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Middle School Superpowers

Phyllis Fagell (MSJ98)

Middle school can be one of the toughest times in a kid’s life—for them and for their parents and educators. It’s filled with transitions, upheaval, and brand new experiences that can be overwhelming and intimidating. But licensed clinical professional counselor Phyllis Fagell has put together a practical, evidence-based, and compassionate guide for parents and educators to help their tweens through most challenging situations.

“Middle School Superpowers” teaches middle schoolers how to activate the 12 superpowers they need to discover their strengths and navigate tough decisions and disappointment: Flexibility * Belonging * Sight * Bounce * Agency * Forcefield *
Security * Healing * Vulnerability * Daring * Optimism * Balance

Whether they lose a friend, get cut from a team, make a mistake on social media, bomb a test, struggle with negative body image or identity-related issues, or feel weighed down by societal problems, these “superpowers” will help them find their place and thrive. Middle School Superpowers is the key to raising confident, self-aware, independent, and resilient kids who can recover from any setback—now and in the future.

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On the Other Side of Everything

Kim Shine (MSJ13)

“On the Other Side of Everything” is about living life and controlling your own destiny. The poetry in this book ranges from love, anxiety, loss, freedom and empowerment. Inspired by personal events, each poem will entice readers to revisit and embrace their own experiences. This book encourages readers to live life in the best way — by being present, grateful and authentically you.

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Data + Journalism: A Story Driven Approach to Learning Data Reporting

Mike Reilley (MSJ95)

Mike Reilley co-authored this introductory textbook and newsroom handbook that teaches data journalism techniques as a process. The book features exercises, tips, best practices and training videos on how to find data, capture it, then clean, analyze and visualize it. It features interviews and work from leading data journalists around the world. Available December 2022 at Routledge.com

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The Purposeful Growth Revolution

Mark Mears (IMC85)

Today we are facing the “The Great Resignation.” People are resigning from the workforce or, possibly worse, resigning themselves to an unsatisfying status quo and being disengaged at work. They’ve quit…but stayed. Neither outcome is “great.”

Mark A. Mears prefers to redefine this era as “The Great Repurposing”—an opportunity to focus on what (and who) really matters most to create deeper meaning in our life and work.

In The Purposeful Growth Revolution, Mears shares a wealth of personal experiences as a C-Suite executive, relevant examples of best practices, and insights from research and subject matter experts to unveil his revolutionary 4 LEAF GROWTH model based upon “The Higher Power of 4s.”

In this book, you will learn to apply 4 holistic and revolutionary processes found in nature to help individuals, teams, and organizations find purpose, fulfill their true growth potential, and leave a living legacy—what Mears calls paying it backward. All designed to fulfill Purposeful Growth, Purposeful Self, Purposeful Work, and a Purposeful Life.

The world of work is changing—on purpose. Are you ready to grow into yours?

The Purposeful Growth Revolution is on!

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Kevin M. Lamb (MSJ73)

Kevin McDonald Lamb, 71, was born on Oct. 1, 1951, in St. Paul, Minnesota, and died peacefully on Oct. 30 at Oak Creek Terrace rehab center in Kettering. Kevin was the beloved husband of Carol Lamb, loving father of Courtney Goubeaux and the late Ryan Lamb, father-in-law of Robin Lamb and Justin Goubeaux, and grandfather of Payton, Griffin and Zooey Lamb. He was the dear brother of Larry (Carole) Lamb, Chris (Lesly) Lamb, Jenni (Dale) Allard, and Becky Lamb. Kevin is also survived by many dear relatives and friends. He was preceded in death by his parents Bob and Jean Lamb, and in-laws Tony and Mary Matusin.

Kevin’s lifelong passion for sports took him to The Milwaukee Journal, Newsday and The Chicago Sun Times as a sportswriter. He was hired to cover the Brewers right out of college at Northwestern University, a first for the Journal. He also covered the Chicago Bears, which took him to yearly NFL playoff games and Super Bowls, the highlight being the 1985 Bears Super Bowl win over the Patriots. He wrote several books and contributed to Sports Illustrated and NFL Properties, among other publications. He joined the Dayton Daily News as an investigative reporter, and later became the Health and Medical reporter. Along the way, Kevin won several local and national awards. A Gathering of family and friends 10 am until service time with a Celebration of Life service planned for 11 am, Saturday, Dec. 3, at Tobias Funeral Home, 5471 Far Hills Ave., Kettering, 45429. To send a condolence, visit www.Tobias-funeral.com.

legacy.com

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Chief marketing officer at Cadillac chosen as IMC graduation speaker

The convocation ceremony will take place on Saturday, December 10.

