Gregor Gilliom (MSJ ’90) is owner and editorial director of Versatile Words (www.versatilewords.com), a writing and content strategy practice that serves countless regional and national brands, including NetJets, Nationwide, JPMorganChase, and Target. Founded in 2005, Versatile Words has won dozens of awards for copywriting and creative collaboration, and Gregor recently received the Ed Grauer Leadership Award, the highest honor given by Columbus Society of Communication Arts, the region’s leading creative industry organization.
Prior to his work with Versatile Words, he worked for eight years in magazine editorial, including titles based in Chicago, San Francisco, Madison, and Columbus, Ohio, where he served as founding editor of Columbus CEO magazine. He and his family live in Upper Arlington, a suburb of Columbus.
Debbie Cassell is senior associate director of marketing and communications for alumni relations and development at Northwestern University. In her spare time, she is president of the Evanston Community Tennis Association. Debbie also was producer of the Woman’s Club of Evanston’s 68th Annual Revue, “Singin’ in the Game,” an evening of musical comedy that raised funds for Girls Play Sports, a local nonprofit; Debbie wrote several song parodies—on topics such as commonly mispronounced words, sports bras and presidential tweets—for the benefit show, in addition to directing and performing.
Meribah Knight won a 2021 Peabody award for the second season of her podcast, The Promise. The series, reported and hosted by Meribah, tells the story of two neighborhood schools divided by race and economics: one almost entirely Black and low-income, the other almost all white and well off.
Meribah is a senior reporter/producer of special projects with Nashville Public Radio. She lives in Nashville with her husband, a photojournalist at the Tennessean, their 2-year-old son and the family’s five cats.
Nominations are being accepted for the inaugural Don Schultz Award for Innovation in Teaching, Theory and Practice of Integrated Marketing Communication, presented by Medill.
Long-time Medill Professor Don Schultz played a pivotal role in creating the field of Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) and establishing the IMC department at Medill in the early 1990s.
This international award is open to university faculty and marketing professionals who have demonstrated excellence in teaching the principles of IMC and bridging the gap between the academic and commercial arenas.
A committee of Medill faculty and industry experts will review nominations this fall. The winner will receive a cash prize of $5,000 and give a presentation on their work in Spring 2022.
The award is named for long-time Medill Professor Don Schultz. Schultz played a pivotal role in creating the field of Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) and establishing the IMC department at Medill in the early 1990s. Medill was the first school to offer a graduate degree in Integrated Marketing Communications in the United States. Schultz is regarded internationally as the “father of IMC.” He died in 2020.
“Marketing scholars from all over the world who are developing new customer-centric frameworks and using novel technologies to communicate with customers, society and even whole markets to drive financial performance are encouraged to apply for this award,” said Vijay Viswanathan, Medill professor and associate dean of IMC. “We believe the award will help bring together IMC teachers, scholars and practitioners from around the world, and it will highlight the best practices in IMC and serve as an authoritative learning forum for the global IMC community.”
Schultz advocated for a marketing communication strategy that began with the customer’s perspective, that adopted a holistic view of media and communications planning across various channels and which could be linked to performance in the marketplace. This was a significant change from the dominant communication paradigms at that time where public relations, direct marketing and brand management efforts were disjointed and often with little or no accountability.
Marketers all over the world heeded his call and agencies and companies set up whole IMC departments.
While IMC like other fields has evolved, the core principles that Schultz espoused remain fundamental to the study and practice of IMC even today. Those principles include:
An unwavering focus on providing solutions and value to customers.
Achieving synergy and integration across all communication activities.
Media neutral planning and effective use of all relevant brand touchpoints.
Reliance on behavioral data to understand customer motivation, guide strategy development and measure outcomes.
Understanding how brand perceptions shape customer behaviors.
Executing communication activities for specific markets in meaningful ways while staying true to an overall integrated brand strategy.
Interactivity and ongoing customer-marketer relationships.
Emphasis on financial outcomes measured in terms of customer response, repeat purchases and brand asset value.
The winner will be selected by a committee that includes Jeanie Caggiano, EVP/executive creative director at Leo Burnett; Judy Franks, Medill assistant professor; Tariq Hassan, chief marketing and digital experience officer at McDonald’s; and Shekar Swamy, group CEO of RK Swamy BBDO.
