2021 Review Archives - Grady College

2021 in Review: Service & Partnerships

Posted on December 31, 2021December 31, 2021 by Dayne Young

Editor’s Note: This is part of our five-part series highlighting stories produced by Grady College in 2021. The features includes three stories in each of the following subjects:

Student Successes
Faculty Honors
College Headlines
Research & Grants
Service & Partnerships

This is not intended to be a comprehensive list, but instead highlight a sample of just a few of the more than 210 stories about accomplishments by our students, faculty/staff and alumni.

We invite you to visit our Grady College News page for a full list of features posted in 2021.

Concluding our Year in Review is a look at the incredible community partners we have connected with this year. Community service and outreach is a pillar of our education and we are delighted to help so many in our community through news coverage of Northeast Georgia through Grady NewSource reporting, helping business message and market themselves through TalkingDog Agency and campaigns classes and providing our skills through these new partners:

Kaiser Health News Southern Bureau: The Health and Medical Journalism graduate program at Grady College joined forces with Kaiser Health News on a new initiative this fall to boost health care coverage in the south. Kaiser Health News received $2.3 million from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to support the creation of a Southern Bureau, and our students will be provided experiential learning opportunities like assistantships and fellowships, real-time feedback on stories and assignments and the chance to publish in a national newsroom. The goal of the new bureau is to produce more journalism focusing on health, race, equity and poverty in the region.

Bitter Southerner: In August we announced that we were forming a partnership with the Bitter Southerner, one of the most well-respected narrative journalism platforms in the southeast. In this pairing to promote great storytelling, Bitter Southerner editorial staff will enroll in our low-residency MFA program in Narrative Nonfiction, while undergraduate students will team with Bitter Southerner staff on podcast productions and exclusive internships. Stories from MFA students will be shared in online and print editions of The Bitter Southerner. Valerie Boyd, the Charlayne Hunter-Gault Distinguished Writer in Residence at Grady College, directs the MFA Narrative Nonfiction program and serves as a senior consulting editor at The Bitter Southerner.

The Oglethorpe Echo: When alumnus Dink NeSmith (ABJ ’70) heard the community newspaper was closing its doors, he jumped into action. His first call was to Dean Charles Davis to see if he could help. A few weeks later, a new non-profit organization, The Oglethorpe Echo Legacy Inc., was created and seven student journalists under the guidance of managing editor Andy Johnston, were covering the crime, sports, education and government beats. This new model of collaboration between community news organizations and journalism schools holds a lot of hope for preventing news desserts while providing valuable experience for students, according to write-ups about the program by media outlets like Poynter and Editor & Publisher.

2021 in Review: Research & Grants

Posted on December 30, 2021December 31, 2021 by Dayne Young

Editor’s Note: This is part of our five-part series highlighting stories produced by Grady College in 2021. The features includes three stories in each of the following subjects:

Student Successes
Faculty Honors
College Headlines
Research & Grants
Service & Partnerships

This is not intended to be a comprehensive list, but instead highlight a sample of just a few of the more than 210 stories about accomplishments by our students, faculty/staff and alumni.

We invite you to visit our Grady College News page for a full list of features posted in 2021.

Research and teaching are the cornerstones of the work at the College and 2021 was no exception. Our Ph.D. students researched vital topics in their disciplines, winning honors and awards, while our faculty received accolades for their work, especially through their involvement with the 2021 AEJMC conference. Several faculty received grants this year, as well. Following are among the highlights of a busy year:

AdPR excels in advertising research productivity: A study published in July by the Journal of Business Research named faculty in our Department of Advertising and Public Relations the most visible authors or co-authors in the three leading peer-reviewed advertising research journals from 2008 to 2019. The study, “A Decade (2008-2019) of Advertising Research Productivity: A Bibliometric Review,” involved two reference and citation reviews: one of 818 articles published in Journal of Advertising (JA), Journal of Advertising Research (JAR), and Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising (JCIRA), and the second of 1,532 articles published in those journals plus 15 other journals where scholarly research in advertising is frequently published.

Michael Cacciatore awarded $2.5 million grant for research: Michael Cacciatore, co-director of the Center for Health and Risk Communication at Grady College, was awarded a $2.5 million grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Advancing Informal STEM Learning program in August. The funds will provide research for PBS Digital Studios’ TERRA, its science-themed hub on YouTube, as they launch a new slate of STEM content.

Ahn leads VR project with grant from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association: In September, Sun Joo “Grace” Ahn and a team of researchers were announced as recipients of a nearly $500,000 grant funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. The grant will fund a project called “Salient, Interactive, Relevant, Confidence, and Action (SIRCA): Using Virtual Reality Storm Surge Simulations to Increase Risk Perception and Prevention Behaviors.” The project uses VR to better communicate and educate the risks of storm surge and climate change among coastal residents of Georgia and South Carolina.