EVANSTON, ILL. — Melissa Grady Dias (IMC98), global chief marketing officer at Cadillac, will address integrated marketing communications master’s graduates and their families at Medill’s convocation ceremony on Saturday, December 10.

As CMO, Grady Dias leads strategic marketing for the Cadillac brand around the world. Recently, Grady Dias was recognized by Forbes as one of “The 50 Most Influential CMOs in the World.”

“I’m excited to welcome Melissa back to campus to speak to our newest IMC graduates,” said Medill Dean Charles Whitaker. “As we enter Medill’s second century, it is important to showcase the heights that Medill alumni can achieve. Melissa’s career represents the unlimited futures open to Medill graduates.”

Prior to joining Cadillac, Grady Dias was senior vice president of performance marketing, digital and e-commerce of Jackson Hewitt, where she was responsible for all demand driving activities including television and jacksonhewitt.com as well as the implementation of a hyper-local digital media program across several thousand locations. Before Jackson Hewitt, Grady Dias led digital acquisition on the global marketing team at MetLife where she led digital strategy for the U.S. market and acquisition programs for several lines of business, resulting in large year-over-year growth, and managed metrics plans and insights across all key global markets. Prior to MetLife, Grady Dias led the global analytics, e-commerce marketing, and CRM teams at Motorola.

“I am so looking forward to coming back to Medill to speak at graduation,” said Grady Dias. “It means so much to look back and remember my time at Medill, and how it shaped and inspired me as I embarked on my career.”

The convocation ceremony will start at 10 a.m. on Saturday, December 10 and will be livestreamed and recorded for later viewing.

In addition to Grady Dias, one student speaker from each program has been selected by the students, faculty and staff to speak at the graduation ceremonies.

IMC Pro Speaker: Noor Jassmi

Noor A. Jassmi (IMC22) completed her undergraduate studies from Medill in Journalism with a certificate in Strategic Communications and a certificate in Middle Eastern Studies from Northwestern’s branch campus in Qatar in 2018. As a double alumna of Medill, Noor continues to use the tools and knowledge gained from her degree to excel in her professional journey at a young age in which she has already gained global experiences in public relations and social media as she initially worked for the world’s best airline and lead on both local and regional media as well as events and inaugurals. Noor currently works in the Marketing Department at Qatar Foundation as she further applies the knowledge she gained from Medill on her job in her hometown Doha-Qatar.

IMC Full-Time Speaker: Aastha Desai

Aastha Desai (IMC22), helped orchestrate and organize multiple events in her time here. Desai has also been a mentor and unofficial ambassador for the program to our next batch of students, making them feel at home here at Medill. Always available to lend a hand, she has a strong passion for start-ups, an eye for detail, and is skilled in storytelling.

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POWER MOMS: How Executive Mothers Navigate Work and Life

Joann S. Lublin (BSJ70)

In POWER MOMS, Lublin shares her own experiences combining work and motherhood alongside those of 86 executive mothers from the first trailblazing generation—typically in their sixties—and their younger counterparts, who are under forty-five. These businesswomen have worked for sizable U.S. companies across a wide swath of industries, and 17 percent are a current or past chief executive of a public company. Lublin spent a year interviewing high-powered mothers including Carol Bartz, the first woman to command Autodesk and Yahoo, Hershey CEO Michele Buck, WW International CEO Mindy Grossman, former DuPont CEO Ellen Kullman, and former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer. They divulged heartfelt stories about their illustrious lives and revealed how they have handled everything from gender job bias to timing childbirth, heavy business travel, dual-career clashes, childcare, health crises, unequal domestic duties, and the high-tech demands of being “always on.” POWER MOMS is full of deeply personal accounts of triumphs, challenges, guilt, regrets, and joys. Executive mothers also share their coping strategies, offering important lessons and practical advice to women who want to flourish both on and off the job. In addition, the book features frank perspectives from 25 adult daughters of initial generation Power Moms about growing up in their mother’s shadow.

