Two VCU PR students receive scholarships from PRSA Richmond

The Richmond Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America announced that two VCU mass communications students have been named as recipients of the Richmond Public Relations Foundation scholarships. Shana Bernabela and Cassie Ann Williams, both seniors majoring in PR, were recognized at the November 28 PRSA membership luncheon. Each received a $1,000 check.

Bernabela is the winner of the Bill Dietrick Memorial Scholarship.

The Newport News native has completed five internships including ones with Warner Music Group, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and Average Girl Magazine. She maintains a 3.4 GPA and plans to pursue a career in New York City in the entertainment PR industry after her May 2008 graduation.

Williams is the winner of the David Hurdle scholarship.

A double major (her second major is Spanish), she maintains a 3.0 overall GPA. She serves as treasurer of VCU’s PRSSA chapter. Among her accomplishments are a semester studying abroad in Seville, Spain. The Danville native will graduate in May 2008 and hopes to pursue a graduate degree in the VCU Strategic PR Program.

The Richmond Public Relations Foundation solicited scholarship applications from students attending numerous other area colleges and universities offering a PR curriculum including the University of Richmond, Virginia Union University, Virginia State University, Longwood University and Randolph Macon College.

Rhoda Weiss, chair and CEO of the Public Relations Society of America, will meet with VCU students

Don’t miss this opportunity to personally meet Rhoda Weiss, APR, Fellow PRSA, on Wednesday, November 28. Weiss will be available 10:15 to 11 a.m., and will meet with students in Temple 2211.

As PRSA’s chair and CEO, she leads the 32,000 members of PRSA, the world’s largest organization of public relations professionals and students. She also is president of Rhoda Weiss and Associates in Santa Monica, Ca.

For more than 30 years, Weiss has been a nationally recognized health care executive and communicator.

During her career, she has traveled more than six million miles speaking and consulting with more than 700 organizations across the country.

She has authored more than 300 journal articles and a book, Managing Health Care Reform: Ideas from Leaders. She has been a UCLA public relations extension faculty member for 23 years and is a PhD student in leadership and change.

Rhoda Weiss is the recipient of dozens of honors, including several lifetime achievement awards for her contributions to the profession.

Her client list includes the top U.S. health systems and hospitals, including national and regional health systems; academic, community and teaching hospitals; aging programs; military and veteran's health; home care, hospice, and ambulatory settings; physician organizations; health plans; behavioral health, specific-disease organizations, and much more.

Get December '07 graduation details here

You've worked hard, and the time has finally come to graduate! Get the details you need here:

http://www.has.vcu.edu/mac/index-DecemberGraduationDetails.html

Student Work / School of Mass Comm in the news

Check out these links to articles published by Mass Comm students, and articles that feature VCU's School of Mass Communications:

http://www.has.vcu.edu/mac/student_work-MC_in_the_news.html

Mac Lab: Special Thanksgiving hours

Special Thanksgiving Hours: The Mac lab will have regular hours through Tuesday Nov. 20. It will be closed from Wednesday Nov. 21 thru Sat. Nov. 24. The lab will re-open on Sunday Nov. 25 at noon.

The VCU CreateAthon onCampus team is taking applications from nonprofits: Deadline is Nov. 20

The VCU CreateAthon onCampus team invites you to encourage your favorite nonprofit organization to submit an application for our Spring 2008 creative blitz event. Any 501(c)3 organization in need of marketing materials to help their socioeconomic cause can apply. The application deadline is Nov. 20.

WHAT IS CreateAthon onCampus? CreateAthon onCampus will be a 24-hour, work-around-the-clock creative blitz during Spring Break, 2008. During this event, VCU Mass Communication students will produce marketing and creative services for selected area non-profits. Each student team will be partnered with local advertising, design or marketing professionals who will mentor the students’ work, ensuring high-quality and effective materials.

CreateAthon onCampus is the student expansion of RIGGS’ national CreateAthon event. This annual program is a 24-hour creative blitz for professional agencies held in September. During CreateAthon, advertising agencies across the country generate marketing and advertising services for their area nonprofits on a pro-bono basis.

TO APPLY OR GET MORE INFORMATION, HAVE NONPROFITS visit www.createathononcampus.org, or email Peyton Rowe, prowe@vcu.edu

Ad Photography Class

Master the power of visual communications. This new course is all about making better photos for advertising. This is a hands-on course where you’ll create images that help communicate something about a brand. You’ll study the work of accomplished commercial photographers and visit a commercial photo studio.

There will be a lot of picture taking. Access to and working knowledge of a digital camera is required. The class meets once a week for 10 weeks and is worth one credit.

Details:

• MASC-491 Section 005
• tue 2:00 – 3:15
• registration call number 21019
• prof. scott sherman
• sfsherman@vcu.edu

Looking to the Future

By Henry Bellows

If there is one thing about mass media today that everyone agrees on it is the fact that it’s changing. And changing quickly.

“It is the wild, wild west of the information age,” according to Dick Robertson, a 1967 VCU graduate who is now a senior adviser to Warner Brothers Television and chair of the School’s Advisory Board. Robertson held up his I Phone to demonstrate his point.

