2021 faculty

Ad-rep boot camp / CMBAM

Tami Cindea Bongiorni is the paid media manager and senior digital strategist for Eleventy Marketing Group. She oversees all paid advertising campaigns and is the lead point of contact for all customer account management.

Before the Eleventy Group, Bongiorni was the assistant director of Kent State Student Media, where she oversaw and managed the advertising, sales, marketing and distribution operations for 10 media partners, including digital, print, broadcast and film.

David Graham has been in the advertising sales industry since 1988, selling newspaper advertising and commercial printing. 

For 20 years, Graham served as the advertising director at The Daily Pennsylvanian, the student newspaper at the University of Pennsylvania. He handled all of the sales, marketing and design training.
In 2014, he joined Clipper Magazine, where he is sales training manager for the Clipper Local Sales Division of Vericast, a digital and print marketing solutions company. 

Rick Nichols is an adaptable sales and management professional with more than 25 years of experience and knowledge of account development, solutions selling and direct-response marketing.

Nichols has been a major account representative at the Gloucester County Times and an area sales manager/team leader at Clipper Magazine. 

Audience engagement: Promotions & social media

James Wilson is sales and marketing adviser in student publications at University of Michigan.

He is a former social-media specialist in the university’s social media department, where he handled the university’s bicentennial launch across social platforms. He later joined its Center for Entrepreneurship as marketing and communications specialist. He has agency experience as a digital account executive at Franco, in Detroit.

Roderick Wilson is responsible for advising media and the arts at American University, which includes the Student Media Board and its 11 student media organizations and five performing-art clubs.

He serves as CMA’s communication committee chairperson. He previously worked in Chicago, for the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the Posse Foundation.

Business advisers / CMBAM

Heather Howard is the advertising and marketing manager of OU Student Media at the University of Oklahoma, Norman.

Katherine Ross is the director of sales and marketing of The Daily Pennsylvanian at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Allen Vaughan is the general manager of The Daily Nebraskan at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

Charlie Weaver is the executive director and general manager of MN Daily Media at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

Commentary: Editorials & opinions

Chris Evans is a multimedia journalist with a long history of advising student media for print, online, radio and TV outlets. He has worked to champion student free speech at the state and national level and, despite his multimedia work, considers himself to be a writer, at heart.  @byChrisEvans

Lara Weber has 20 years’ experience working at the Chicago Tribune, most of those as a member of the editorial board, where she has also served as a commentary editor, helping to shape the public conversation around everything from Chicago’s tribal politics to the rise of Donald Trump.

Lara has also worked in the Tribune’s business, sports, national/foreign and features departments. For five years, she was a visual reporter for the Tribune’s graphics department during such events as the Oklahoma City bombing, the O.J. Simpson trial and the Unabomber case.

Before all of that, Lara got a significant part of her journalistic training as the student government reporter on the University Daily Kansan at the University of Kansas.

Design/redesign

Emily Andrea Sendin is a professor of English, literature and creative writing on her 22nd year at Miami Dade College-Eduardo J. Padrón Campus.

She is the founding adviser of the award-winning Urbana Literary & Arts magazine. Her passions are teaching, writing, travel and social justice advocacy.

Gary Metzker is a full-time lecturer at Long Beach State University and the design adviser for LBSU’s Pacemaker and Pinnacle Award-winning Daily 49er and Dig Magazine.  

While at the Los Angeles Times, he was a member of four Pulitzer Prize-winning staff awards. Metzker has also been selected as California Journalism Educator of the Year.

Randy Stano is a professor of practice and former Knight Chair Professor at the University of Miami. Stano’s magazine/yearbook/online staffs have be honored as Pacemaker, Pinnacle and Crown winners.

He is past president and a Lifetime Achievement honoree from the Society for News Design. He was director of editorial art and design for The Miami Herald and the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle and assistant director of editorial art/design for the Kansas City Times when the publications won or were Pulitizer finalists. The Herald won SND Best in Show for visual coverage of Hurricane Andrew.

