Achievements

Students and Faculty: 2007

Four students receive summer research grants
Allison Schlobohm, senior with a double major in Communication and English, was one of four students from the Division of Language and Literature to earn a Summer Research Grant. Alongside Gina Cook and Emily Murdock in English, and Jessica Gasch (news editor for the Index) in Linguistics, Ms. Schlobohm will receive two-thousand dollars to begin original, archival research. Ms. Schlobohm's innovative project will engage educational resources designed by international health agencies to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS in African nations. Ms. Schlobohm plans to use the summer for archival research at John Hopkins University. Under the tutelage of Assistant Professor Leslie A. Hahner, Ms. Schlobohm will culminate her research with a scholarly essay and a presentation at the 2008 Student Research Conference.
 

Becker and Reininger named Top Editing Prospects
Junior Nathan Becker from Pacific, Mo. and senior Alan Reininger from Wentzville, Mo., competed in the annual copy-editing internship sponsored by the Dow Jones Newspaper fund. The fund named them as top editing prospects for internships during the summer of 2007.
 

Musko Named New Public Relations Intern
The Public Relations Office has announced senior Communication Studies major Erin Musko as its intern for the spring semester.

As the intern, she will assist in the writing, producing and distributing of the University newsletter, Truman Today, as well as posting it online. She will also be responsible for editing the calendar on Channel 36, writing press releases, and performing various office duties.

Musko's interest in written communication and obtaining experience in other communication outlets has led her to this position.   --Truman Today

 
Bauer Receives Director's Award for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Research
Elizabeth Bauer, a junior communication and English double major from Wardsville, Mo., was awarded the Director's Award for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Research for her paper "West Java Forestry: Conflicting Ideologies of Sustainable Forestry."
Read full story...

Student Media
Student media leaders selected for 2007-2008
The Truman Student Media Board has selected the student media leaders for the 2007-2008 academic year.  The new leaders are: Jessica Wright, KTRM general manager; Alicia Collins, Detours editor in chief; Nathan Becker, Index editor in chief; and Andrew Richmond, executive producer of News36.

KTRM and Truman Media Network Win MBEA Awards

The efforts of TSU students have been recognized by the Missouri Broadcast Educators Association during the MBEA annual student conference and awards banquet in April 2007.  The Truman Media Network took first place in the convergence media category for coverage of the 2007 general election.  The KTRM News At Five won a Honorable Mention for Best Radio Newscast.  KTRM News Director Kyle Hill accepted the awards on behalf of Truman State.

 

This is the second consecutive year that Detours, Truman’s regional travel magazine, has won the Apple Award in the general interest category.

The competition pitted the publication against more than 30 student publications from across the United States, including colleges of every size.

The publication entered its latest issue, Winter 2007, in the competition. Copies of this issue can be picked up outside the Center for Student Involvement.

The Index, Truman’s weekly student-produced newspaper, won the Apple Award for best four-year nondaily broadsheet newspaper.

This is the fourth time in five years the Index has received this honor, beating out newspapers from across the country. Judges looked at various criteria when determining the winner including news judgment, journalistic quality, quality of writing, variety and diversity of news, photography and layout and design.
Read full story...  --Truman Today

Index Named Best in State at Missouri College Media Association Conference
Several Truman students traveled to the Missouri College Media Association (MCMA)'s annual convention April 7-8 in St. Louis. Truman's weekly newspaper, the Index, took home top honors at the convention, including being named Best in State across all divisions and winning first place in the Best Overall Newspaper category for Division 2 schools.

The annual MCMA journalism awards are judged by the Missouri Press Association. Students from the Index were honored for their work in many areas, earning several awards. 
Read full story...  --Truman Today



Communication Week 2007 "Night at the Museum" Enlightens and Entertains



Communication students decorated hallways, designed posters, and organized special events to celebrate communication and to inform others of what we do and love.  Dr. Barry Poyner's Advanced Public Speaking Class hosted "Night at the Museum," in which great speakers of the 20th century came to life!  Class members chose speakers from the "Top 100 List" on www.americanrhetoric.com.  Members performed sound bytes, talked about the rhetorical situation, and reported on what was rhetorically splendid in the speech.  That same evening Dr. J. Michael Sproule, National Communication Association President, presented a lecture on the DNA of Our Opinions.  Dr. Poyner, oratory judge for the Lincoln Contest, awarded monetary prizes to the first place winner, Whitney Johnson and tied second place finishers, Liz Esfeld, and Kaleb Denief.


