School of Communication and Media – Spring 2013

News Highlights . . .

Greetings students, alumni, colleagues and friends. It’s hard to believe the School of Communication and Media (SCM) has gotten one semester under its belt and we are already well into our second semester.  With adventurous projects, renowned guest speakers and high-profile events happening almost daily, our school is vibrant and teeming with activity. Read about what we’ve been up to.

Merrill Brown,
Director

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New Colloquium Series Joins Existing Series to Attract Notables to SCM

Following a successfully launched professionals-in-media speaker series last fall, this semester saw the birth of our Colloquium Series with inaugural speaker John Del Cecato, partner and creative director at AKPD Message and Media and President Obama’s media consultant, on January 29. The most recent speaker was Brian Storm, founder and executive producer of MediaStorm, on February 22.

Meanwhile, Film Forum, our veteran speaker series that invites filmmakers and other professionals in the industry to the campus, recently screened Radio Unnameable, the award-winning documentary chronicling the career of legendary FM radio personality Bob Fass, on February 5 with a Q & A with Fass and the film’s directors – Paul Lovelace and Jessica Wolfson.

And, if it’s spring, it must be Oscars season, and our Filmmaking program co-hosted the fourth annual “Oscar Shorts – Celebrate the Underdog” February 24. The daylong event featured a marathon screening of Oscar-nominated short films that were placed in the Documentary, Live Action, and Animated Academy Award categories.
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SCM, Cali School of Music Collaborate on Documentary About University Vocal Accord’s European Tour

There was a premiere screening of the documentary American Voices: Montclair State University Vocal Accord’s European Tour 2012 on February 26. The documentary film traces the musical, cultural, and personal journey of the 24 students in Montclair State University’s Vocal Accord as they sang their way through Europe’s musical heartland in June 2012. SCM students Robert Dickerson and Kenneth Spooner produced the documentary. The film is a joint project between the SCM and the John J. Cali School of Music, with support from the Office of the President and the Global Education Center.
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SCM, Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center Present “Covering Baseball in a Changing Media” Panel discussion

SCM, together with the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center, hosted a panel discussion entitled “Covering Baseball in a Changing Media,” on February 13,  to explore the challenges of covering baseball in the 21st century. Moderated by Marc Rosenweig, the School’s assistant professor of Television and Digital Media, the panel was comprised of three sports journalists – Paul Hagan, a reporter for MLB.com, Russ Salzberg, sports director for WNYW and My9 television stations in the N.Y.  market,  and Jeff Bradley, a veteran sports writer who most recently served as a baseball columnist for The  Star-Ledger – and explored the challenges of covering baseball in a changing media age.
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“Hack Jersey,” NJ’s First-ever Hackathon, Debuts at Montclair State University

Montclair State University hosted the Garden State’s first ever journalist-tech hackathon the weekend of Jan. 26-28. Titled “Hack Jersey,” the sold-out event – sponsored and hosted by the NJ News Commons at Montclair State, in partnership with Knight-Mozilla Open News – was a 24-hour competition, allowing groups of journalists and software coders to team up to create original projects that could transform the way New Jersey residents use data and experience news. 
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Montclair State and Opera New Jersey Announce Fourth Annual Curtain Call Award Competition

For a fourth consecutive year, Montclair State University and Opera New Jersey will cohost the Curtain Call Award vocal competition and are seeking contestants. The contest is open to high school juniors and seniors who enjoy singing opera. The finals will take place in the Jed Leshowitz Recital Hall in the John A. Cali School of Music at 4 p.m. on Sunday, June 2.
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Second Annual “Behind the Screen: Media Careers 101” Held December 9

Montclair State University’s Film Program, in partnership with the Montclair Film Festival (MFF), presented a day of seminars entitled “Behind the Screen: Media Careers 101,” on December 9, at Montclair State’s University Hall.  Each 12 hour-long panel was hosted by a professional working in the media industry.
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Bruce Beck and Ian Eagle Receive Broadcaster of the Year Award

The School of Communication and Media honored two top sportscasters, Bruce Beck and Ian Eagle, with the Allen B. DuMont Broadcaster of the Year Award. The two received the award at Montclair State’s DuMont Television Center on December 5.

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NJ News Commons Holds Internship Fair

The NJ News Commons sponsored an Internship Fair on November 27 for students to meet with representatives of NJTV, NJPR, WGBO, NJ Spotlight, Baristanet, NJ Tech Weekly, Morristown Green, NJ Arts News, Glocally Newark, Paterson Press, Elizabeth Inside Out, The Jersey Tomato Press and others.

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Montclair State Hosts Leading Italian American Independent Filmmakers

Assistant Prof. Roberta Friedman of the Filmmaking Program, and Prof. Teresa Fiore of the Dept. of Spanish and Italian, moderated a November 8 panel discussion about the role of Italian Americans in the mainstream media. The event was organized by the Inserra Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies.

People Spotlights . . .Faculty, Students

Faculty

Prof. CHRISTINE LEMESIANOU, the recipient of the 2012 Montclair State University Distinguished Teaching Award, spoke at the first annual Montclair State University Distinguished Teacher Award Lecture on March 28 in University Hall, Room 1010. Read the 

Prof. ANTHONY PEMBERTON (Filmmaking) was recently featured in Filmmaker magazine.

An article by JOEL PENNEY, assistant professor of New Media, and CAROLINE DADAS, assistant professor of English, has been published in New Media & Society, a top-ranked, peer-reviewed, international journal that publishes key research from communication, media and cultural studies. The article – titled “(Re)Tweeting in the service of protest: Digital composition and circulation in the Occupy Wall Street movement” – analyzes how Twitter and social media affected the organization and participation of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Former DuMont Television Center Director JEFF FRIEDMAN premiered his Discover Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, two one-hour specials produced and directed by Friedman featuring New Jersey Maestro George Marriner Maull and the Discovery Orchestra, on WYBE, MiND TV in Philadelphia, on April 1-2.

Students

Senior DENNIS CONNOR‘s short film, Breaking Boundaries, recently aired on NJTV.