Qian Xu, professor of strategic communications and A.J. Fletcher Professor, collaborated with Cheng Chen, assistant professor at Oregon State University, on a study examining how AI conversational styles interact with users’ expectations of the roles AI should play.

Their article, “” was recently published in Behaviour & Information Technology, a peer-reviewed academic journal that focuses on human-centered information technology.

The experiment randomly assigned 137 college students to one of three Microsoft Copilot conversational styles of Copilot  – creative, balanced or precise – and measured which role they expected the tool to fulfill: co-author, creator, curator or converser. Participants then completed at least three rounds of interaction with Copilot to develop a strategic plan addressing a public health issue in their home county.

Key findings include:

• Copilot’s conversational style affected the readability and linguistic features of its responses, including the use of words associated with analytical thinking and authenticity.
• Users adapted their writing based on Copilot’s conversational style, particularly in the readability of their prompts.
• Users and Copilot showed linguistic alignment in emotional tone and clout across all three conversational styles but diverged in analytical thinking.
• Mismatches between Copilot’s conversational style and users’ expectations of its role reduced perceived credibility and relevance of its responses.

“AI conversational style is more than a matter of preference. What matters is how well the style fits the roles users expect AI to play,” Xu said. The findings point to opportunities for more adaptive AI interfaces that adjust conversational style based on users’ expectations and tasks.

Behaviour & Information Technology is an international peer-reviewed Taylor & Francis journal covering the human aspects of information technology, including usability, user experience, human-computer interaction and human-centered design.

For , pursuing journalism doesn’t necessarily mean following a traditional path. The ������Ƶ junior didn’t want to fit into a certain box, so when she saw an opening last summer for a video production assistant internship in her hometown in Central Illinois, she applied – and landed the role.

The opportunity introduced Burgos to a different side of storytelling. Working with the Big Ten Network, a national sports network dedicated to coverage of Big Ten Conference athletics, she gained hands-on experience setting up and shooting content ranging from interviews to b-roll. Most importantly, she contributed to several documentary projects.

Nearly a year later, she can finally share what she worked on last summer – a short documentary highlighting the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s rich history of agricultural innovation and discovery. The film premiered on the network on July 8; a fact Burgos celebrated on .

With the documentary now available on , Burgos has been able to show her family the finished product, including her father, who was “super excited” for her.

“He’s taking a picture of my credit,” Burgos laughed.

This summer the ������Ƶ junior interned again with the Big Ten Network and her role expanded. She’s gotten to participate in some shoots, review video archives and work on another documentary. While she cannot disclose the subjects yet, she helped colleagues interview several high-profile Illinois alumni.

“I think I really just got to dip my toes in last summer,” she said. “And there are always so many more stories still to be told.”

Burgos’ willingness to explore different sides of journalism reflects the path she took at ������Ƶ, where she didn’t declare her major until her sophomore year. Before settling on journalism, she took advantage of that flexibility to explore different areas within the School of Communications.

That exploration included working on a student film set as a grip, an equipment technician who supports a production.

“If you know about something in your community that you might be interested in getting involved in. Don’t be afraid to reach out.”
– Miranda Burgos ’28

As a Communications Fellow, Burgos and the rest of her first-year cohort traveled to Florida, where they shadowed professionals and toured companies representing different areas of the communications and sport industries. Burgos said it helped her realize that graduating with a journalism degree didn’t necessarily mean she had to work at a newspaper or broadcast station.

“I was still undecided at that time, but no matter what I picked, my options were maybe more open than I was imagining,” Burgos said.

Experiences like the Florida trip eventually helped push her to submit her application to the Big Ten Network.

The internship also brought its own challenges. Burgos said she had to learn to be more adaptable as shoots would get rescheduled or canceled altogether. Once she became accustomed to the unpredictability, however, it became one of her favorite parts of the internship.

