Hello everyone and welcome to our monthly Good News outlet. 2022 has officially arrived and we’ve already gone full swing into the new year!

Alumni

• The award winning, Emmy nominated television host and Ball State alumnus, Brandon Pope, spoke to our Ball State community January 18th, in honor of MLK Day.
• Ball State graduate Kaitlyn Helmer ’17 and Marcy Meyer, an Associate Professor of Communication Studies, have just been accepted for publication of a Book Chapter they co-authored.

Students

• Ball State Daily News editor Taylor Smith, will have a workshop with editing students.
• J234 students are partnering with Muncie OUTreach and Oakwood Center this semester to help build their advertising and marketing skills; advised by Associate Lecturer of Media Design, Leo Caldwell. 
• Three teams have developed projects in Kevin Moloney‘s immersive learning courses that are being deployed with Digital Corps — a BSU Unsung Heroes nomination platform, a secure communication platform for Muncie OUTreach, and an NFT release plan for the Remnant Trust. 
• Betsy Pike and her students have reached the Post-Production Stage of the short documentary, “Unstoppable: Tiara Thomas.” Be on the look-out for its release!
• Daily News, Byte, and Ball Bearings have all been named Crown winners from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA)! 
• Mike Gerhard‘s students have developed a code of ethics for the new Esports program. 
• Daily News students are producing, for the third consecutive year, the Partnership Product Special Edition which tells the stories of Muncie Schools.
• Students in Robert Brookey’s TCOM 308 class, Exhibition and Distribution, met with WTHR/13 to refresh their brand for their Streaming Services application and content for the 18 to 34 demographic. 
• Information Design II (J241) students, advised by Brian Hayes, are partnering with 3 different community organizations to develop print, digital, and social media marketing materials for their organizations. 
  
• Students from the J322 course in 2021, partnered by The Facing Project, wrote a book that’ll be published in 2022, “Facing Social Justice in Sports”. It has national & international representation of NFL players and volleyball Olympians!
• Stan Sollars‘ TCOM 433 Cinema Post-Sound class  is doing sound effects for Professor Brad Condie’s CFA animation class this semester on a short film about the alphabet!
• 10 students are working with The State of Indiana to study cameras in the courtroom, alongside Terry Heifetz and Lisa Renze Rhodes.
• Kelly Siler’s TCOM 345 class (Advanced Media Promo) created a professional tips and etiquette handbook, specifically geared toward our Music Media Production (MPM) students.
• Seven students in Rich Swingley’s class, worked on an independent film with a local Producer, Terry Marsh. The film has now won several national awards and been show at several major film festivals — including Heartland Film Festival.  
• Graduate assistants and Teacher-Scholar undergraduate students, along with the Associate Professor of Journalism, Robin Blom, are starting to collect data for an eye-tracking study on eyewitness misidentification caused by journalistic questions.  

CCIM Units

• On January 12th, Ball State University and Daleville Community Schools announced a unique partnership in which esports student-athletes from both institutions will work together to form a meaningful educational and extracurricular experience. As part of this one-year agreement, Ball State will host students from Daleville Jr.-Sr. High School at its new Esports Center—located within the University’s Robert Bell Building—to engage in esports games, practices, and competitions. Daleville students will also benefit from coaching and instruction from Ball State Esports student-athletes and the program’s director and varsity head coach, Dan Marino.
• CICS has officially been been moved into the top 20 of US News & World Report rankings for 2022!
• Sports Link’s after school initiative with Muncie Champions has culminated to new heights this month.
  • Kate Elliot received a grant to pay for 8Twelve Newsletters, which students filled with great stories.
  • Graduate students are set to attend 5 training sessions with various 8Twelve organizations this Spring.
• A new website, DiscoverMuncie.com, which has been built by a student at the McKinley Avenue Agency, is soon to be released that will help attract new talent to Muncie.
• McKinley Avenue Agency’s sales team has exceeded their monthly sales goal every month since the start of the fiscal year.
• The Department of Media and Music Media ATMOS Production facility will be ready for testing in March. Dr. Christoph Thompson and Stan Sollars will be teaching respective students about immersive audio in the facility, housed in the Music Media Production (MMP) listening room. 
• Ball State Daily News is expanding their recruitment pool by working with high schoolers, assigning them stories that then get published!

