Region 4 director Patti Newberry, MU-SPJ president Amanda Schumaker and MU Journalism Program Director Richard Campbell participated in Bill Keller’s public lecture on campus. (Photo by Samantha Kermode)

Bill Keller, the Op-Ed columnist at The New York Times who served as executive editor from 2003-2011, spent part of his Oct. 29-31 trip to campus reporting for a column. Among his interviewees: Profs of Miami grad and veep hopeful Paul Ryan. No telling what he’ll write up for his next column — due to appear Monday, a day before the Big Election — but it’s sure to be political. Students and faculty are both eager to see the fruits of his Oxford reporting.

When he wasn’t off working for The Times, Keller was working for the Miami Journalism Program. He gave a public talk on Monday, fielding questions about Judy Miller, WMDs, Jayson Blair, NSA, Wikileaks and more. On Tuesday and Wednesday, he talked to three classes. In between the visits and the interviews, he dined on shrimp (dinner at the Miami president’s house), noshed pizza (lunch with JRN students) and drank coffee (Starbucks was among his interview venues).

He also posed for LOTS of photos, including a series of grip-n-grins at the presidents’ dinner.

Good sport. Good guest. Gracious, generous — with thoughtful, reflective responses to every question we put to him.

Next big names on campus: First Lady Michelle Obama on Saturday; traveler writer Rick Steves, Nov. 12.

[A Post-Script: Keller's column, with the headline "Republican id," focused on the conservative bent of Miami students with an extended interview with Rich Hart, an econ prof and mentor to Ryan. ]

According to SPJ.org, Region 4 currently includes six professional chapters — Detroit, Mid-Michigan, Central Ohio, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. Student chapters number 16, with two in Michigan, eight in Ohio, four in Pennsylvania and two in West Virginia. With efforts underway to create a new student chapter at Waynesville University in southeastern Pennsylvania, we’ll soon be at 23 chapters.

As I settle in as Region 4 director, I’d like to clean up our roster. Can you help by sending corrections to the list below? (Many of you are getting an email on this, too, but I thought I’d back it up here with a posting that I’ll revise with  your additions/deletions.) I especially need help gathering the names and email addresses of student chapter presidents.

Pro chapters

Detroit: Walter Middlebrook, president, wmiddlebrook@detnews.com.

Mid-Michigan: Melissa Anders, president, melissa.d.anders@gmail.com.

Central Ohio: Eric Lyttle, president, elyttle@theotherpaper.com.

Cleveland: Cheryl d’Mello, president, cheryldmello@hotmail.com.

Cincinnati: Alex Coolidge, president, acoolidge@enquirer.com.

Pittsburgh: Louis Florian, president, lfflorian@yahoo.com.

Student chapters:

Eastern Michigan University: Jim Pinson, adviser, james.pinson@emich.edu.

Michigan State University: Joe Grimm, adviser, joe.grimm@gmail.com.

Bowling Green State University: Mike Horning, adviser, mhornin@bgsu.edu.

Cleveland State University: Anup Kumar, adviser, akakumar@gmail.com.

John Carroll University: Carrie Buchanan, adviser, cbuchanan@jcu.com.

Miami University: Patricia Gallagher Newberry, adviser, newberpg@muohio.edu; Amanda Schumaker, president, schumaam@muohio.edu.

Ohio State University: Dan Caterinicchia, adviser, dan.cat@gmail.com; Alexis Preskar, president, preskar1@osu.edu.

Ohio University: Nerissa Young, adviser, youngn2@ohio.edu.

University of Cincinnati: Jenny Wohlfarth, adviser, jenny.wohlfarth@uc.edu.

University of Toledo: Paulette Kilmer, adviser, pkilmer@pop3.utoledo.edu.

California State University of Pennsylvania: Todd Carlisle, co-adviser, carlisle@cup.edu; Margo Wilson, co-adviser, wilson_m@cup.edu.

Duquesne University: Michael Dillon, adviser, email to come; Sarah Blaisdell, president, blaisdell@duq.edu.

Indiana University of Pennsylvania: David Loomis, adviser, iupspj@yahoo.com.

Point Park College: Helen Fallon, adviser, hfallon@ppc.edu.

Waynesburg University: Sarah Bell, president, bel7461@waynesburg.edu.

Marshall University: Hilary Groutage-Weible, adviser, weible5@marshall.edu.

West Virginia University: Tom Stewart, adviser, tom.stewart@mail.wvu.edu.

OK, journalists: Edit me!

Thanks to Region 2 Director Brian Eckert for this news from Indy HQ:

Starting in 2013, the Ted Scripps Leadership Institute for SPJ chapter leaders will no longer be held in Indianapolis. Instead it will be held in three locations around the country during the year. The idea is to enable more people to attend, and to reduce the cost of attending for members.