Lublin discovered a profound cultural shift between the two waves of Power Moms. The first generation bravely paved the path for the second as they radically reshaped the U.S. business landscape. But they often were lone rangers – without female role models, involved husbands, or supportive employers. Thanks to greater societal acceptance and other factors, second-wave mothers pursue ambitious career goals that were uncommon only a few decades ago. They also manage conflicts between work and life with far more aplomb than the previous generation, such as by embracing work-life sway over the elusive work-life balance. But, like their forebears, GenXers still lead stressful lives filled with working mother guilt—a strong sign of how far American society still must go.

Lublin explores how companies can make work more workable for parents. She describes several major U.S. corporations whose innovative approaches propel their success and the careers of staffers with families. She also outlines smart steps that employers should take to better support working parents—a critical need in post-pandemic America.

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Medill Magazine Issue 93

Medill Chicago has a new location and a new look. Take a virtual photo tour of the new space at 303 E. Wacker in the spring/summer issue.

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ITF announces prize to honor longtime tennis journalist Tom Perrotta (BSJ98)

The International Tennis Federation, along with co-sponsors ATP, WTA and the International Tennis Writers Association, announced a media award to honor the legacy of longtime tennis journalist Tom Perrotta (BSJ98). 

The Tom Perrotta Prize for Tennis Journalism will be presented annually to an outstanding tennis journalist under the age of 40, along with a $2,000 cash prize. Perrotta worked as a freelance sportswriter and as a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, specializing in his passion for tennis and covering the world’s major tournaments.

“The tennis community lost a beloved member when in January 2021, Tom Perrotta succumbed to a brain tumour after a four-year battle,” Simon Cambers, co-president of the International Tennis Writers Association, said via the International Tennis Federation website. “We hope that his work and this award can serve as an inspiration to the next generation of young writers.”

Perrotta was born in Brooklyn, NY and attended North Providence High School in Rhode Island. Prior to his career as a tennis journalist, he attended Medill and graduated in 1998. 

After a four-year battle with a brain tumor, Perrotta passed away on January 6, 2021 at the age of 44. He is remembered fondly by his colleagues and fellow sportswriters for his kindness and strong work ethic, which were evident even in the most high stakes of moments. Perrotta is survived by his wife Rachel Kane and sons Paul and Sean. 

“He was so personally committed to helping and being generous with his colleagues,” Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Gay said. “It didn’t matter if they worked alongside him, he was beloved in the newsroom, or on the road at an event.”

“I’m so happy that this (prize) was something his family and close friends put together. Tom would be incredibly honored by it. He was somebody who was always looking to help a colleague, but also help find the next great colleague.”

More details about submissions for the Tom Perrotta Prize can be found on the ITF website

 

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Marshall Sella (MSJ88)

The Funny Man
by John Rasmus

Reprinted from Outside Magazine article published Jan. 11, 2022

Marshall Sella started as an intern at Outside in Chicago in 1988, and he went on to a successful career as a magazine writer in New York. His friends and former colleagues will remember him as much for his infectious humor and generous spirit. Here, his editor recalls the impact a young man had on a magazine still finding its voice.

Late one afternoon in the Chicago offices of Outside, I detected some consternation from down the hall, a glitch in the matrix. It was June 1990, and the new issue had just arrived. Marshall Sella, one of our junior editors, came to the door, clearly the designated bearer of bad news. None of the senior editors were going to take responsibility for this one.

“J.R.,” he said, “I’ve got something unfortunate to tell you.” In one of our recent travel packages, he reminded me, we’d published a photo of Earth taken from space, and somehow it had been reversed, making the enormous island nation of Madagascar appear to be off the west coast of Africa—which, of course, it is not. Embarrassing enough.

We’d printed a clever but tortured correction, but now, two months later, someone had noticed that we—i.e., Marshall—had apologized for “showing Madagascar to the east of Africa,” which is where, in fact, Madagascar is. So, we’d botched the photo, then botched the correction, and now we’d have to own up to that, too. In my mind, that would be three tainted issues we couldn’t submit for the National Magazine Awards, at least not for, you know, General Excellence. A steep price for “clever.”

