Future Mass Comm Student?

Welcome to the world, Noah Daniel Ridgway, born January 13, 2010. Congratulations to Brandon Ridgway ('05) and his wife Sarah.

Navigator Wins Eight State Awards

Congratulations to the staff of the Navigator on winning the following awards from the Georgia College Press Association:

1st Place: General Photography

1st Place: Best Column for Leah Cunningham

2nd Place: General Excellence

2nd Place: Layout and Design

2nd Place: General Advertising

3rd Place: Improvement

3rd Place: Best Campus Community Service – Sports

3rd Place: Best Campus Community Service – Editorial

Winter Semester?

Spring semester has begun at Piedmont, but it doesn't feel like spring. Maybe it should be called Winter semester! Temperatures were below freezing for several days, snow fell and stuck and the roads iced over, and classes were actually canceled Friday Jan. 8th. That's the first Snow Day I can remember at Piedmont! But don't worry. When students finally did get to class, I launched into the first lecture right after introductions and doubled up on the homework. We have to catch up!

Big news from the Georgia College Press Association. This year, the Navigator won 8 awards. We'll find out where we placed (1st, 2nd or 3rd) in each award when we attend the annual convention in Athens Feb. 5th and 6th. We won awards in: General Excellence, Improvement, Layout and Design, General Photography, Best Campus Community Service-Editorial, Best Column, Best Campus Community Service-Sports. Credit goes to the hardworking Navigator staff, but also to our alumni who started the paper, improved and redesigned it, and worked so hard to make it great. You should be very proud.

What are you doing Friday, April 16th at 2pm? How would you like to speak to our current Mass Comm students? I am planning a seminar to coincide with Piedmont Alumni Weekend and I'm looking for 3 or 4 Mass Comm alumni to discuss what it's like in the real world. Email me at ssimon@piedmont.edu if you're interested.

December 2009

Heather Bardinelli and Tim Suda are relieved to be completed with their capstone presentations and now wait serenely for their evaluations. Remember those days? It was fun to reminisce after the presentations with alumni Brian Carter, Daniela Guevara, Ruben Mendez, Cale Padgett and Justin Poole.

Last month, the faculty and SLC were involved in our first Mass Comm Experience Day. About 30 high school juniors and seniors toured the Swanson Center, ate in the caf, and took mini-classes from professors Arbitter, Moss, Simon and Van Cantfort. What fun! We got a lot of help from our friends Gwen and Mark Childers from Herff Jones, the yearbook people. Look here for pictures from the event: http://www.speakingyearbook.com/

Put these dates on your calendar: Friday/Saturday, April 16 & 17. That's Alumni Weekend at Piedmont, and the MCOM department is planning a special event for our alumni and students. More on that later.

Here is some news from your fellow alumni:

• Crystal Brooks recently got engaged to the love of her life, Matt, and they'll be getting married in March, 2010. She's still working on her masters in education and just got accepted into a million dollar American History grant program through the USDOE for history teachers.


• Per Nyberg is contributing reports from Europe for CNN. Here are some examples of his work posted on CNN.com. http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/11/07/iran.danish.arrest/index.html http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/10/25/uk.lockerbie.investigation/index.html


• Gabby Parham (Pitts) is still enjoying her work designing ads, handling legals and laying out the Bulletin Board publication (among other things) at The Northeast Georgian.


• Brandon Ridgway and his wife Sarah are expecting their first child in January. It's a boy! They've decided to name him Noah Daniel Ridgway.

Happy holidays to all of our alumni and their families from the Mass Comm faculty!

Alumni and their guests are welcome to attend Fall semester Capstone Presentations. Heather Bardinelli will present "Behind the Scenes of Live Television" and Tim Suda will present "Making your connections... Creating an Audio/Visual Engineering Company". Please join us after the presentations for light refreshments.

Senior Capstone Presentations
Time:4:00PM Wednesday, December 2nd
Location:Screening Room, Swanson Center, Piedmont College

Join the Piedmont Mass Comm Alumni group on Facebook!

It's Fall Semester and We're Back

Welcome to Fall Semester 2009! The new freshmen will be the graduating class of 2013. And we have 15 new freshmen in Mass Comm this year. I am teaching Mass Media Survey this semester, so I'm meeting all of them. And if you read my status updates on Facebook, you'll know that I'm trying to scare them, just a little, in the beginning. Just trying to make sure they do their homework. Please send me your news updates and photos to share with everyone on this blog. I also have plans to post the photos on the Facebook Mass Comm Alumni page.

In the meantime, here is a bit of news about the faculty. Dr. Blakeslee has relocated to West Point, New York, where her husband is the new head of the Ear/Nose/Throat department at the hospital there. Dr. Moss spent a good chunk of the summer conducting a debate camp for high school students here in the Swanson Center. Dr. Van Cantfort is busy busy busy teaching his classes and managing all the responsibilities as Mass Comm department chair. Professor Arbitter's twin boys are now 17-months old.

Hope to hear from all of you soon!

Relive the Days

This year's seniors definitely slept well last night, after finally completing their capstones. A few of our alumni came to watch. Justin Poole put some of them on YouTube. Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/user/jpoole0732

Remember I asked you to send me photos for my new bulletin board? A few of you responded and here's what it looks like (above). Keep sending them in over the summer and I'll post them when I get back to Piedmont in the fall.

I received some news from Eric Mathews and David Brandt. Eric is the new Development Associate at Mental Disability Rights International in D.C. and David Brandt has just won the Bronze Award for Best Feature from the Magazine Association of the Southeast. Congratulations to both!