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Home > About SPJ > Committees > Journalism Education

Committees
Journalism Education Committee

This committee's purpose is to promote excellence in education programs and practical research. It acts as a clearinghouse for the Society's academic members and students. It also works with annual convention planners on mentor programs both at the college and high school level.


Journalism Education Committee Chair

Butler Cain
Assistant Professor/Mass Communication
West Texas A&M University
Sybil B. Harrington Fine Arts Complex, Room 269
Canyon, TX
806-651-2414
E-mail
@ButlerCain
Bio (click to expand) Butler Cain is an Assistant Professor of Mass Communication at West Texas A&M University in Canyon, Texas. He received a Ph.D. in Media History from the University of Alabama, where he also received degrees in Journalism. He spent a decade as news director of Alabama Public Radio in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, before moving to South Korea to teach English language skills to Korean students.

Butler has been a member of SPJ since 1997. He is a founding member of the Texas Panhandle Pro SPJ chapter in Amarillo, Texas, and has served on the Journalism Education Committee and the International Journalism Committee. Butler blogs about travel and journalism at butlercain.com.


June Nicholson, vice chair
Director of Graduate Studies
School of Mass Communications
Virginia Commonwealth University
901 W. Main Street
Room 1108 Temple Building
Richmond, VA 23284-2034
(804) 827-0251 (office)
Fax: (804) 828-9175
E-mail
Bio (click to expand) picture June O. Nicholson, a professor of journalism in the School of Media and Culture at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va., chaired national SPJ’s Journalism Education Committee from 2000-2007. She is former chair of the SPJ's International Journalism Committee and has been a member of other national SPJ committees over the past several decades. She is co-developer of the SPJ newsroom training module on covering diverse communities. Nicholson also is a former president of the Virginia professional chapter of SPJ.

Nicholson is the 2014 recipient of the Outstanding Woman in Journalism and Mass Communications Education Award from Commission on the Status of Women of the Association of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. In 2008, she was recipient of the Robert Knight Multicultural Award for promoting diversity in America's newsrooms, given by AEJMC's Scholastic Journalism Division. She was recipient of the Distinguished Service Award of VCU's College of Humanities in 2007 for contributions to VCU and the journalism profession. She is serving a second term as president of the University Faculty Senate through August 2015.

Nicholson teaches senior-level capstone undergraduate government, enterprise and project reporting courses and coverage of specialized areas such as science, health, education, urban affairs and the environment. She also teaches a graduate course on International Journalism in the M.S. program in Mass Communications with a specialization in multimedia journalism. Before joining the VCU faculty, she was a reporter and editor for more than a dozen years in North Carolina and Virginia. She holds a master’s degree in public affairs journalism from The American University in Washington, D.C., and a B.A. degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Journalism Education Committee Members

David Burns
Assistant Professor
TE310
1101 Camden Avenue
Salisbury, MD 21801
Office: 410-677-0111
Mobile: 301-332-6643
@dburns and @pressboxprose
E-mail

Tracy Ann Burton
Freelance Writer
E-mail
Bio (click to expand) Tracy Burton has more than a decade of professional writing experience. She graduated from Central Michigan University with a bachelor's degree in journalism and a master's degree in English: composition and communication. She also holds a Graduate Certificate in College Teaching. She enjoys working with student writers and helping them develop their passion for the great craft we know as journalism. Burton also is experienced in public relations, videography, media relations, photography and graphic design. She currently is a freelance writer and works in higher education public relations and marketing and has held reporting positions with the Midland Daily News and the Lansing State Journal.

Kym Fox
Senior Lecturer, Journalism Sequence Coordinator
Texas State University-San Marcos
512-245-3484
E-mail
Bio (click to expand) picture Kym Fox joined SPJ while an undergrad at Arizona State University in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism. She has been president of the San Antonio Pro Chapter and is currently the co-adviser to the Texas State University student chapter. Fox spent the first 20 something years of her career as a reporter and editor, first at the Mesa Tribune, a 40,000 daily in a suburb of Phoenix, and then 18 years at the San Antonio Express-News. She was the deputy metro editor when she left the Express-News to take to the classroom at Texas State. Most of her career, she spent covering courts and legal affairs, thus her affinity for Freedom of Information projects. Over the years she has covered everything from high school sports to George H.W Bush signing NAFTA. She has interviewed the Queen of England and Michael Jackson, though not at the same time. Along with her B.S. in journalism, she earned an M.A. in communications from the University of the Incarnate Word while an editor at the Express-News. At Texas State she is a senior lecturer and coordinator of the journalism sequence. She teaches a variety of writing classes as well as multimedia journalism. Her take on the future of journalism: “Newspapers are NOT dying. They are evolving.” Find her on Twitter @kymfox.