  Dr. Sproule addresses TSU students        Cast of characters: 20th century great speakers
  and faculty during a Communication
  Week assembly

Forensics

Debaters Reach "Sweet 16" at Nationals, Rank 8th Nationally for Season
Truman's eight-year streak of national elimination-round competition in debate was maintained by 12 members of the Truman Forensic Union at the National Parliamentary Debate Association (NPDA) National Championships held March 24-27 at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Ore.
Read full story...  --Truman Today
 

Forensics Team Captures Multiple Honors at National Conference
 Three Truman students had stellar performances at the Delta Sigma Rho-Tau Kappa Alpha national forensics honorary's annual national conference, held March 3-5, at the University of Houston.
Read full story...  --Truman Today

Truman Forensic Team Captures Multiple Championships at State Tournament
Fourteen members of the Truman Forensic Union brought the full force of the team’s preparation to Drury University in Springfield, Mo., Feb. 17-19, for the Missouri Association of Forensic Activities’ annual State Championship Tournament. Truman captured four individual state championships and qualified one student for the prestigious Interstate Oratorical Contest. The squad brought home a total of 26 different awards.
Read full story...  --Truman Today

Faculty
Smith to present broadcast history paper at Kansas State Symposium
The Great Plains Radio History Symposium has selected a paper authored by Dr. Mark Smith for presentation on September 21, 2007, at Kansas State in Manhattan.  Smith's paper, "Radio Silence, WJAG and the Impact of WW II Battery and Tube Shortages," traces the chronic shortages of radio accessories endured by rural radio listeners in northeast Nebraska, an area where Smith was born and raised.  The Symposium selected Smith's paper from among entries submitted nationwide by radio historians.  Elements of Smith's research have been incorporated into his classes at Truman State.


TSU professor presents paper on health communication
TSU Associate professor, Diane Tobin Johnson and her colleague, Teresa Hartman, head of the Education Department at the McGoogan Library of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center, participated in a panel entitled “Patient as Expert: Revolutionary Changes in Medical Decision Making” at the annual conference of the Medical Library Association in Philadelphia in May 2007.  Their paper was based on qualitative assessment of webblogs written by cancer patients and their families and was titled “A Personal Weapon in the War on Chronic Illness: Expert Patients and Their Use of Health Information.”


    Second from left: Dr. Diane Tobin Johnson, Truman State

TSU professor elected to broadcast organization
Dr. Mark Smith, assistant professor of communication, has been elected President of the Missouri Broadcast Educators Association for a two-year term beginning in 2007.  The MBEA is comprised of more than a dozen colleges and universities committed to providing industry opportunities to faculty and honoring both faculty and students for quality broadcast productions in their respective departments.  A major focus of the MBEA is the annual student conference, which Dr. Smith is planning for June 2008 in Kansas City in conjunction with the annual Missouri Broadcasters Association convention.

Dr. Smith on break--summer 2007
   Chimney Rock, Bayard, NE

Family communication dissertation nearly complete
Micelle Kleine, a TSU communication instructor, is wrapping up her doctoral dissertation that focuses on communication between spouses after the revelation that one of them has engaged in infidelity.  In addition, Ms. Kleine and her husband have welcomed a new arrival to their family: a son, who joins two brothers at home.


NY Times reporter subject of scholarly paper
Dr. Karon Speckman, a TSU journalism professor, has aimed her scholarly focus on a newspaper reporter who became the subject of news reports for refusing to reveal her sources to government prosecutors.  The case study entitled "The New York Times and Judith Miller: When a Reporter Becomes the Story" will be published in a 2008 edition of Media Ethics, Issues and Cases.  

In addition, Speckman has completed scholarly paper with the assistance of Truman student, Kalen Ponche (a 2007 graduate).  The paper was named "Top Faculty Paper" in the Visual Communication division of the Association for Education and Mass Communication annual August conference in DC.  The paper examined online political cartoons.
 

Faculty present/publish radio study
Dr. Mark Smith and Dr. Elizabeth Clark have co-authored a study that examines the availability of Issues and Programs Lists in Missouri radio station Public Files.  The two Truman communication professors presented their results during the annual Broadcast Education Association in Las Vegas in April 2007, and the study has been accepted for publication in Journal of Radio Studies.  Because teaching is the major focus at Truman, the authors have taken their results to the classroom with a presentation to a Principles of Communication course as an example of scholarly research.  Finally, the study will benefit the radio industry from a summary published in the September 15, 2007, edition of the trade publication Radio World.

         Dr. Elizabeth Clark

For more achievements, check the archive.