The SPJ Region 5 Spring Conference will be held April 13-14, 2012, at the Marriott Indianapolis Downtown.  Room rate will be $99 per night plus tax. Details on how to reserve a room and register for the conference will be available in mid-December.

If you have program suggestions for the conference, please email them to Heather Dunn at hdunn@spj.org.

SPJ DePaul completed its professional development campus chapter requirement on Oct. 28 with a “10-Minute Mentors” event at its downtown Loop campus newsroom.

Student members brought their resumes and sought career advice from some of the leading journalists in the Chicago area. Details and photos are available at

http://spjdepaul.com/2011/11/01/spj-depaul-10-minute-mentors-program/

Region 5 campus chapter programming grants for 2011-2012 will help finance programs ranging from a symposium on the future of college radio news to a freedom of information forum.

Here are the chapters and programs that will be supported by $100 grants from Region 5 Director Liz Hansen:

Loyola University of Chicago–Future of College Radio News Symposium
DePaul University–Freedom of Information Forum
Eastern Kentucky University–Local Reporting Made Local
Northern Kentucky University–Lunch with the Pros
Western Kentucky University–First Amendment Free Food Festival

Arab studies media scholar Adel Iskandar and Louisville reporter Laura Ungar will discuss issues in international reporting, including how to connect the global to the local, during a program at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 10, in the Jaggers Room at Powell Student Center on the Eastern Kentucky University campus. The EKU SPJ chapter is sponsoring the event, which is free and open to the public.

Iskandar is a scholar of Arab studies whose research focuses on media and communication. He is the author and coauthor of several works including Al-Jazeera: The Story of the Network that is Rattling Governments and Redefining Modern Journalism (Basic Books). Iskandar’s work deals with media, identity and politics, and he has lectured extensively on these topics at universities worldwide. His latest publication is an edited volume entitled Edward Said: A Legacy of Emancipation and Representation (University of California Press). His two forthcoming works are books on the role of new media and dissidence in the Arab world. Iskandar teaches at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and the Communication, Culture and Technology program at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. He is a frequent guest and commentator on U.S. and global media including CNN, NPR, CBS, ABC, NBC, Al-Jazeera, RT, BBC, Deutsche Welle and many others.

Ungar is the medical writer at The Courier-Journal in Louisville. She was born and raised in Connecticut and has been a journalist for 21 years, previously working as a reporter at The Hartford (Conn.) Courant and The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal. She has written major projects on cervical cancer in India, Kentucky’s poor health, the prescription drug abuse crisis and cancer in Delaware, and has won more than 20 national, regional and local awards for her work — as well the international Croly award for the India project. She also freelances and has been published in The Washington Post and The Boston Globe.