Richmond, Va., is proposed as one of the sites, on Nov. 8-10 (Friday night-Sunday morning).

Any Region 4 leaders interested in attending? Be in touch and I’ll forward more info as it becomes available.

The Central Ohio chapter of SPJ and the Kiplinger Program in Public Affairs Journalism at Ohio State University are teaming up to present “Social Media Summit” Nov. 13-14 at OSU. For $50, participants will learn from what Kip director Doug Haddix calls “the rock stars of social media.”

Social media gurus from Twitter, LinkedIn, ABC News, The New York Times, Gannett, Digital First Media, the Reynolds Center for Business Journalism, Investigative News Network and other news orgs will lead sessions over the two days. Want more? Visit http://kipcamp2012.eventbrite.com/ for all the details. Can’t spare two days? Go for one at $30.

As times goes by, I’ll figure out how to best post contact info from R4 chapters. In the meantime, thanks to Columbus chapter President Eric Lyttle for sending along a list of his officers and board. I’d love to get all the R4 lists — so send ‘em when you’ve got ‘em!

CENTRAL OHIO PRO CHAPTER (2012-13)

Officers:

President: Eric Lyttle, The Other Paper
First vice president/programming: Beth Gianforcaro, Ohio Consumers’ Counsel
Second vice president/membership: Nicole Kraft, Ohio State University
Treasurer: Philip Rudell, retired
Secretary: Open

Board of Directors: 

Julanne Hohbach, Columbus C.E.O. magazine
Tom Boergerding, WOSU Radio
Dan Caterinicchia, Ohio State University
Jennifer Monnin, Nationwide Insurance
Sharon West, Retired
Karen Kasler, Ohio Public Radio and Television
Doug Haddix, Kipplinger Program in Public Affairs Reporting
Liz Lane, WSYX-ABC TV6
Chuck Nelson, Columbus Dispatch
Rick Rouan, Columbus Business First

Bill Keller will visit Miami University Oct. 29.

The Miami University chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists will serve as co-host of Bill Keller’s upcoming visit to campus.

Keller, the immediate past editor-in-chief of the New York Times, will present “My Time at the Times” Oct. 29 at 4 p.m. on the Oxford, Ohio, campus. MU-SPJ president Amanda Schumaker will help introduce Mr. Keller, and I will serve as moderator. His visit is supported by Miami’s Diana Stark Journalism Fund and the Times Collegiate Readership Program.

The MU-SPJ chapter earlier this semester attracted about 40 students to a video chat with Cairo-based freelance multi-media journalist Sharif Kouddous. In a Sept. 26 “visit,” students were able to ask Kouddous questions in real time about his coverage of the Arab Spring events of last year and about his current reporting on conflicts in the Arab World. Miami was one of five schools participating in a new project called Face-to-Face: Conversations with Journalists. Created by Florida Gulf Coast University and supported by the Poynter Institute and Robert B. McCormick Foundation, the program is seeking applications for its next guest, Luis Chaparro. Chapparo reports from Ciudad Juárez for El Diario and for the international news agency Efe. Applications are on the Poynter site.

Miami SPJers have also been busy:

• attending the national convention. Amanda Schumaker and treasurer Ariana Williams made the trip with me.
• attending other campus media events. The Miami Lecture Series hosted media personality Jerry Springer Sept. 24, and The Journalism and Mass Communications programs hosted C SPAN’s Oct. 2 visit to campus. (Both Amanda and Ariana were among the students selected to ask questions on C SPAN’s Washington Journal program.)
• updating their own WordPress site!

Next up, journalism students will have the chance to meet social media gurus from the Bush and Obama 2004 campaigns (Oct. 15); chat with journalist David Satter about his coverage of the Putin administration (Oct. 15); and meet travel writer Rick Steves (Nov. 12).

A busy fall for the Miami journalism community! How about you? Send news from your chapter and I’ll be happy to share on the 4th Estate blog!

I began teaching journalism at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in 1997, after about 15 years in the newspaper world.

Hello Region 4 SPJers:

Good  to meet so many of you at the convention in Fort Lauderdale. I look forward to meeting and chatting with many more of you this spring at the R4 conference. Speaking of which, we should have news on the place and date of that event very soon. Watch for 4th Estate blog updates on that and more in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, please be in touch with your comments or concerns at any time. And thanks for your vote as Region 4 director.

Patti Newberry

PATRICIA GALLAGHER NEWBERRY, Senior Lecturer, Miami University Journalism Program

newberpg@muohio.edu/513.529.5893

Want to know more about my background? Here’s my resume: PGNresume12