Digital storytelling

Patrick Howe is a journalism professor at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. He specializes in data journalism and visualization and advises Mustang News, Cal Poly’s integrated student media organization.

He has worked as an investigative reporter and political correspondent in Washington, D.C., and statehouse newsrooms for outlets including The Associated Press and the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. He has won state- and national-level awards for investigative reporting, public affairs reporting, column writing and layout and design. 

Vince Filak is an award-winning teacher, scholar and former college media adviser who serves as a professor of journalism at UW–Oshkosh.

He previously served on the faculty at Ball State University and also taught courses at the University of Missouri and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

He also formerly advised the Ball State Daily News and The Advance-Titan at UWO. He blogs about journalism, education and weird stuff at DynamicsOfWriting.com.

Managing all-digital organizations

Tamara Zellars Buck is the College Media Association president-elect. She appears to be a big fan of titles, as she has many at Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau, including professor, multimedia journalism coordinator, department chair, and faculty adviser of Arrow, the university’s student-run newspaper. She’s a former newspaper reporter and columnist who has been teaching since 2001.  @Tzbuck71

Chuck Clark is director of Western Kentucky University Student Publications, a media group that includes the College Heights Herald, Talisman magazine, Cherry Creative branded-content studio, Student Publications Advertising and a collection of specialty publications and websites. He returned to his alma mater in 2012 after 28 years in newsrooms.  @WKUChuckClark

Newsletters

Chris Richert is the general manager of The State News and SNworks, at Michigan State University.

He is a former GM of student media at Columbia College Chicago and CMBAM past  president. Chris has been involved in student media for more than 20 years.

Guest speaker Farhan Mohamed is a co-founder of Overstory Media Group, which plans to work with local journalists in up to 50 markets by 2023. Neiman Journalism Lab described the plan as “high-quality journalism, starting with a daily newsletter to regularly deliver the local news and events.”

Guest speaker Leen Obeidat is the director of business development at flytedesk, the largest network of student media in the country. She’s a college media nerd who spends most of her time working with publishers to help them launch new products, optimize their operations and drive revenue.

Organizational leadership

Jackie Alexander, director of student media at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, got trapped in college media with green Jolly Ranchers.

Since working as editor of The Daily Gamecock and then as a professional reporter in Florida, Jackie’s heart has lived with collegiate media. Jackie served as adviser to Tiger Media at Clemson for six years before becoming director at UAB in 2018.  @jackiealexander

Mark Witherspoon has been either a professional journalist or a journalism instructor for 45 years. In 33 years of teaching at three universities, he has advised student newspapers, magazines and yearbooks.

He served as CMA president, vice president and past president and is a member of CMA’s Hall of Fame. His students have won multiple national and state honors. 

Photojournalism

An associate professor at Midwestern State University, Wichita Falls, Texas, Bradley Wilson received his doctoral degree in public administration but got his start as a photojournalist.

Wilson is editor of the Journalism Education Association magazine, Communication: Journalism Education Today, and he is managing editor of the College Media Association’s College Media Review.  @bradleywilson09

Podcasting & Audio

Carol Terracina-Hartman lives in the world of daily journalism and academia. She is editor of a daily newspaper and advises The HawkEye, of Harrisburg Area Community College (Pennsylvania), which launched fall 2020. She recently taught at UW-Whitewater in the B/P/W sequence and advised the award-winning Royal Purple. She is CMA’s 4-year Newspaper Adviser of Distinction.

One of two doctoral students to ever receive a fellowship from the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism, she has a doctorate in media and information studies from Michigan State University.  @CaraTerracina

Kyle Miller is an assistant professor and The Volante adviser at the University of South Dakota.

He teaches broadcast, sports and digital-media classes and has leadership roles with the BEA Radio & Audio Media and Sports divisions. He also serves on the CMA Diversity and Inclusion committee.

@KyleMiller89

Recruitment/retention/training

Peg Achterman, Seattle Pacific University, spent 17 years in the local television news business, much of it at KING Television, Seattle, where she was a TV news photographer, field producer and editor.