“Things can get moved, things can just pop out of nowhere, but it kind of felt like an adventure,” she said. “It has been so much fun.”

This fall, Burgos will study abroad in Spain. When she returns, she plans to continue exploring her options as a journalism major.

The annual recognition honors emerging public relations professionals making their mark on the industry in the early stages of their careers. For Gibson, the recognition gave her a chance to appreciate how much she and HCM have grown in a relatively short time.

“PRNEWS is one of the most respected platforms in the industry, so it’s an honor to be recognized,” Gibson said. “I’ve spent the past few years watching Hannah Cranston Media grow from a team of three to a team of more than 20, and most days I’m too deep in pitching and problem-solving to stop and think about how far we’ve come.”

While Gibson has built her career in public relations, many of the skills that guide her work today were developed through her experiences as a journalism major at ������Ƶ.

The Honors Fellow was heavily involved with ������Ƶ News Network as an anchor and multimedia journalist, while also participating other immersive experiences like FreshTV. Those opportunities helped establish a foundation in storytelling that she continues to draw upon while working on the public relations side of the media industry.

“������Ƶ gave me a passion for storytelling and a tenacious curiosity, both essential to my career,” Gibson said. “Working as a reporter and anchor with ENN taught me what it takes to build a good story, and what makes people actually connect with one – the human element has to come first.”

That journalism background, Gibson said, has proved especially valuable as she develops stories and works directly with reporters.

“It’s shaped how I think about what a good story looks like and made me a better resource to the journalists I work with today,” she said.

Following graduation, Gibson spent three years with Jennifer Bett Communications before joining HCM in early 2024 as senior manager of public relations. She was promoted to director of public relations and business development six months later.

In her current position, Gibson oversees the agency’s consumer packaged goods, women’s health and wellness client roster, with responsibilities spanning client strategy and media relations. Her work can range from developing pitch strategies with colleagues to staffing events with reporters and cultivating media relationships. “My job changes shape depending on the week – which is one of the best parts,” she said.

Gibson credits much of her professional growth to learning the importance of surrounding herself with people committed to their work and to one another.

“Bet on people over playbooks. In an industry built on relationships, we can teach anyone to write a pitch or find the right story – but working alongside people who are passionately determined and hungry to see their teams succeed is an irreplaceable, unteachable quality.”

– Amanda Gibson ’21

Gibson also points to retired ������Ƶ faculty members Rich Landesberg and Glenn Scott as influential mentors. She credits Landesberg with instilling a respect for journalism’s ability to serve communities, an outlook that has influenced the brands and people she chooses to work with. Her research with Scott examining how stories are told around major events also continues to inform her approach to identifying stories and perspectives that might otherwise be overlooked.

Those lessons, along with the relationships she developed during her undergraduate years, remain important to Gibson five years after graduating.

“Beyond the classroom, the friendships and mentors I found at ������Ƶ continue to be a bedrock of both my life and my career,” Gibson said, “I’m endlessly grateful for my time Under the Oaks.”

School of Communications faculty members earned research and teaching honors and shared their expertise on topics ranging from artificial intelligence and internships to mentorship and First Amendment issues at the .

Held Aug. 5-8 in New Orleans, the conference brought together journalism and mass communication educators and scholars from around the world to present research, exchange ideas and explore emerging issues across the communications field.

Several ������Ƶ faculty members were recognized for their work during the conference.

Shanetta Pendleton and Michele Lashley, assistant professors of strategic communications, earned second place in the Teaching Paper Competition for their research, “Exploring the Perceived Efficacy of Custom AI Chatbots in Public Relations Education.” Their study explored how course-specific AI chatbots can serve as instructional supports in undergraduate communications courses, providing students with additional opportunities for formative feedback and iterative learning. The findings highlight the potential for thoughtfully designed AI tools to complement classroom instruction by helping students refine their work and deepen their learning while encouraging responsible and ethical AI use.

