Journalism in the Public Interest

You can feel the excitement in the air when walking into the newsrooms of The Campus and The Panther Press, as the student newspapers have won nine Pennsylvania News Association awards between them.

The Campus, Allegheny College’s student newspaper with a circulation of 2,100, garnered five PNA Student Keystone Press Awards including two first place honors and three honorable mentions.

“I want to give all the props to the students,” said Campus adviser Cheryl Hatch.

Read the full story.

Earl Corp is a reporter for The Meadville Tribune.

Photo: Christina Bryson, news editor at The Campus newspaper at Allegheny College, and Amanda Spadaro, co-editor in chief, layout pages for the newspaper on Thursday night. Photo by The Meadville Tribune.

Source: Academics, Publications & Research

The Campus won two first-place awards and three honorable mentions in the four-year college category from the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association. Sam Stephenson ’15, co-editor-in-chief of The Campus, and photo editor Meghan Hayman ’16 won a first-place Student Keystone Press Award in the category of general news. The staff of The Campus also won a first-place award for layout and design on “The Story Next Door,” a special edition of The Campus that published student work from a conference that explored community journalism in action. Honorable mentions were awarded to Amasa Smith ’17, in the category of feature photos; Meghan Hayman, in the category of news photos; and Elliott Bartels ’15, Sam Stephenson and Amanda Spadaro ’15, for The Campus’s website. Cheryl Hatch, visiting assistant professor of journalism in the public interest, serves as faculty adviser to The Campus.

Source: Academics, Publications & Research

Allegheny Professor and Photojournalist Takes her Skills to Liberia

Cheryl Hatch, Allegheny visiting assistant professor of journalism in the public interest, won’t be in class for the first week of the spring semester.

CORRECTION: She won’t physically be in class – but she plans to be there via Skype.

That’s because Hatch has taken her photojournalism skills to cover stories in Liberia, thanks, in part, to funding she and writer Brian Castner received from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

According to its website, the Pulitzer Center “is an innovative award-winning nonprofit journalism organization dedicated to supporting the independent international journalism that U.S. media organizations are increasingly less able to undertake.” 

While in Liberia, Hatch and Castner, who arrived on Dec. 29, 2014, are covering the U.S. military efforts to assist the Liberian government in combating the Ebola outbreak. Their first story, “‘Let This Ebola End’: Liberians Prepare for 2015 with Parties and Prayer,” served as Jan. 5’s headline for the international news organization VICE News.

“I believe a journalism professor needs to continue practicing journalism, and this is a timely story in Africa, where I’ve done much of my work in the past two decades,” said Hatch, explaining why she decided to spend her winter break more than 3,500 miles from Meadville. “I teach by example. I want the students to see me do the work I love outside the classroom and bring it back to the classroom. Journalism is real life in real time.

“Receiving support from the Pulitzer Center is a terrific honor and a big help, since this is an expensive story to cover,” she adds.

Hatch plans to Skype with her JOURN100 news writing and JOURN300 multimedia classes on Jan. 13.

During last semester’s news writing class, Hatch says the students interviewed NPR photojournalist and video editor David Gilkey via Skype as part of their final exam. Gilkey recently had returned from covering the Ebola outbreak in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Hatch met Castner, author of The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows, when he spoke at Allegheny during the Combat Paper Project in September.

Hatch plans to return to the United States on Jan. 16. To follow her journey in Liberia, visit https://pulitzercenter.org/project/africa-liberia-ebola-war-veterans-US.

Source: Academics, Publications & Research

By Rachel Wang, Staff Writer
November 6, 2014
The Campus

The art galleries of Allegheny College held the reception of Annual Faculty and Alumni Art Exhibit on Tuesday, Nov. 4. The exhibit featured egg tempera, oil and watercolor paintings by alumnus Jeff Gola, ’82, and also included art works of Sue Buck, Heather Brand, Amara Geffen, Darren Lee Miller, Steve Prince, Byron Rich, Richard Schindler and Ian Thomas from department of art, as well as Cheryl Hatch, visiting assistant professor of journalism in the public interest and Mike Keeley, professor of communication arts.

“It’s always a challenge to figure out how pieces relate to each other, but we worked together as a group to find a good visual presentation so that one body of work by one person would flow in a logical way to another body of work,” said Darren Lee Miller, assistant professor of art and gallery director of Allegheny College. Each artist has different styles and ideas at work in different media. Considering this, Miller tried to make sense of organizing the gallery and locating drawings, paintings, printmaking, photographs and sculptures harmoniously in the gallery.

Read the full story.

Photo by RACHEL WANG

Source: Academics, Publications & Research

Photographs of Annette von Jouanne by Visiting Assistant Professor in Journalism in the Public Interest Cheryl Hatch are in a new young adult book released on October 14. The Next Wave: The Quest to Harness the Power of the Oceans by Elizabeth Rusch, a Portland, Oregon author, is published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Von Jouanne has been a professor in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Oregon State University since 1995. A review of the book can be found here.

Source: Academics, Publications & Research

By Lorri Drumm / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” Most people have different answers to that question as they mature. When you graduate from high school, still a teen, society expects you to have that answer. After at least 13 years of school, you must immediately know your purpose.