Suzanne Lysak
Assistant Professor/Broadcast & Digital Journalism
Syracuse University/Newhouse School of Public Communications
Syracuse NY 13244
315-443-9271
E-mail

Adam Maksl, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Journalism
Indiana University Southeast
812-941-2892
E-mail

Jimmy McCollum
Associate Professor
Lipscomb University
One University Park Drive
Nashville, TN 37204-3951
E-mail
Bio (click to expand) picture Dr. Jimmy McCollum is an associate professor in the department of communication and journalism at Lipscomb University, where he has taught since 1989. He is the director of the Tennessee High School Press Association, which is based at Lipscomb. He advises Lipscomb’s student online news service, www.luminationnetwork.com, and is faculty sponsor of the campus chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He has served as a reporter/anchor with WSM-AM Radio News.

Gordon "Mac" McKerral
Associate Professor
News-Editorial Coordinator
Western Kentucky University
270-745-5882
E-mail
Bio (click to expand) picture Gordon “Mac” McKerral is an associate professor and the news-editorial sequence coordinator in the School of Journalism & Broadcasting at Western Kentucky University.

He served as national president of the Society of Professional Journalists September 2003 to September 2004. In October 2005, he received the SPJ’s highest award, The Wells Key, for longtime contributions to journalism and SPJ’s mission. He received a national First Amendment Award from SPJ for his work with the Campus Courts Task Force, which focused on gaining public access to campus crime records and campus judiciary records related to hearings on crimes.

McKerral has spent more than 25 years as a journalist and journalism educator. He has been a reporter and editor at newspapers in Illinois, Indiana, Florida and New York and Indiana.


Lee Anne Peck
Assistant Professor
School of Communication
Journalism and Mass Communications
University of Northern Colorado
Campus Box 114
University of Northern Colorado
Greeley, CO 80639
E-mail
Bio (click to expand) picture Lee Anne Peck has taught English, journalism, and communications courses since 1988. Most recently she was an assistant professor of international communications at Franklin College Switzerland, Lugano. Over the years, she has advised three student newspapers.

Peck's professional experience began in 1976 as a correspondent for the Moline Daily Dispatch. After graduating with her bachelor's degree, she edited and then managed the regional Choice Magazine of the Front Range. In the mid-1980s, she edited and wrote for publications in Indiana and Delaware; she has worked for the Fort Collins Coloradoan as an editor, a columnist and writing coach and for the Rocky Mountain News as a copy editor. Peck has also worked at the Tampa Tribune's online product, Tampa Bay Online, and for Microsoft's online publication, Denver Sidewalk. Peck began free-lance work in the late 1970s and continues to do free-lance editing, writing, and public relations work.

Her research focuses on all aspects of media ethics. She received a Fulbright to teach journalism at the University of Dubrovnik in Croatia fduring spring semester 2007.


Amber Roessner
Assistant Professor
333 Communications Building #339
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN 37996
E-mail

Eileen Solomon
School of Communications
Webster University
470 E. Lockwood Ave.
St. Louis, MO 63119
Phone: 314-968-7486
Fax: 314-963-6106
E-mail

Jeff South
Associate Professor
VCU School of Mass Communications
(804) 827-0253
E-mail
Bio (click to expand) picture Jeff South was state editor and database editor at the Austin American-Statesman before heading to academia in 1997 under the mistaken impression he’d have summers off. He is an associate professor in the School of Mass Communications at Virginia Commonwealth University, where he teaches news writing, legislative reporting, communications technology and media ethics. South has served as a trainer for SPJ, IRE, AP and other organizations. He frequently conducts workshops on, and writes about, computer-assisted reporting, online journalism and media convergence. In 2003, South was awarded a fellowship from the American Society of Newspaper Editors to work at The Charlotte Observer. In 2007, he will serve a six-month Knight International Press Fellowship in Ukraine. For more than 20 years, he was a reporter and editor in Texas, Arizona and Virginia for newspapers such as the Dallas Times Herald, the Phoenix Gazette and The Virginian-Pilot. He also served two years with the U.S. Peace Corps in Morocco.