Marshall gamely attempted to explain the unforced error. It had something to do with confusing the east coast of Africa and the west coast of Madagascar, I don’t remember the details, but I do recall his fascinating combination of candor, self-pity, remorse, growing acceptance, and … suddenly, redemption. His face brightened.

“Or maybe,” he offered, “we didn’t really get it wrong. Madagascar is to the east of Africa! Maybe we don’t need to apologize for the apology we didn’t need to make!” This, at least, was the kernel of a reason not to do anything, which I liked. But now he was thinking bigger—about how he could turn this insight into an even more clever meta correction. “Let me see what I can do,” he said, and scooted back to his office.

Marshall Sella, who died unexpectedly in December at 60, still so young, was as responsible as anyone for shaping the Chicago-era vibe of Outside. Founder Lorenzo Burke was the fearless captain of our ship. Brash storytellers like Tim Cahill, writer-adventurers like David Roberts, literary hotshots like David Quammen and his Montana neighbor E. Jean Carroll—they set the bar early and high. But the supporting cast, the editorial crew—younger, less experienced, and, as it turned out, extremely talented—helped shape Outside’s personality and its voice, and nobody more than Marshall. That voice was warm but sly, smart, and never cliquish. If there was a joke involved (and there usually was), you, the reader, were in on it.

Marshall joined us in 1988 as a grad school intern from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, making an impression in his Eastern European military coat and English walking boots. But he was also the midwestern kid from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, who’d had the lead part in a Milwaukee Players production of Sherlock Holmes. (Maybe that’s where he got those walking boots.) He’d even sung a bit. In any case, he came ready to entertain, in print and around the office.

In those days all the editors, myself included, were works in progress, feeling a bit disconnected from the great outdoor world we covered from our urban outpost at Clark and Division. We had high aspirations for the magazine, we didn’t always meet them, and office life could get a little stressful. I shamefully cop to the label of being “demanding,” at times perhaps borderline insufferable. In any case, we needed all the fake-it-till-you-make-it energy and bravado we could muster, which Marshall supplied, every day, with his warm smirk, his sophisticated, Spy-influenced style, and his near hourly outbursts of laughter that I could hear from my desk.

After graduating, he came on full time and started editing product and travel packages and sidebars, cooking up quizzes, and writing house copy. You could discern his hand in everything from the table of contents to the back page Parting Shot. He worked his captions and short intros to insane, often hilarious precision. It’s easy to see how, by the tenth draft of that Madagascar correction, he’d have utterly confused himself.

Marshall’s office banter was so sharp and came so fast that “he raised everybody’s game just trying to keep up with him,” remembers his fellow intern and future author Dan Coyle. “He had an ability to make other people their funniest, happiest selves.”

A few days ago, more than a dozen of his colleagues got together on a Google call to remember Marshall, and I learned a few new things. He gave fellow editors nicknames like Cashew Head and performed droll impressions of our managing editor, Mark Bryant, and the actor James Mason—if Mason were a slowly sizzling piece of bacon. He claimed that Robert De Niro, with every movie he appeared in, always had a scene where he stomped on someone’s head. He would imitate that, too, with gusto. On the other hand, Marshall’s was the office you went to when you needed to have a little cry.

When Rob Story, a prominent ski writer and another intern from the early days, got married in Telluride, Colorado, Marshall was one of his groomsmen. Dressed in his tuxedo on the big day, and sensing the absurdity of his attire in the Old West mining town, Rob remembers, Marshall went up to the hotel clerk and asked, “Could you tell me if there’s a nice clean hiking trail nearby?”

He was the brother—younger, older, it didn’t matter—we were drawn to and, honestly, adored. By definition, then, we were kind of a family, and he was the star.

“I think everyone had a crush on him,” his friend and colleague Laura Hohnhold said. “All of us.”

