Category: Class Notes

Matt was recently named Chief Marketing Officer of Florida Citrus Sports. The Orlando-based nonprofit is best known for organizing college football’s annual Vrbo Citrus Bowl, which the Wildcat football team won at the end of the 2020 season.

If you’re covering this year’s mid-term congressional elections, it might be worth a look at the spring Quill, the magazine of the Society of Professional Journalists. Charles Pekow compiled advice from a variety of knowlegeable veterans, including Medill Professor Larry Stuelpnagel and alum Susan Page, among others. To find the sidebar on fact checking, you need to download the whole issue.

Adam Banicki was promoted to Senior Executive Producer at The Wall Street Journal where he now oversees the Current Features, Series & Explainers teams.

Vanessa recently took a job with the Environmental Defense Fund as a staff writer. She looks forward to helping EDF tell stories about the most critical issue of our time: climate change.

Gerald Jordan is retiring from the journalism faculty at the University of Arkansas after 27 years there, closing his career with Journalism Educator of the Year honors presented on June 25, 2022, by the Arkansas Press Association.

Prior to joining the Arkansas faculty Jordan worked 12 years (and afterward, 15 summers) at the Philadelphia Inquirer, first as a reporter and later as an editor. Jordan was on the editorial board of the Boston Globe from October 1978 until April 1979. When he graduated from Medill in 1971 he worked as a sports reporter and later editorial writer, then returned to write a TV/radio column for The Kansas City Star. He also was a Nieman Fellow in 1981-82.

Kesha Boyce Williams has joined the University of South Carolina Upstate as the new vice chancellor for marketing and strategic communications. In her new role, she provides strategic leadership to the USC Upstate marketing and communications team and foster a spirit of collaboration.

Before this position, Williams served for nine years as the public information director for Clemson University, where she developed and implemented strategies for marketing, communications, and social media content.

Laura Washington (BSJ78, MSJ80) is starting a new job at the Chicago Tribune after 20 years at the Chicago Sun-Times. Her weekly column, featuring her reporting on race, politics and urban issues, will appear in the Tribune’s opinion section starting June 6.

Mariel Turner has recently started a new position at Shondaland.com, Shonda Rhimes’ digital media website in partnership with Hearst. In her new role as Senior Culture Editor, Mariel will oversee all culture and entertainment coverage on the site, including reporting, writing, and editing film and TV features and stories. She will also host and manage Shondaland’s IGTV Pop Culture series.