Some people have no problem determining their future.

It seems as if their destiny is mapped out for them from the moment they exit the womb. They have a particular strength or passion that they work hard at, and this leads to a fulfilling career.

For many of us, that one life-long ambition isn‘‍t as easily determined. Many start college and don’‍t finish even six years later. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the 2011 graduation rate was 59 percent within six years for full-time, first-time students who began pursuing a bachelor’‍s degree at a four-year degree-granting institution in the fall of 2005.

I tried the traditional route. I attended Gannon University in Erie immediately after graduation from Karns City Area High School. My goal was to become a doctor and make lots of money. My reality was that although I had taken advanced science and math classes in high school, I struggled with those subjects. By sophomore year of college, I found myself in over my head. I changed majors, but lacking a goal, I eventually just gave up.

Then life happened. I met my husband, had four children, held different jobs — typically caring for others — and the years went by quickly.

As my children grew, I used my own experience and advice from a wise teacher to guide my children as they decided what they wanted to be when they grew up. Each of my three sons found a personal strength during their high school years and followed that path. Each of them got a college degree, including two master‘‍s degrees. Their careers are in the beginning stages, but their futures look bright. My daughter is in the process of discovering her strengths and will have my support and guidance.

Three years ago, the possibility of returning to the classroom became a reality for me.

I won a scholarship from Allegheny College in Meadville. As I chose my classes, I followed the advice I had given my children. A professor at my interview said that I had strong writing skills, so I started with freshman English and proceeded from that to journalism. I plan to add photography and other media skills to my resume. A bachelor’‍s degree is a goal that I will achieve, even if it takes a while. A new career, doing something that I love, would be a dream come true.

Changing careers is much more common in today‘‍s society than it was in the past. Many people, with or without a college degree, find themselves returning to the classroom out of necessity and/or the desire for a new career. Nontraditional students are a growing trend on many campuses.

Returning to a college classroom, or experiencing one for the first time, at an “older” age can be intimidating. Once you get beyond that insecurity, it can also be easier than it is for some of your younger classmates.

Older students don’‍t have the concerns and pressures that many typical students have. Partying, extracurricular activities and social acceptance don‘‍t get in the way of learning. When your sole focus is not on your social life or your GPA, you are free to learn and absorb information and get the most from your education.

Deciding what to do when you grow up is a big decision. Give it the consideration it deserves. When furthering your education becomes a goal in getting to where you want to go, then devote your efforts to that. Always be open to opportunities and never stop learning. Life is what you make of it. You’‍re never too old.

Lorri Drumm of Springboro, Crawford County, who was a summer intern at the Post-Gazette, is a junior at Allegheny College. She can be reached at localnews@post-gazette.com.

Source: Academics, Publications & Research

By Earl Corp/MEADVILLE TRIBUNE

When Nathan Lewis came back from Iraq in 2004, he noticed things were different for him.
“You go to war, (and) you come back changed,” Lewis said.

Lewis didn’t let the change overcome him in a negative way. While he was a student at State University of New York at Potsdam, he became involved with the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), an advocacy group of active-duty U.S. military personnel, Iraq War veterans, Afghanistan War veterans and other veterans who have served since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks who were opposed to U.S. military in Iraq from 2003-11. On the weekends, the group came together and cut up uniforms to turn into paper for artwork and writing projects. It became a therapeutic outlet for Lewis and his group.

This week, Lewis has shared the paper making process with Allegheny College students as part of Combat Paper: Words Made Flesh. This week-long program is geared toward veterans issues, including art, dance, lectures and panels on a broad number of subjects such as psychology, returning home and military/civilian divide.

The combat paper making process may sound complex and timely, but it is for the most part unchanged since the paper making process began in China in 105 A.D.

Uniforms are cut into postage stamp-sized pieces, then moved into a beater. The beater is a trough filled with water which will turn the cloth pieces into pulp. The only change to the original process since 105 A.D. is Lewis has added a small electric motor to the beater.

The pulp is then moved to a tray, where a frame is dipped into it and sifted, similar to panning for gold. Once a layer of the pulp is gathered, the frame is removed, the water is drained and the paper is pulled off into a sheet onto a press. Once pressed, the sheet of paper is stuck to glass to dry into a sheet of usable paper.

Once the paper is dry, veterans, Allegheny College students and members of the community draw pictures, write poems or provide other artistic endeavors on the recycled uniforms. Lewis said paper making has been picked up as a therapeutic tool by military hospitals and the United Service Organization, a nonprofit organization also known as USO that provides programs, services and live entertainment to U.S. troops and their families.

“It helps vets to tell their story,” Lewis said. “They go through this intense experience (war), and it helps to listen.

“We’re not trained psychologists, we’re just guys who make paper.”

The paper making process ended Thursday, but veterans and community members are invited to design artwork today from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Bowman-Penelec-Megahan Art Gallery inside the college’s Campus Center.