Leticia Steffen
Associate Professor, Department of Mass Communications & Center for New Media
Colorado State University-Pueblo
2200 Bonforte Blvd., BCC 103Q
Pueblo, CO 81001
Office: 719-549-2873
Cell: 719-821-3106
Home: 719-565-0537
E-mail
Bio (click to expand) picture Leticia Steffen is an associate professor in the Department of Mass Communications and Center for New Media at Colorado State University-Pueblo. She joined the CSU-Pueblo faculty in 2004. A native of New Hampton, Iowa, Steffen completed her bachelor’s degree at Saint Louis University, working as a stringer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Suburban Journals of St. Louis before moving to Colorado to complete a master’s degree in mass communications and journalism studies at the University of Denver. Before moving to Pueblo, Steffen worked as a writer and editor in the Denver area. Steffen teaches journalism courses and serves as faculty adviser to the CSU-Pueblo online student news website and news magazine, the CSU-Pueblo TODAY.

Becky Tallent, Ed.D.
Associate Professor
School of Journalism and Mass Media
University of Idaho
E-mail
Bio (click to expand) picture Rebecca J. “Becky” Tallent is an award-winning journalist and public relations specialist with more than 12 years experience as an energy/environmental and financial journalist plus an additional 16 years experience as a public relations specialist and five years as an educator. She is currently an associate professor of journalism and mass media at the University of Idaho.

Becky’s experience as a reporter and editor inside Oklahoma was with the Daily Oklahoman, the Tulsa World, Oklahoma Business News Co. (where she was reporter and editor of the Oklahoma Energy/Environment Report) and as editor of the Oklahoma Banker. She has also covered energy and environmental issues for McGraw-Hills News, Inc. of New York (Platt’s Oilgram News, Engineering Week and Green Markets); Reuter’s U.S. Financial, Inc. based in New York; and the Washington, D.C.-based Oil Daily.

As a public relations specialist, Becky has represented the University Hospitals, the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority, the Oklahoma Energy Resources Board and Epworth Villa (a not-for profit retirement community). From 2002-2006, she was a public relations specialist with Evergreen Productions, Inc. of Oklahoma City where she represented the City of Lawton (OK), Tidal School Vineyards and the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Her expertise in public relations is writing/publications, working with the news media and crisis communications.

Before Idaho, Becky taught journalism at Bishop McGuinness High School, Southwestern College, the University of Phoenix, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and Northwestern Oklahoma State University.

Some of Becky’s most recent awards include: 2003 Faculty Member of the Year, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University; first place, 2001, American Marketer’s Association, Oklahoma City Chapter, Marketing Campaign for Epworth Villa; second place, 2001, Society of Professional Journalists, Oklahoma Chapter, not-for-profit publications (Epworth Villa); first place, 2000, Society of Professional Journalists, not-for-profit publications (The Oklahoma Banker); and the 1999 Award of Merit from the Oklahoma Chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators for the Oklahoma Banker.

Becky has been a member of SPJ since 1972 when she joined the University of Central Oklahoma student chapter. She joined the Oklahoma Professional Chapter in 1977 and became a member of the Snake River Chapter in 2006. She has served on numerous local and national committees for SPJ. Becky’s dedication to the Society lies in her belief that service in SPJ is a way to contribute something back to the profession.

Becky earned both her Bachelor of Arts in Journalism (1975) and her Master of Education in Journalism (1977) from the University of Central Oklahoma. She earned her Doctorate of Education in Classroom Teaching/Mass Communications from Oklahoma State University in 1995.


Teresa A. White
Director, High School Journalism Institute
Indiana University School of Journalism
Ernie Pyle Hall 212F
812-855-9822
E-mail

Nerissa Young
Visiting Professor
University of Ohio
E-mail
Bio (click to expand) picture Nerissa Young is a recovering print journalist employed as assistant professor of print journalism at the W. Page Pitt School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Marshall University in Huntington, W.Va. Before that, she taught three years in the Department of Mass Communications at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, W.Va., and in the journalism school at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. Young has nearly 20 years of media experience that includes radio, newspapers, freelance and journalism education. A native West Virginian, she received her bachelor’s degree in secondary education from Concord College and her master’s degree in journalism from Marshall University. She has been a member of SPJ’s national ethics committee since 1995 and spent seven years as chairwoman of SPJ’s national Project Watchdog committee. Young writes a weekly column, “The Back Porch,” about whatever tickles her momentary fancy for her former employer, The (Beckley, W.Va.) Register-Herald. At Marshall, she teaches news writing and reporting and advises the campus newspaper, The Parthenon.
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