Mallory Dumas Writes

Last night I called into Jerisa's radio show for an impromptu interview. It made me realize that I really do miss Piedmont. The resident rules were annoying, the administration politics were frustrating and the mass comm workload was hectic, but I wouldn't trade any of it!

I'm still enjoying my job. We're working on all the holiday promos for "Season's Eatings". It's our busiest time of year, but I feel like I'm getting the job done. Right now I'm responsible for assisting the producers assigned to me. That involves getting footage, music and graphics for their promos and checking all the spots as they come in. Of course, there's more involved, but it's a lot of little stuff.

I talked with our new creative director the other day, and after the holidays he's going to try to get the PAs more training and shadowing time with producers so that we can start editing our own spots. I'm really excited about learning more. I do eventually want to produce content, but I'm enjoying promos for now and can see myself working at Food Network for awhile.

I'm still loving New York and Hoboken. I've never relied this much on public transportation. I haven't driven a car in 5 months! But I'm learning my way around and becoming more and more comfortable with my new life.

I'm sorry that I won't be able to make it down for the December capstones. However, I plan on being there for the spring presentations. Let me know if anyone is applying for IRTS this year. They can ask me any questions if they want to. It's an incredible program and I really encourage everyone to consider it.

Thanks again for making me work so hard for the last four years. It really is paying off in "the real world."

More Than a Game: Working in Sports

The Department of Mass Communication invites Piedmont College students, faculty, staff, alumni and guests to a sports symposium entitled: "More Than a Game: Working in Sports" to be held in the Swanson Center Screening Room 12pm-1:30pm Friday, October 24th.

Three speakers will discuss their experiences in the field of sports and mass communication:

Gerard Farek, Supervising Producer at CNN International, covered the Beijing Olympics and produces a sports news show.

Adrienne Midgley is in her fifth season with the Braves and her first as coordinator of media relations.

A.R. Van Cantfort has more than 50 years of broadcast experience and is currently with the Jacksonville Jaguars doing pre-season games.

Please join us!

Mass Comm Launches New Web Site

The Mass Comm Department launched its new re-designed Web site. Tell us what you think!
www.piedmont.edu/masscomm

Meredith Kisgen Home from Peace Corps

I am back from serving in the Peace Corps in Swaziland subsaharan Africa. While there I completed various projects under the ambiguous title of "HIV/AIDS educator." I worked with a girls' scholarship and mentoring program at a local highschool benefiting 42 orphaned/vulnerable young females. I worked with fellow volunteers to organize and implement a 12-day, 200 kilometer border to border walk across the nation for HIV/AIDS awareness on the rural level. I also served on a 2-man Monitoring and Evaluation team for the event which touched over 100,000 people. During this UN sanctioned event I filmed and documented AIDS in Swaziland at the rural level and edited it into a 45 minute documentary/video journal which was distributed to our partners, including the UN, to summarize the event and its importance/impact on the people. I also used my video skills to put together a Welcome DVD for potential Swaziland volunteers which was sent to headquarters in D.C. to be used as a pilot for other Peace Corps posts. The DVD included Special Features geared at preparing new volunteers for their service in different fields such as "Packing" and "Volunteer Life." I wanted to let you know that the passion I found working in Film at Piedmont during those experimental times has stayed with me and flourished. I am now looking into applying for an MFA in Film at TISCH and USC Cinema for starters.

Debate News

Dr. Janice Moss represented Piedmont by attending the inauguration of George Cleveland Bradley, Ph.D. the fourteenth President of Paine College on Friday, September 12, 2008 in Augusta, Georgia.

Dr. Janice Moss received the Paul Harris Award from the Habersham County Rotary Club in August, 2008. The Paul Harris Award is a Rotary International honor given for outstanding community service.

The Piedmont Debate Team competed in several policy and parliamentary debate tournaments during the 2007-2008 year.

Sept. 2008 Georgia State National Debate Tournament
Piedmont debaters won 5 policy debate matches in the novice division competing against teams from Emory University, Vanderbilt and Liberty University.
Mar. 2008 James Madison University
Piedmont debaters competed in the James Madison Cup Parliamentary Debate Tournament at James Madison University in Harrisburg, Virginia.

The Piedmont Debate Team will be competing in the Vanderbilt University Policy Debate Tournament in Nashville, Tennessee on October 17 through the 19th.

Poole Visits Swanson

Justin Poole visited Swanson Center Friday, Oct. 10. He talked to me about his new position covering sports at a new Winder newspaper. It's going to service Winder and Barrow County. He also showed me his new Flip camcorder. It's a digital video camera with a USB plug and records up to an hour of video. Justin says, "A two-year-old could use it." Justin wants to tell the mass comm alumni, "We all need to get together and hang out sometime."

Betsey tells MC Alumni Blog what's new in the department

Stacy,

I had so much fun this weekend at Kelly Craig’s wedding. Needless to say she looked beautiful marrying the son of the publisher of the Northeast Georgian Newspaper. Three people in her wedding party included Darlene Wyant, Galia Saravalli and Sharon Wheaton, Bowie Wheaton’s wife. I saw Bowie as well. Everyone was super and it was so wonderful to see them. Darlene is working with two marketing firms and doing some film. Galia is moving to Spain next week to work in TV production over there hopefully. Bowie is manager of Chili’s in Atlanta which is the most successful restaurant in their chain in Georgia. As you can imagine, he is a terrific manager of people. Sharon is working as a graphic designer. He told me Mark is teaching 5th grade and loves it. I’m sure the kids feed off his energy. I tried to get them to call me Betsey instead of Dr. Blakeslee but it’s tough. I told them how you and I (Stacy) have had lunch with alumni and make them practice calling us by our first names.

We are launching our newly designed web site this week and it will have a web cam in the newsroom so if you’re bored (alumni) you can check on the current mass comm students to see if they’re working as hard as you did!

Mary Verdery started this week as our new assistant in the department.

Stacy is a Senator, part of the new faculty senate at Piedmont. Only 16 faculty members were elected.

Candice Felice is doing a super job of producing great work for Georgia Public Broadcasting in the GPR studios here on the campus.

This week we start our fall film series in the screening room. We’re showing The Diving Bell and the Butterfly which won Golden Globe Best Picture last year and Best Director Academy Award.

Several of the mass comm students are studying In Nottingham England this semester and several more will go next semester.

The newspaper ( now called the Navigator- thanks to Brandon Ridgway) is posted and updated every two weeks on line at www.piedmontnavigator.com .

We met with a bunch of students last week from the Athens campus that are going to start doing the Athens page of the newspaper and the yearbook and magazine.

TV Piedmont runs 24/7 now and the programming improves all the time. The green screen is up and running along with our new graphics system.

I will close by saying that it’s so great to see former alumni. Every one of you contributed to the success this department has become and if you hadn’t slogged it out in our crazy small closets and moldy converted classrooms/ TV studios we wouldn’t be in this building. You are all a part of this fabulous complex.

-Betsey