Faculty and Staff

• Kate Elliot, a Lecturer of Journalism and Coordinator of the Magazine Concentration, was recently awarded the Athena Young Professional Award, which celebrates an emerging leader who demonstrates excellence. Well done, Kate!
• Heather Hunt, the WIPB Program Manager at Ball State, completed her Master of Arts in EMDD. Congrats, Heather!
• Beth Messner, an Associate Professor of Communications, is teaching a new transdisciplinary course for VBC entitled “Storytelling across Cultures and Disciplines” and a new course entitled “Intergroup Dialogue” (COMM 100) – check it out! 
• Staff Council collected over $1700 for Adopt a Family and distributed 250+ gifts.
• Dr. Adam Berland, an Associate Professor of Geography, partnered with MAP, IUPUI’s Office of Sustainability, and the Environmental Resilience Institute, to create Sustainability Stories — a cross-College project. The project should debut GIS-map in April 2022!
• Dom Caristi‘s new book, Communication Law: Practical Applications in the Digital Age, 3d edition, Routledge has been published. 
• Shoot for Good Muncie was brought into the recently revamped, Advanced Visual Storytelling Capstone experience (JOUR437), as an immersive planning project. Martin Smith-Rodden is using the opportunity to introduce students to Continuous Improvement/Team management and cross functional teams.
• As part of Edward Lazaros’ quarterly million dollar externally funded Workplace Specialist Training Program grant, CICS has interviewed teachers, administrators, and IDOE staff.  The interviews represent over 1,000 years of collective experience.  The experiences shared in the interviews will benefit the alternatively licensed teachers that CICS trains as part of the Workplace Specialist Training Program for the State of Indiana. 
• Scarlett Hester, an Associate Professor of Communication Studies has been elected for the NCA Nominating Committee. Congratulations!
• Lisa Renze Rhodes became the 2022 Indy Pro SPJ Chapter President. She’s also presenting at the Indiana High School Press Association and the National Scholastic Press Association as she serves on the State SPJ board.
• David Hua is currently working with the Delaware County Prosecutors Office and Sheriffs Department to develop internships with their High Tech Crimes Unit. David has also reached the final round of a Discovery Grant to establish a near-peer mentoring program for Muncie high schools and Ivy Tech students to help them navigate the application process to Ball State. 
• Terry Heifetz is serving on IASB board, talking up CCIM programs with high school instructors around the state. 
• Betsy Pike is developing a course titled “Media and the Creative Process” (MDIA 115). It’s open for all incoming media-majors and shares the basics of media creation, allowing students to get to know their own creative process!
• Brian Hayes is developing a high school summer seminar where students can participate in a college-wide, on-campus, overnight workshop while earning BSU college credit! 
• Kirsten Smith is conducting professional development webinars for current graduate students with alumni who share experiences, roles, job leads, etc. 
• Robert Brookey is directing the BEA Research Symposium on the Streaming Wars. 
• Leo Caldwell and Natalee Seely are working with Gannett to implement transgender training across their newsroom. They are also potentially doing a content analysis of their coverage of the transgender community.  