Qian Xu, professor of strategic communications and A.J. Fletcher Professor, and Jenny Jiang, associate professor of visual communication, were recognized during the Internships and Careers Interest Group’s Top Refereed Research Paper Session. They presented “AI in Media Analytics Job Postings: A Computational Analysis of AI Mentions, Expectations, and Semantic Networks,” a study analyzing more than 5,400 media analytics job postings to examine how AI is mentioned, framed and structurally embedded in job descriptions.

Presentations and panels

������Ƶ faculty also contributed to research and teaching sessions examining mentorship, internships, emerging technologies, workplace experiences and First Amendment concerns.

• Israel Balderas, assistant professor of journalism, served as a panelist for “Compelling Faith: The Growing Tensions between the Free Speech, Free Exercise, and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment.” The panel examined how recent Supreme Court rulings are reshaping debates over religious expression, compelled speech and civil rights in schools and universities. Balderas also moderated “Disrespected and Derailed: Women of Color Journalists Covering the Trump Administration,” a research panel examining the experiences of women of color journalists covering the administration.

• 

  Vanessa Bravo, professor of strategic communications, served as a panelist for the teaching session “Mentoring Minoritized Students and Fostering Resilient Young Professionals,” which examined how faculty can mentor and support students from historically underrepresented backgrounds. Bravo also served as a discussant for “Media, Vulnerability, and Empowerment: How Mediated Spaces Both Endanger and Support Marginalized Groups” and moderated the International Communication Division teaching panel “Global Inclusivity in Comparative Research: Experiences and Reflections.”

• Hal Vincent, associate teaching professor of strategic communications, moderated a research panel session, “Spotlight: Research Scholars Exchange,” and served as a discussant for multiple refereed research paper sessions. He also moderated the members’ meeting for the Internships and Careers Interest Group.
• Qian Xu and former ������Ƶ Comm faculty member Chris Chen presented “Customizing Communication Styles in Claude: Control Benefits, Cognitive Cost, and Task-Dependent Effects” during a scholar-to-scholar refereed research paper session on AI and relationships. Their research examined how different levels of customization and task type influence psychological responses in human-AI interaction and perceptions of AI-generated output.

As digital editor at WUSA-TV, a CBS affiliate in Washington, D.C., Rosenthal handles a wide range of responsibilities, from writing for the station’s website and producing social media content to gathering sources and reporting in the field. The journalism major said she fell in love with news reporting when she was in high school, which led her to apply to ������Ƶ.

“I joined my high school newspaper club in ninth grade, and it was the 2016 election season,” Rosenthal recalled. “There was a ton of news, and I got the ‘news bug,’ and I’ve been doing it ever since.”

At ������Ƶ, Rosenthal found opportunities through student media to develop her reporting skills outside the classroom.

“I feel like the hands-on experience that I got working with my peers and friends, and actually going out and doing reporting, and putting together a paper every week showed me more of the skills that I use on a day-to-day,” Rosenthal said.

She also credits The Pendulum’s critique sessions with teaching her how to receive feedback and use it to improve her work.

“You don’t need to qualify a mistake or qualify a reason why you did this or that,” Rosenthal said. “What I learned so much from critique was how to take feedback and move forward and use that in the next piece. Now I’m somebody who asks for feedback all the time because, I think, in part, because of those critiques.”

Those lessons have followed Rosenthal into her professional career. Earlier this year, she spent three weeks covering a murder trial in Fairfax, Virginia, an assignment she described as a significant learning experience.

“My station sent me to a murder trial in January, and I spent three weeks covering a very high-profile case every day in court, and that has been a huge learning and teaching moment for me,” Rosenthal said. “I feel like I learned so much from covering this trial, especially as somebody who has covered many court hearings and smaller things.”

For current ������Ƶ students interested in journalism, Rosenthal recommends getting involved in student media early and pursuing the subjects that interest them.