Allegheny College art professor Steve Prince was instrumental in bringing Lewis to campus for the week. Prince called Drew Cameron in California, director of the national Combat Paper Project, to schedule a workshop, and in turn was put in touch with Lewis, who is one of the project’s paper makers on the East Coast.

Prince said the week is an interdisciplinary approach with the art, dance and panels. The big question Prince had about veterans when planning the week was, “How do they get reintegrated back into society and how can we help with the process?”

A gallery of combat paper artwork begins on display Saturday through Oct. 28 at the Bowman-Penelec-Megahan Art Gallery. At the gallery opening on Saturday at 5 p.m. at center, there will also be performances by dance and movement studies students, and vocal and music students.

Prince said combat paper was sent to 26 renowned artists with a request to contribute artwork for the gallery. The pieces will be displayed prominently along with pieces done this week by students and community members.

Allegheny College senior Sam Stephenson is an English major from Portland, Ore., who plans to enter the Marine Corps as an officer following graduation. Stephenson was at the workshop as a member of one of Cheryl Hatch’s journalism classes. Stephenson said he could see where the combat paper would be useful to veterans in the healing process.

“(They are taking) a tool of the military and bridge that gap between military and civilian and make art,” Stephenson said.

“I like the way they’re taking something military and turning it from memorabilia and making something productive,” said sophomore Meghan Wilby, another member of one of Hatch’s classes, who is also participating in the workshop.

Colorado’s Kali Albern, an Allegheny art student, said she has made paper before but never from uniforms. But she enjoys the concept.

“Although it has symbology, because we don’t know what it will be used for, it has its original purpose and can now be used for beauty,” Albern said.

Though Lewis said he has gotten as much therapeutic benefits from making combat paper as he possibly could, he enjoys sharing the experience with students and other veterans and performs four workshops per year.

Source: Academics, Publications & Research

By Heather Grubbs, Office of College Relations

Constructive criticism can be hard to hear.

But members of The Campus staff were soaking up words of wisdom and advice from renowned photojournalist Bob Lynn, who spoke to Campus staff on Aug. 22 as part of a four-day, on-campus workshop.

Campus Co-Editors-in-Chief Amanda Spadaro ’15 and Sam Stephenson ’15 organized the workshop for the newspaper staff members with Visiting Assistant Professor and Campus Adviser Cheryl Hatch.

“During last year’s photojournalism conference, we brought in Pulitzer Prize-winning photographers and designers and graduate students from Ohio University. That sparked a lot of passion within the newspaper and on campus,” said Stephenson, an English major with a focus on journalism. “So we decided to make this year’s Campus orientation a workshop to continue the momentum. That’s when Cheryl Hatch put us in touch with Bob Lynn.”

During the workshop, Lynn, who spent 17 years as an assistant managing editor/graphics at The Virginian-Pilot, shared advice on how to best use a photo and the importance of being a good writer.

“If you have a really powerful picture, you want to run it large enough so you can feel the emotion,” Lynn said. “And if you can express yourself in writing, no matter what you do in your future career, that will be to your advantage.”

The students hope to use Lynn’s advice as they work to enhance The Campus this year.

“We got to pick his brain about journalism and his knowledge of design,” Stephenson said. “He’s made himself available to us, which is amazing. We’re so honored that he’s here.”

“Bob is teaching us how important it is to have the visual aspect as well as the content when designing a paper; you need to be able to grab your readers and keep their attention,” added Spadaro, a biology major and English minor. “When we’re more mindful of that, it will make things more dynamic on the page.”

Lynn, who resides in Charleston, W.Va., also shared insights from his book, Vision, Courage & Heart. He said the principles in his book were instrumental in helping The Virginian-Pilot be recognized annually for its visual excellence.

“This is a remarkable opportunity for the students,” said Hatch, who worked with Lynn when she was a freelance photojournalist. “It’s good for the students to hear these tips from someone other than me. I want them to feel confident in what they do. Bob has left an amazing legacy of photographers. He’s a great contact and resource for them.”

Lynn said he enjoyed his time on Allegheny’s campus. “This is a great group of men and women,” he said about The Campus staff. “It’s been fun working with them.”

Source: Academics, Publications & Research

Cheryl Hatch, visiting assistant professor of journalism in the public interest, won second place in column writing in the 2014 Excellence in Journalism Contest sponsored by the Pennsylvania Women’s Press Association (PWPA). Hatch’s columns appear weekly in The Meadville Tribune.

Source: Academics, Publications & Research

Visiting Assistant Professor Cheryl Hatch spoke at the University of Pittsburgh on November 12. Cindy Skrzycki invited Hatch to speak to students in her Great Modern Journalists class about Great Female Correspondents at the Front. Hatch brought Allegheny students from their News Writing and We’ve Got the Beat courses with her for a field trip. Hatch showed her short film “A Luta Continua” about Eritrean women soldiers and ex-fighters, and she answered students’ questions about her time covering war and its aftermath in conflicts in the Middle East and Africa. Hatch and the journalism students then visited the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at the invitation of executive editor David Shribman. Students took a tour of the newsroom and the presses. They also attended and observed the afternoon page-one meeting with the editorial board.

Source: Academics, Publications & Research