Upcoming Events and Deadlines

• Minnetrista is hosting a kick-off celebration for Black History Month on February 5th at 10am. One of our faculty members, Beth Messner, is a member of the MLK Dream Team at Minnetrista and has helped plan the event!
• Come out and support Dean Turner in the Dean’s Shoot Out on February 15th in Worthern Arena at 7PM!  Dean’s with students from their college will race to shoot the most free throws for half time activities. Bring your friends, wear your CCIM shirt, and cheer on the College of Communication, Information, and Media!
• The Ball State University Student Symposium challenges students to present a creative or scholarly project while competing for scholarship awards and gaining valuable insight from faculty and staff judges.
  • The Student Symposium will take place on Tuesday, April 12, 2022, on campus at Worthen Arena from 1–4 p.m. The Ball State community and the general public are invited to attend to browse the presentations.
  • Registration will run throughout February 2022. The symposium team will send out a link to the registration form and a list of guidelines at a later date. All entries will require the support of a faculty mentor.
• The “Women Working in Technology Conference: Resilience” was held virtually in support of all diverse people in technology. Produced by the Center for Information and Communication Sciences (CICS) and supported by their alumni and tech organizations it was a day reflecting the WWiT goals to connect, educate, and inspire this and the next generation of women and all diverse people in technology.  Most of the sessions were led by CICS alumni such as Krista Ewing, Kaitlin Franke, Katie Meloche, and Kasia Majkowski and the Closing Keynote was alumna Karen Mangia, VP Customer & Market Insights, Salesforce.
  • Register for the Friday, February 25 Virtual 2022 Women Working in Technology Conference:  Resilience
  • Join one of our upcoming information sessions:
    • Thursday, February 17 at 12 p.m. EST Register
    • Thursday, February 17 at 7 p.m. EST Register
• Sunshine Week is back the week of March 21st! This national initiative of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Reporters Committee celebrates and maintains awareness of the importance of access to public information necessary to maintain an informed citizenry.
• The 100th anniversary of the Ball State Daily News will be celebrated with an Open House-type event on March 31, 2022. Please come down and celebrate with us! They also secured a proclamation from the Statehouse to mark the occasion!
• The Vernon C. Schranz Distinguished Lectureship in Public Relations, the nation’s first endowed public relations lectureship, is proudly hosted by Ball State University’s School of Journalism and Strategic Communication.Join us March 30, 2022 as we celebrate the work of the nationally recognized Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations at the University of Alabama. Plank Center Director Dr. Karla Gower is our keynote speaker and the Plank Center’s founding director, Dr. Bruce Berger, will be honored with our National Public Relations Achievement Award.Follow this link to register and learn more details.
• Ball State’s renowned journalism conference is growing! CCIM’s JDay+ will feature all the things you’ve grown to love about this one-day, in-person workshop, but will now include even more hands-on, engaging sessions taught in collaboration with Ball State’s Emerging Media Design and Development, eSports, the Department of Media, Communication Studies and the Center for Information and Communication Sciences! More info is coming soon, but until then, save the date for April 29th, 2022.

Volunteer Opportunities

• Attend a game: Not many parents and friends are able to make games at 3:15 p.m. Come cheer on the girls during one of the following contests (masks required inside school buildings):
  • Tuesday, Feb. 1, at 3:15 p.m., West View Elementary, 3401 W. Gilbert St. 
  • Thursday, Feb. 3, at 3:15 p.m., Longfellow Elementary, 1900 E. Centennial Ave.
  • Tuesday, Feb. 8, at 3:15 p.m., Grissom Elementary, 3201 S. Macedonia Ave.
  • Thursday, Feb. 10, at 3:15 p.m., West View Elementary, 3401 W. Gilbert St. 
  • Tournament TBD: February 15/17, 22/24 (if available, email kelliott@bsu.edu, and she will share details when she get them).
• Send an encouraging message: These girls are working hard to learn this new skill. Let’s motivate them with encouraging messages, quotes, etc. Email or text (765-283-6946) videos or messages. Consider one of the following:
  • Take a quick video of your class cheering on the West View All-Stars.
  • Record a short video of you sharing a quote or encouraging words. 
  • Ask a student-athlete in one of your classes to record a short, motivational video message.
  • Email kelliott@bsu.edu a message or a handwritten note via campus mail, and she will share it with the team.
• Snacks: About 15 girls are on the team, and 12 or so of them never have snacks after school. “We don’t have food at home,” a few of them told me yesterday. I am bringing extra granola bars or crackers, etc. to practice, but if you are at the store this week and want to grab a bag of pretzels, granola bars, fruit snacks, cracker packs, etc. … Kate will gladly bring them to after-school games and practices.
• Contact Kate Elliott for more details about volunteering with Muncie Community Schools or the 8Twelve Coalition.
• Currently, West View Elementary is looking for student, faculty, and staff volunteers to help in various ways:
  • 90-minute reading blocks
  • Monitor lunch room (10:40am-1pm)
  • Substitute teachers (paid)
• If you are interested in volunteering with Muncie Community Schools, you must be vaccinated, masked, and approved by Safe Hiring Solutions.
• Speak as a representative for the College of Communication, Information and Media at Ball State’s Preview Days. Contact Brea Cunningham (brea.cunningham@bsu.edu) for more information.
  • Upcoming Spring 2022 Preview Days
    • Saturday, March 19th, 2022
    • Saturday, April 23rd, 2022

What to Watch

Did you know?

• Did you know that for the past 27 years, the Student Symposium has encouraged interdisciplinary discourse, allowing students to learn from each other about the topics that are most engaging to them? The symposium also provides an opportunity to discuss work with a broader audience than what is usually found in the classroom!

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