“My biggest advice is to be involved in student journalism,” she said. “Just start doing stories and meeting people and doing things that are out of your comfort zone. When I was at ������Ƶ, I was interested in courts. I would go to the courthouse in Graham to pick up court documents for stories, and go to the police station, and pick up crime numbers, and things like that. If there’s something that you’re interested in, just start doing it.”

Like Rosenthal, Phengsitthy discovered her love of writing through her high school newspaper, where she served as editor-in-chief. She brought that interest to ������Ƶ, double majoring in Communication Design (now Visual Communication) and Media Analytics while becoming heavily involved with ������Ƶ News Network.

“I’ve always been a writer,” Phengsitthy said. “I know that people don’t really like talking about high school when they talk about their experience, but high school is when I really started.”

Phengsitthy served as design chief of The Pendulum during her sophomore year and managing editor as a junior. She credits those experiences with providing the foundation for her professional journalism career.

Everything I did in ������Ƶ News Network is what set me up for my journalism experience today. I joke with my friends that ENN was like my third degree in college because I got so much done and learned so much there. From just writing every single day, that’s what helped me get better.

— Nyah Phengsitthy ’23

While at ������Ƶ, Phengsitthy interned with Bloomberg Law on its environment desk. Following graduation, she returned to the organization through a rotational program and now works as a health reporter. In that role, she has covered the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, drug pricing and other complex issues affecting the pharmaceutical and health care industries.

Her work at Bloomberg Law requires reporting on complex subjects, but Phengsitthy said young journalists shouldn’t feel pressure to become experts on every topic they cover. Instead, they should focus on developing the skills necessary to find knowledgeable sources, understand complicated information and explain it clearly to readers.

“Be an expert in being a reporter and writing and learning how to break down information for your readers,” Phengsitthy said.

Phengsitthy also encourages ������Ƶ students to complement their campus journalism experience with internships that allow them to apply their skills in professional settings.

“You can have all the skills, and you can have all the clips that you have from ENN, but it’s more powerful if you go and get to apply them somewhere else,” she said, noting the value of internships. “The more experience you have, the better.

“The job market is really hard right now, but I feel like if you’re able to show that you can get your foot in the door somewhere, that’s good.”

Founded by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Ron Howard and producer Brian Grazer, Imagine Entertainment is one of Hollywood’s most respected film and television production companies, with acclaimed credits including “A Beautiful Mind,” “Apollo 13” and “Friday Night Lights.”

Since joining the company more than six years ago, Choi has risen from an executive assistant to vice president of film, where she leads development across the department’s slate. Her projects include “Dangerously Funny,” a feature about the Smothers Brothers’ battle with CBS censors, and she secured the rights to the books “200 Monas” by Jan Saenz and Rebecca Yarros’ “The Last Letter” for Amazon. Imagine’s upcoming releases include “How to Rob a Bank,” “Whalefall,” “The Mosquito Bowl” and “Spaceballs 2.”

Choi said the recognition is especially meaningful because it reflects the relationships she has built throughout her career.

“You can’t succeed in a vacuum, and I think the best part of this industry is the camaraderie and community that you can find if you look for it,” Choi said. “To be recognized by the company where I grew up as a producer is incredibly meaningful, and even more than that, to look around and be celebrated by my peers and creative partners is everything.”

In her profile, the ������Ƶ graduate reflected on the experiences that sparked her passion for filmmaking.

“Growing up, I wasn’t allowed to watch many movies, so the ones I did manage to see felt especially meaningful,” she told Variety. “That experience shaped the kinds of stories I gravitate toward today.”

Reflecting on her career path, Choi – a Leadership Fellow at ������Ƶ – offered advice for others hoping to break into the film industry.

“No matter how you got into the room or what room you’re in, make the most of it,” she said. “Do everything you can to hone your craft so that, in an industry where opportunities are increasingly harder to come by, you’re the most prepared you could be to take full advantage of whatever comes your way.”