2021 in Review: College News

Posted on December 29, 2021December 31, 2021 by Dayne Young

Editor’s Note: This is part of our five-part series highlighting stories produced by Grady College in 2021. The features includes three stories in each of the following subjects:

Student Successes

Faculty Honors

College Headlines

Research & Grants

Service & Partnerships

This is not intended to be a comprehensive list, but instead highlight a sample of just a few of the more than 210 stories about accomplishments by our students, faculty/staff and alumni.

We invite you to visit our Grady College News page for a full list of features posted in 2021.

Our College continues to expand and grow to best serve our students for an ever-changing world and workforce.

Grady College and the College of Public Health introduced an interdisciplinary certificate in Strategic Health & Risk Communication. It is designed to educate undergraduate students in communication principles needed to address public health issues.
The Carmical Sports Media Institute was established, expanding the opportunities for sports media students in our College. The announcement was made to students in the spring with a celebration on the lawn. The official opening of the new Carmical Sports Media Institute suite on the fourth floor was celebrated in the fall.
The Cox Institute expanded with two new directors, Amanda Bright and Lori Johnston. The Cox Institute also expanded its offering to students through the newly-restructured Journalism Innovation Lab and Journalism Writing Lab.

2021 in Review: Faculty Honors

Posted on December 28, 2021December 31, 2021 by Sarah Freeman

Editor’s Note: This is part of our five-part series highlighting stories produced by Grady College in 2021. The features includes three stories in each of the following subjects:

Student Successes

Faculty Honors

College Headlines

Research & Grants

Service & Partnerships

This is not intended to be a comprehensive list, but instead highlight a sample of just a few of the more than 210 stories about accomplishments by our students, faculty/staff and alumni.

We invite you to visit our Grady College News page for a full list of features posted in 2021.

Our faculty continue to inspire students, motivate each other and impact the industries they serve.

Faculty highlights for the year include:

Keith Wilson: Keith Wilson joined the Department of Entertainment and Media studies this year and has been piling on the accolades since he arrived. In July, he was selected as a 2021 Sundance Creative Producing Fellow, and in November, he received a grant from the nonprofit Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program, for the film he is producing called, “I Didn’t See You There.” In early December, Sundance announced that the film is one of nine that will be screened during the annual film festival in the Documentary Competition division.

Kate Fortmueller: While many people spent time during COVID watching TV, Kate Fortmueller spent her time writing about the industry. Her work paid off in 2021 with the publication of not one, but two books: “Below the Stars: How the Labor of Working Actors and Extras Shapes Media Production” and “Hollywood Shutdown: Production, Distribution, and Exhibition in the Time of COVID-19.” Fortmueller has also put her expertise of labor issues in the entertainment industry to good use, commenting frequently this year in the media about safety issues following the accidental shooting on the move set of “Rust,” and about the strike by the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees International.

Glen Nowak: Glen Nowak’s expertise focusing on communications about vaccine acceptance has been one of the hottest topics of the year. Nowak was quoted frequently in the media on the topic, including interviews with USA Today, the Washington Post, Vox, The Hill and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, just to name a few. Topping off a busy year, Nowak was named Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies of Grady College this year. He outlined his goals for the graduate department in August. Nowak will continue to serve as co-director along with Michael Cacciatore, of the Center for Health & Risk Communication.

2021 in Review: Student Successes

Posted on December 27, 2021December 31, 2021 by Dayne Young

Editor’s Note: This is part of our five-part series highlighting stories produced by Grady College in 2021. The features includes three stories in each of the following subjects:

Student Successes

Faculty Honors

College Headlines

Research & Grants

Service & Partnerships

This is not intended to be a comprehensive list, but instead highlight a sample of just a few of the more than 210 stories about accomplishments by our students, faculty/staff and alumni.

We invite you to visit our Grady College News page for a full list of features posted in 2021.

Our students are creators and innovators. Their work in storytelling and strategy is already reaching audiences and influencing society.

Student highlights for the year include:

Journalism students, under the guidance of Dodie Cantrell-Bickley, produced a pair of documentaries. “60^th Anniversary of Desegregation at UGA,” It detailed Charlayne Hunter an Hamilton Holmes’ experiences as the first Black students to attend the University of Georgia. “The First Five” chronicled the stories of the first Black scholarship players on Georgia’s football team.
Alise Crittendon, an advertising student from Mableton, Ga., was selected to the American Advertising Federation (AAF) 2022 class of Most Promising Multicultural Students. Crittendon was also one of nine Grady College students named a 2021 Multicultural Advertising Intersnship Program (MAIP) fellow.
Kendell Williams (AB ’17) competed in her second Olympics as a heptathlete. She joined the Hooper & Sanford podcast to recap her experience as an Olympian and discuss why she returned to Athens as a graduate student in advertising.

Learn more about our student successes in two of our student profile series: Profiles of Tenacity and InternViews.