In this historical fiction novel, Parenti takes readers from the tenement halls of the Lower East Side to the walls of Sing Sing as the United States is engulfed by the “Red Scare.” Ethel, the first woman on death row for conspiracy to commit espionage, speaks with Mary Wurth, a young reporter from Queens looking to prove her worth. With the world divided on whether Ethel should live or die, Mary struggles to understand what it means to be an American, and is enamored with the prospect of seeing the true Ethel.
BETRAYAL explores issues deeply impacting our world today, such as the unequal treatment of women, the debate on capitalism versus socialism, and growing nationalism around the globe. Ultimately, this book asks readers what it really means to betray – or to be betrayed.
Parenti is an award-winning broadcast journalist, reporter, and anchor. She has also served as an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University teaching multimedia journalism and news writing. She and her husband, Jim (MSJ 88), reside in Washington, DC.
“Castaway Mountain” is a narrative non fiction book on the Deonar garbage mountains of Mumbai and the waste pickers who live off them. It follows the life of Farzana Shaikh, a teenaged waste picker, over eight years as she found toys, snacks, jeans, friends and love on these mountains. Among the most fearless pickers in her community, Farzana works on, looking for forgotten treasures amid the trash even as the mountains make her sicker. Through her, Castaway Mountain tells a story of overconsumption, pollution, climate change and how the poor and marginalized face the brunt of it all.
Farzana’s story is interspersed with that of a court case to close down the garbage mountains- one that has stretched on for three decades, while the mountains have only grown taller, erupted in fires and spewed noxious air. Castaway Mountains is about the unspoken trauma of living in places like this and how this trauma is expressed through ancient myths pickers have heard of, through their scarred bodies and how it lingers, subconsciously, in their minds. It is a beautiful story of light and life amidst darkness, one that will grip readers and move them.
The true story of the Coen Brothers’ epic film of murder, mayhem, and malfeasance on the frozen landscapes of Minneapolis and North Dakota, offering an inside look into what Roger Ebert called “one of the best films I’ve ever seen.”
Library Journal’s verdict: “Much like the movie it dissects, this book is quirky and intelligent, with surprising revelations. A treat for cinephiles and fans of the Coen brothers.”
“A Lot Can Happen in the Middle of Nowhere” features a foreword by William H. Macy, dissects actor audition tapes, early versions of the script, and much more.
We already know what climate change is and many of us understand the human causes. But what will climate change do to our world? Who will be affected (spoiler: all of us!) and how will our lives change in the future? Topics include sea levels, extreme weather, drought, animal and plant extinction, and human and animal migration.
Drawing on real-life situations and stories, journalist Jeff Fleischer takes an informed, approachable look at how our world will likely change as a result of our actions, including suggestions on what we can still do to slow down these unprecedented effects.
Raymond C. Nelson, 92, retired professor and associate dean at Medill, died May 30, 2021, in Seattle. Survivors include his wife, Carol; a son, David; and a daughter, Leslie Nelson Kellogg.
He wanted to be remembered simply as a reporter, writer and teacher, which summarizes the three legs of his career. But he was far more than that—a man with a wide variety of interests, a deep knowledge of his disciplines, and abiding affection for friends and colleagues. Despite being a city boy, he developed an avid interest in the outdoors: sailing, bicycling, camping and skiing. He was also a lifelong baseball fan. His mother’s family was from the St. Louis area and he managed to become a St. Louis Cardinals bat boy. As a South Sider, he was a White Sox fan. He also played a bit of semi-pro baseball but disliked the bus travel.
“I think the singular, most important thing to know about my dad was his curiosity about anything,” said his son. “He always wanted the details about something with constant questions, always probing to try and get to the heart of understanding the topic in question.”
Retired faculty member David Nelson (no relation) praised him as “an efficient, loyal and low-key administrator” who “provided the detail work behind many of Medill’s major mid-20th century projects, serving as its associate dean. He made sure that multimillion-dollar grant proposals to the Gannett and Ford foundations were in perfect order. They were. And Medill launched its Urban Journalism Center for mid-career journalists to study race and social inequities nearly a half-century ago. He also played a major role in overseeing the school’s first journalism residency program. An unassuming man, Prof. Nelson left his mark as an able administrator. We owe him a debt of thanks and wish his family solace at this time.”
Born in Chicago in 1928, Ray attended Tilden Tech, then enlisted in the Army and did occupation duty in Korea with the 31st Infantry Regiment. At the time of his discharge in San Francisco, the Army tried to get soldiers to re-enlist by offering promotions. “We knew a war was coming in Korea,” said Ray. “The signs were everywhere and we wanted nothing to do with it.”