She is an active member of the National Press Photographers Association and has won several awards and served as a national judge. She is the adviser for The Falcon and teaches digital and online media, multimedia journalism and media literacy.

Sandra Combs, Arkansas State University, is an associate professor in the School of Media & Journalism and adviser to The Herald student newspaper.

She came to Arkansas State in 2008. Before then, she taught journalism classes at Michigan State University and Wayne State University. She has degrees in journalism from the University of Florida and Michigan State University. She worked as a journalist at The Fort Myers News-Press, The Oakland Press and The Detroit News. 

She serves as CMA secretary. 

Reporting

Elizabeth Smith is the director of Pepperdine Graphic Media and a journalism professor. She is an award-winning journalist with 21 years of professional experience, including print, web and broadcast news.

Smith is the president-elect of the ACP Board of Directors and the president of the California College Media Association.  @tweetinginla

Victoria St. Martin teaches journalism at the University of Notre Dame. She is also the print publications coordinator with Notre Dame Student Media.

St. Martin came to Notre Dame after a 15-year journalism career in a half dozen newsrooms, including a stint as a reporter at The Washington Post.  @VStMartin 

Chris Whitley is president of College Media Association and director of student publications and journalism coordinator at Tarrant County College in Fort Worth, Texas. He has been an adviser for TCC’s award-winning newspaper, The Collegian, since 2008.  @chriswhitley

Social justice reporting

Arvli Ward has more than 30 years of experience in student media.

He was formerly a media adviser and media director at UCLA, where he worked with the Daily Bruin and several newsmagazines, including titles that focused on the African American, Latinx, Jewish, Muslim, LGBTQ and feminist communities among others.  

Ward is currently the publisher and adviser to the Sundial, the campus news organization at California State University, Northridge, in the San Fernando Valley. 

Sports

Fredrick Batiste advises The Egalitarian at Houston Community College. He spent six years as a reporter and editor at the Hammond (La.) Daily Star, including three covering preps and the Southland Conference. 

He currently contributes to HBCUSports.com, which focuses on athletics at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. 

Steven Chappell, Northwest Missouri State University, has been a media adviser and active member of College Media Association since 1993, and was a professional journalist for 10 years before he began advising college media. He is the founder of the Twitter feed @comminternships, which shares internship and job openings in communication jobs across the globe.

Student business managers / CMBAM

Jacob Horton is the executive marketing director for Utah State University Student Media. He oversees the marketing efforts for all aspects of student media including the student newspaper, radio and housing and business services.

Horton is on the CMBAM board as the elected student representative.

Alessandra Pintado-Urbanc is the business manager of The Daily Pennsylvanian at the University of Pennsylvania. Pintado-Urbanc oversees all of the business departments and their teams.

Prior to being elected as business manager, she was circulation manager, coordinating distribution of The Daily Pennsylvanian’s print products.

Video production

Will Murphy is an engineer, instructor, adviser, and fan of the Oxford comma at Northwest Missouri State University and KNWT Student Television. He loves all things that plug in, blink, flash or catch fire. 

Will Murphy is an engineer, instructor, advisor, and fan of the Oxford comma at Northwest Missouri State University and KNWT Student Television.  He loves all things that plug in, blink, flash or catch fire. 

Yearbooks & feature magazines

An award-winning adviser and student-media consultant, Linda Puntney is professor emeritus at Kansas State University. She is the former director of K-State student publications and adviser to the award-winning Royal Purple yearbook.

Puntney is the former executive director of the national Journalism Education Association. She is passionate about the First Amendment, yearbooks and Fritz the wonder dog.

Laura Widmer, executive director at Associated Collegiate Press/National Scholstic Press Association, oversees conventions, conferences and workshops, as well as advisory committees for both organizations.

Widmer’s background includes two years of high school advising and 29 years of advising award-winning publications at Northwest Missouri State University. She founded a newspaper in her hometown, Salisbury, Missouri, in 2008. After Northwest, she was general manager of the Iowa State Daily.