Marshall left Outside in 1991 to be a full-time freelancer, then moved to New York in 1993. He slowly became a gravitational force again, writing for New York, GQ, Premiere, Elle, The New York Times Magazine. His friend Will Dana, the former editor of Rolling Stone, recalls him attracting crowds of both sexes at downtown writers’ parties. The staff at Outside, which moved to Santa Fe in 1994, were thrilled when he covered the national cheerleading championships for the first issue of Women Outside.

Marshall’s superpower, everyone seems to agree, was his ability to fiercely connect with and observe people, capture their quirks and tells, and shape those insights into powerful stories, even with only scraps to work with. His moving Times Magazine article “Missing,” published just weeks after 9/11, told the stories of victims through the flyers their loved ones posted all over the city. He profiled Sister Wendy, a British nun and art historian turned wildly popular PBS star, and was one of the very first to capture the populist essence and power of a new media outlet called Fox News. Its boss, the notorious Roger Ailes, was “a pugnacious and jokey man,” Marshall wrote. “His pale blue eyes regard you suspiciously until you’ve spent a lot of time together, and half-suspiciously after that.”

Mark Adams, an old friend and author himself, admired Marshall’s ability to drop himself into stories—subtly and unobtrusively, but to important effect. Not only was he connecting and explaining his subject, but he turned and connected to you, revealing himself along the way. Adams points to Marshall’s 2013 story for GQ about the disgraced New York pol Anthony Weiner.

“Writing a true profile is a genuinely weird endeavor,” Marshall confesses in the middle of that piece. “It’s like being in love without the love: You want to know every little thing about the subject. You will follow them anywhere, always wondering what they’re thinking or why they move their hands like that. You think about them when they are not around. During the reporting phase, if you’re any good at what you do, you’re a little bit insane. But you get time to cool off later: take the real measure, look at the experience from a distance.”

That superpower, like superpowers do, also cost him. His older sister, Claire Meyer, remembers watching a post-9/11 episode of Ric Burns’s PBS series on New York City, which included a brief clip of Marshall reporting “Missing.” “He’s holding one of those flyers, looking at the photo of a victim,” she says, “absorbing the loss not only of an individual, but in its totality.” She remembers watching her brother put his hands to his face, stricken.

By the early 2000s, Marshall had more magazine work than he could handle. According to Dana, “Every editor he worked with wanted to work with him again.” Each piece needed to be perfect and on time, and he expected his editors to get what he was trying to do. Later in his career, his friends say, he’d decide if he wanted to work with someone based on whether he thought they’d cut his jokes.

Marshall’s only thwarted ambition, Adams and others say, was to become a successful humorist, a Will Rogers type or a comedy writer for Letterman. That combination of high-wire wit and a big stage would have been worthy of his talents. He had to settle for being one of the best magazine writers of his generation.

Finally, he was also a great and thoughtful friend. Adams, an early riser, would get morning texts from night-owl Marshall wrapping up his workday at 5 a.m. Long before Facebook, Adams remembers, “Marshall would find out your birthday and call or send you an email every year.” He was close to his family back in Milwaukee—“he was the coolest uncle in the world, my role model,” his nephew, John Mörk, told me—and kept in touch with his Outside family. We all got one of those birthday greetings every year.

One of the nice things about being around for the early days of a magazine, or any organization, is that you have a chance to set a tone, a sensibility. If it works, it can carry on, like a regional accent, for generations. Reading Outside today, I hear Marshall’s voice still coming through from a group of smart, young, ambitious editors and writers who were likely toddlers when Marshall was crafting that sound, testing it, taking it to the next level.

Not long before he left Outside and Chicago, Marshall wrote what turned out to be a fitting send-off, for the magazine’s 15th anniversary issue. Titled “Atlas Shrugged,” the short piece captured our early days perfectly: self-aware, not afraid to fail, ready to delight.

“Magazine editing, like faith and seismic shifts, can move mountains,” he wrote. “And over the years, Outside has moved a few of them—not to mention the odd rainforest, country, and ocean.” His piece recounted the magazine’s most boneheaded location muffs and, in a final meta touch, named his Madagascar double doink “Outside’s most ambitious gaffe of all time.”

“No one is fired for the incident,” he wrote about that day in my office, “though the man responsible for the ‘correction’ is later forced to write an article about geographic errors for Outside’s 15th anniversary issue.”

Well done, Marshall.