Photo courtesy of Nelson family.
In 1952 he earned a journalism degree from the University of Missouri Columbia, working as a reporter until he went to Medill for a master’s in 1955, winning the Harrington Award for being an outstanding student in the Radio-TV sequence.
He caught on at KBUR in Burlington, Iowa. The story goes that Ray worked the 1956 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and came to the attention of NBC’s Sam Saran (Medill ‘5?), who helped bring him to Chicago and WMAQ as a reporter. One duty was a program called “Night Desk,” an early and innovative mobile-reporting effort. Using a broadcasting/recording setup in a panel truck, reporters did mobile stories throughout the city.
After a stint in public relations at the National Education Association in Washington, D.C., he rejoined Saran in 1963 in Northwestern’s public relations department at the time of the lakefront expansion. From there he moved to the Medill faculty in 1966, eventually serving as associate dean. “My dad was extremely proud of being associated with NU generally and Medill specifically,” his son said. “The Cherubs program was something he frequently spoke about as well as the Teaching Newspaper Program. From an immediate family perspective, my dad was proud that everyone in the family had earned a degree from NU.”
George Harmon, who was on the faculty when Ray was associate dean in the 1980s, remembers: “Ray was smart, cheerful and innovative. As associate dean he effectively mentored faculty members who joined Medill in the early 1980s. In later years he liked to experiment with new courses and with old courses that needed new wrinkles. When working downtown in news, he earned a reputation as a go-get-’em newsman who loved chasing stories.”
The Nelson family lived for years in Wilmette. After retiring in the 1990s, Ray and Carol moved to Seattle. Eventually they built a house in Port Townsend, where they enjoyed an active retirement.
Lisa Lee (MSJ93), senior vice president of creative and content for the Academy of Country Music died Aug. 21 after a battle with brain cancer. She was 52. Born Alicia Faye Young in Cabot, Arkansas, on Dec. 24, 1968, Lee earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and English from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Medill. After graduation, Lee got a reporting job at Cabot Star-Herald newspaper.
One of her early jobs was at KTAL-TV, an NBC affiliate serving Texarkana and Shreveport, Louisiana, where she began to be interested in entertainment stories. Although her assignments covered a variety of topics, Lee eventually convinced station management to allow her to do movie reviews; she promptly constructed her own little critic’s corner set. She also started covering country music concerts and events in the Arkansas area and surrounding states at this time.
Lee started a friendship with a reporter/producer from Jim Owens and Associates, the Nashville-based production company behind TNN Country News at the time. Soon she was checking in with the folks at Jim Owens, updating them on all the entertainment pieces she was working on, while not so subtly working to convince them to hire her. Her persistence paid off when Jim Owens and Associates hired her, and she moved to Nashville to work for the company from 1995 to 1999.
In 2000, Lee moved to CMT and CMT.com as a news correspondent and producer.
Lee also had a calling to expand the social conversation. She wrote and produced the Prism Award-winning special Addicted to Addiction, as well as the TV news specials Sex in Videos: Where’s the Line and Controversy: Tammy Wynette.
In 2004, Lisa moved to Los Angeles, becoming the Hollywood-based correspondent and West Coast News Bureau Chief for CMT Insider, the network’s interview-driven news show, where she covered music, movies, and television.
In 2007, three years after her move to L.A., Lisa accepted the Academy of Country Music’s offer to draw on her experience as a TV journalist and producer to help the Academy establish and grow their own in-house creative and video production department. As the Academy’s lead staff producer, she oversaw all video production as well as the design, creation, and editing of ACM logos, digital and printed materials including ACM Tempo magazine, the ACM Awards program book, and both the ACM and ACM Lifting Lives websites.
With her long history of production and network teamwork, Lee served as a liaison with CBS television’s creative departments and CBS.com for promos and creative content surrounding the annual ACM Awards. She was named producer of the Academy of Country Music Honors, a live industry event dedicated to celebrating the Academy’s special award honorees, off-camera category winners, and ACM Industry and Studio Recording Awards winners. Held each year at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Lisa imbued the event with a real love for the people who go the extra mile to support, expand, and protect Country Music in its most creative places.
In 2014, Lee wrote and created This Is Country: A Backstage Pass to the Academy of Country Music Awards. The deeply researched coffee table book celebrated the 50 the anniversary of the ACM Awards and included a forward by Reba McEntire.
