JOURNALISM EXPERIENCE

Professional

• Journal & Courier
  Lafayette, Indiana. January 2007 through present. (Circ. 40,000)
  Education reporter. Cover K-12 schools and education issues in Lafayette, West Lafayette, Tippecanoe County and surrounding region, which altogether encompass more than two dozen districts that range from urban to rural, failing to exemplary and among Indiana’s smallest to its 18th largest.
  • Regularly write A1 enterprise packages as well as provide timely stories for print and breaking news online.
  • Plan and write a weekly Schools Page with news, features and a Q&A about local schools. Sometimes shoot the display photos for the page.
  • Occasional shifts as the morning online reporter include reporting and publishing breaking news to the Web and following for the next day’s paper before most other staff members arrive.
  • Serve as a newsroom representative on the New Product Development team.
• The Courier
  Findlay, Ohio. May through August 2006. (Circ. 25,000)
  Reporting intern. Covered general assignment and short feature stories about the city and neighboring areas while working the night cops beat.

Student media

• Daily Kent Stater
  August 2004 through December 2006. (Circ. 10,000)
  Editor of Kent State’s independent student newspaper. Supervised an editorial staff of more than 100 members and oversaw daily production.
  • Under my leadership, both the print and online editions were redesigned and content was refocused to better align with the results of a reader focus group.
  • We laid the groundwork for a (then) soon-to-be converged newsroom by establishing a news partner relationship with the campus TV and radio stations.
  • Previously held positions include managing editor (2x), campus editor, public affairs reporter, technology reporter, student finance reporter and proofreader.
• The Burr
  January 2004 through May 2005. (Circ. 10,000)
  Staff writer in Fall 2004 for the general interest student magazine.
  Webmaster of the CyBurr in Spring 2004 and 2005. Created a Web presence from scratch to complement the look and content of the printed magazine.
  • Added relevant sidebars, links, quizzes, audio and photos to round out print stories.
  • Updated with a mid-semester, online-only magazine for the first time in Spring 2004.
  http://burr.kent.edu/archives/2006/fall/Spring2005/ •
  http://burr.kent.edu/archives/2004/spring/
• Luna Negra
  August 2005 through May 2006. (Circ. 4,500)
  Webmaster for the 50th anniversary edition of Kent State’s literary magazine.
  (URL no longer available.)
• Fusion
  August through December 2004. (Circ. 2,000)
  Webmaster for LGBT-issues campus magazine.
  http://fusion.kent.edu/archives/fall2004/

EDUCATION

Kent State University, Kent, Ohio. Bachelor of Science in Journalism and Mass Communication, December 2006. (Graduated in 3.5 years.) Newspaper journalism concentration. Sociology minor. Grade point: 3.76.

HONORS

• First Place, Breaking News Reporting, SPJ Region 4, Daily Kent Stater staff for our extra edition on Lester Lefton being named university president. The two special sections were put out during final exams with a skeleton staff. We were the first media outlet to have and confirm the name of the president, which we broke online and followed with updates throughout the day/week. I was managing editor at the time.
• Third Place, Best All-Around Daily Student Newspaper, SPJ Region 4, Daily Kent Stater for calendar year 2006. I was managing editor in spring and editor in fall.
• John S. Knight Memorial Scholarship, Recipient, Spring 2006.
• Ohio Newspaper Association Women’s Scholarship, Recipient, Spring 2006.
• First Place, Best All-Around Online Student Magazine, SPJ Region 4, Fall 2004 Fusion Online. I was the webmaster.
• Second Place, Online Magazine, national AEJMC Magazine Contest, Spring 2004 CyBurr. I was the webmaster.

COMPUTER/WEB SKILLS

Mac and PC • HTML and CSS • Adobe InDesign, Photoshop • Macromedia Dreamweaver, Fireworks • iMovie • Audacity • NewsEdit Pro • Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel • Wordpress and Blogger • YouTube and Brightcove • Publicus for posting stories and photos to Web • Willing and eager to learn anything and everything else