SPJ DePaul won three awards at the Eighth Annual Leadership and Involvement Celebration May 30 on the Lincoln Park Campus.

SPJ DePaul was a finalist in four categories — more than any other student organization. The three winning entries:

Executive Board of the Year (Lauren Camplin, Meredith Gonsalves, Tabitha Hurley, Katie Karpowicz, Ewa Lyczewska and Ali Trumbull)

Outstanding Loop Campus Program of the Year (Freedom of Information Panel Discussion)

Faculty Adviser of the Year (Mike Reilley)

SPJ DePaul also was a finalist for Organization of the Year, an award it won in 2011.

The competition is sponsored and judged by DePaul’s Student Leadership Institute and the Office of Student Involvement. There are more than 300 registered student organizations at DePaul.

SPJ DePaul announced its new executive board members on April 20. The new board takes control immediately and will oversee events, programs and day-to-day operations of the chapter. The board members:

President: Ali Trumbull
Vice President: Ryann Rumbaugh
Secretary: Brianna Kelly
Events/Program Coordinator: Monica Kucera
Membership/PR Coordinator: Monica Carter

For more, go to http://www.spjdepaul.wordpress.com

(Submitted by Mike Reilley, SPJ DePaul Chapter Adviser)

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/

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.

Journalists are doing a lot more in the field with tools designed for reporting and posting while on the go. Find out how on Monday, Nov. 14, when Chip Mahaney, Director of Digital Content for Scripps Media, Inc., speaks to the SPJ Louisville Pro Chapter on the topic of Mobile Journalism. He’ll be presenting at Interactive Media Lab, 124 N. First St., Louisville, beginning at 7 p.m. Chip is a nationally known speaker on this topic and we’re glad to have him in Louisville. The presentation is free and open to the public. Please mark your calendars and invite a friend.

Submitted by Robyn Davis Sekula

Region 5 chapters and leaders received numerous awards at the Excellence in Journalism 2011 Conference in New Orleans.

Al Cross, former Region 5 Director and SPJ national president in 2001-2002, received the Wells Key, the Society’s highest honor.

Tara Puckey, founding president of the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis SPJ chapter who also served two years as a student representative on the national board, received the Julie Galvan Outstanding Graduate in Journalism Award. The award is based on character, service to the community, scholarship, proficiency in practical journalism and contributions to the student’s SPJ chapter.

The Chicago Headline Club was named the national large chapter of the year and the DePaul University chapter was named the national student chapter of the year.

The Chicago Headline Club also took home three Circle of Excellence awards in the FOI, diversity and professional development categories.

Region 5 four-year universities won first place in three categories of the national Mark of Excellence contest:

Best Affiliated Website–wkuherald.com, Herald Staff, College Heights Herald, Western Kentucky University

Best Independent Online Student Publication–North by Northwestern, North by Northwestern Staff, Northwestern University

Online News Reporting–“CampusCrime.net,” CampusCrime.net Staff, CampusCrime.net, University of Illinois

One more distinction for Region 5: Three of the 12 student staff members selected for The Working Press, the conference’s daily newspaper, attend universities in Region 5. The are Mary Barczak, Eastern Kentucky University; Corinne Chin, Northwestern University; and Olivia Ingle, Butler University.

Congratulations to all!

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Please see the invitation below from former national SPJ President Al Cross. A reply card follows the invitation.

Dear SPJ member:

This is your special invitation to the inaugural Al Smith Award Dinner, to be held Thursday, June 2 at Fasig-Tipton Kentucky, the horse-sales pavilion a half mile north of Interstate 64/75 on Newtown Pike in Lexington.

The Al Smith Award will be presented annually to a journalist or publisher who has demonstrated public service through community journalism in Kentucky, or anywhere by a current or former Kentuckian, with preference given to those outside metropolitan areas. The award’s first recipient will be its namesake: Albert P. Smith Jr., who owned weekly newspapers in Kentucky and Tennessee, was founding host of KET’s “Comment on Kentucky” and was main founder of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, which is co-sponsoring the award with SPJ’s Bluegrass Pro Chapter.

The Bluegrass Chapter conceived this award, is co-sponsoring the dinner, and will receive 25 percent of the net proceeds from the event. Sponsorships are also available, via the attached reply card. Just send a check made out to the University of Kentucky with “Rural Journalism” on the memo line and send it to the address below. Please make your reservation by Thursday, May 26.

Thanks,

Al Cross

Director, Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues

Asst. extension professor, School of Journalism and Telecommunications

122 Grehan Journalism Building, University of Kentucky

Lexington KY 40506-0042

859-257-3744

www.RuralJournalism.org

Read The Rural Blog at http://irjci.blogspot.com

Read Kentucky Health News at http://kyhealthnews.blogspot.com

Students from the Loyola University Chicago SPJ chapter asked this question of top journalists in the Midwest and the result was a video Kristen Thometz, chapter president, and Jessica Cilella, vice president, presented at the SPJ Regions 4-5 spring conference in Northern Kentucky April 1.  To view the video, click this link: My Future in Journalism: Do I have one?

SPJ DePaul partnered with three other university student organizations to host a panel discussion entitled “Who’s News? Achieving Diversity in Media Coverage and the Newsroom” on Feb. 17.

The forum, moderated by Karen Kring of the Association for Women Journalists Chicago, involved six panelists and drew a crowd of more than 40 people. The Korean Student Organization, Act Out and the Inter-Tribal Student Organization co-sponsored the event, which was live-Tweeted using the #SPJchat and fielded questions from a social media audience.

Coverage of the event: The Red Line Project. (Link to http://www.redlineproject.org/fullertondiversity.php)

Submitted  Mike Reilley, SPJ DePaul Chapter Adviser

Moderator Karen Kring of the Association for Women Journalists moderates the panel discussion. (Photo by Katie Karpowicz)

Check out the video DePaul SPJers shot in Vegas as part of a Project Watchdog video. It’s available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5pPOoo7t6E&feature=youtu.be