors will teach a special topics course during 2013-'14 that takes students back to the 
summer of 1964 on campus, when Miami played an unusual role in the civil rights movement.
Over two semesters, students will produce a historical documentary that will air during the 50th Anniversary Freedom Summer Conference in fall 2014.
In June 1964, hundreds of people - mostly young and white - came to the Western College for Women (now part of Miami) for training before embarking on voter registration campaigns in Mississippi. They risked their lives for civil rights - in fact, not all survived.
COM/JRN 450Y Documenting Freedom Summer is open to all majors and requires no prior film production experience. It will be taught by Dr. Nishani Frazier and Kathy Conkwright. Download the flyer.
What They Learned: Capstone Students Talk About Covering Election 2012 for Enquirer
A Capstone in Journalism class provided real-time regional political news for The Cincinnati Enquirer during the fall 2012 elections.
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Thirteen members of the Capstone in Political Journalism class learned the theory of the niche journalism beat in class, then did political reporting for the region's largest daily media, The Enquirer. Their work ranged from writing local candidate profiles, to covering presidential campaign visits, to blogging regularly for Enquirer Politics Extra to shooting web videos on events and news.
Hear them talk about the experience in videos posted on Miami's College of Arts and Sciences web pages. The course was co-taught by Clinical Professor Annie-Laurie Blair and Enquirer Politics Editor Carl Weiser.
Miami University
College of Arts & Science
Journalism Program
Dr. Richard Campbell,
Director
201 Williams Hall
Oxford, Ohio 45056
(513) 529-7525
Email
Events
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Summer I term begins
May 20
Events Archive
News
- Patricia Gallagher Newberry, senior lecturer in journalism at Miami, was elected director of the Society of Professional Journalists Region 4 for 2012-13, and now serves on the SPJ national board.
- Adjunct Professor Barbara L. Morgenstern discussed media law protections for bloggers at the annual conference of the Journalism & Women Symposium in October 2012.
- American Copy Editors Society notes Miami Student coverage of 9/11.
- Slate article discusses Miami professor's research on Henry and Clare Luce.
- Wall Street Journal recognizes Miami professor's Wright Brothers book.