“There is no better time to go into this business,” he said. “The access is no longer controlled. The Internet has liberated it. It has leveled the playing field and you are now empowered,” Robertson told an audience of students and faculty.
Robertson and other members of the School’s Advisory Board participated in a panel discussion on future of content delivery systems – particularly cell phones.

From one end of the table to the other, each member talked about how cell phone technology is evolving. To start the discussion, moderator Prof. Marcus Messner, gave research results from a large class this semester that showed 99 percent of students have cell phones, while only 77 percent have a television and only seven percent read a newspaper daily.

Harnessing potential revenue from selling information through the hand-held device is something Reid Ashe is interested in as chief operating officer of Media General. “Location-specific information seems to be a potential revenue source,” Ashe said. He talked about serving real estate or restaurant customers with “short code” technology which could provide cell phone users with individual data about a house or which restaurants have no waiting.

Frank Batten, Jr., chair and CEO of Landmark Communications, Inc. said at the moment the cell phone is a “walled garden” controlled by the carriers, but that control is changing rapidly as more companies use the technology to provide Web access.

For Mass Comm alumnus Derek Meyer, life tastes good

The 2001 slogan for Coca-Cola has new meaning for Derek Meyer, VCU Mass Comm class of 2007. After graduating last spring, he entered Florida State University to pursue his MFA in filmmaking. Recently he was selected as one of ten finalists to produce a 50-second film about Diet Coke. He joins talented filmmaking students from USC, FSU, Chapman University, Columbia University and New York University, the homes of the winners of the last five “Coca-Cola Refreshing Filmmaker’s Awards.”

Created in 1998, Coca-Cola invites students from participating film schools across the country to submit entries of original scripts and storyboards. Ten finalists are selected, receiving $7,500 to produce a 50-second film to be viewed before the featured showing at certain theatres across the nation. Winners also receive $10,000.

Once submitted, the films are then reviewed by the “Red Ribbon Panel of Judges” that includes actors such as Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, along with screenwriters, directors, and entertainment executives. The winning film is shown in more than 21,000 movie theaters for four to eight weeks.

We’re pulling for you, Derek. Make it real!

Skunkworks: Design the future of media

Register for HONR 398-705 (Call No. 20945) for Spring 2008

skunk·works: A small, loosely structured research and development unit or subsidiary formed to foster innovation.

That’s what HONR-398 (‘Skunkworks for Media Innovation’) is all about. We’ll develop prototypes for innovative media products. Our partner in this course is Media General, which owns newspapers, TV stations and Web sites throughout the Southeast.

What kind of prototypes? Well, maybe:

• a Web-based solution to help match college students with the right employers
• a politcal mega-site bout the 2008 presidential elections- a "Rock the Vote" for Virginia
• an online sound stage where local bands introduce themselves--and users can remix their music
• a self-service tool that lets small businesses design their own newspaper ads.

For this course, we need creative thinkers and resourceful problem solvers. You'll work with faculty from VCU's School of Mass Communications and leaders from Media General to generate ideas--and make them reality. The course will meet on Mondays & Wednesdays from 2 to 3:15 p.m. Forget sitting at a computer table or being crammed into a lecture hall; the class will meet at The Work Factory, a few blocks from campus (1113 W. Main), in a space where you can let your creative juices flow.

Need more information? Contact Mass Comm faculty members:

• Scott Sherman: 827-3777 sfsherman@vcu.edu
• Jeff South: 827-0253 jcsouth@vcu.edu
  
  

MASC 491: Nonprofit Project Development

Do you want real life experience for your portfolio? Do you want to work with advertising professionals? Do you need a MASC elective? Are you interested in working with nonprofits.
Enroll in MASC 491 Special Topics: Nonprofit Project Development. Classes are being held Tuesday/Thursday 9:30 - 10:45 a.m. The class will discuss issues relevant to nonprofit projects, have guest speakers from the nonprofit and advertising sectors, and follow through with the production of creative work during its CreateAthon onCampus.

VCU's CreateAthon onCampus is a 24-hour, work-around the clock creative blitz. Students will be producing work for local nonprofits while working alongside with local agencies. They will be able to develop problem-solving skills across multiple disciplines while earning the rewards of providing services and talents to worthy nonprofit organizations.CreateAthon onCampus will be held Spring 2008.Work produced and used by the nonprofits can go into a student’s portfolio.

If you have any questions about the class visit the class website or contact Professor Peyton Rowe.

Real news. Real bylines. Real fast-paced.

For Spring 2008, consider taking MASC 475 - Capital News Service. You’ll cover the General Assembly, the governor and issues that affect millions of Virginians: health care, education, roads, public safety, taxes, the state budget. You’ll work for a news service that publishes stories in more than 60 newspapers throughout Virginia. You’ll collect terrific clips for landing a job after graduation. And you’ll rub shoulders with other reporters and with government officials.Interested? Contact Associate Professor Jeff South in Temple 1149-B, or at 827-0253.

More interested in editing than reporting?Try the MASC 491 course “CNS Editing.”You will fact-check, edit and distribute CNS stories – and help manage our wire service. You might even produce a weekly newsletter and update the CNS Web site. For more information, contact Mary Ann Owens in Temple 1110 or at 334-2393.

Learn more about the Capital News Service here.