Calling the biggest fan of “The Joe Murray Show,” 98.5 The Sports Hub’s weeknight program, might be an understatement. The sport management major estimates she tuned in to the Boston-based program nearly 300 times last year. So, when the station offered her an internship this summer, she knew it was the perfect fit.

“It’s just a really well-rounded internship, and that’s what I think is truly going to help me,” the aspiring sports broadcaster said.

While Marchand’s shift at the radio station doesn’t start until 6 p.m., she has her hands full with a wide range of duties the rest of the night. She answers incoming calls from listeners, assists with the station’s YouTube stream and creates graphics for social media. But what excites her the most is the chance to go live on the air.

“That’s probably the biggest opportunity I’ve had,” she said. “It’s really nice that they trust me to go on the radio with thousands of people listening.”

Early in the internship, the show’s producer wrote an entire segment for Marchand, giving her the chance to discuss the New England Patriots on the air. A few weeks later, she was helping the station’s social media team cover one of the most consequential days in Boston sports, following the Celtics’ blockbuster trade of Jaylen Brown to the Philadelphia 76ers.

Those opportunities grew from a connection Marchand had pursued long before the internship began.

Because internships at 98.5 The Sports Hub aren’t publicly posted, Marchand said networking is essential. In fact, when Marchand initially sent Joe Murray a message on LinkedIn during her freshman year, securing an internship wasn’t on her mind.

“Funny enough, he left me on ‘read’ the first time I messaged him,” Marchand said. “A year later, I reached out again and said, ‘Hey, I waited a year. I’d still love to find time to chat. I know you’re really busy.’ The second time, he answered.”

When he finally responded, Murray asked a question that changed everything.

“Do you know Katie Bennert?” he wrote back, referencing the 2024 ������Ƶ graduate who both interned and worked at the station. Marchand had never met the ������Ƶ alumna, but had heard positive things about her from friends involved with ������Ƶ Sports Vision. That shared ������Ƶ connection prompted Murray to invite Marchand to tour the studio over Winter Break. That’s when he offered her a spot to join his production team.

“I decided that this would be the best opportunity for me, working at a major market Boston sports radio station, and it’s been amazing,” she said.

While her internship began this summer, Marchand is no stranger to sports broadcasting. During her first two years at ������Ƶ, she has contributed to more than 50 ������Ƶ Sports Vision broadcasts as a play-by-play announcer, sideline reporter and more. This past year, she became the youngest of three student hosts to call ������Ƶ Division I football games on the radio and co-hosted her own sports radio show with Scott Katz ’26. She has also worked more than 90 shifts with ������Ƶ Athletics, gaining additional behind-the-scenes experience in game-day operations.

“Being able to have that on my resume at just 19 years old, where a lot of people may not have those opportunities … I think that that’s really what ������Ƶ has helped me with,” Marchand said. “I don’t think I would have gotten those opportunities anywhere else.”

At ������Ƶ, Marchand has sharpened her on-air delivery and become comfortable working in a studio environment. Now she’s learning how to be more creative producing content centered on sports conversations rather than live competition. She’s also learning to separate her professional responsibilities from her passion as a fan.

Growing up just an hour outside Boston, Marchand has been a fan of the city’s professional sports teams since she was young. In August, she’ll attend Patriots training camp to capture photos and create content for the station.

“You do have to separate being a fan from your professional work, so I can’t fangirl over them when I’m there,” she said. “I have to be professional.”

While Marchand’s own initiative opened the door at 98.5 The Sports Hub, she credits the guidance she received at ������Ƶ with helping her walk through it. Assistant Professor of Sport Management Khirey Walker, in particular, played an important role in her internship search.

“He is just one of the most passionate, hardworking, selfless and kind people that I know at ������Ƶ,” she said. “He will literally drop anything to help any of his students.”

This fall, Marchand will continue her journey through The Sport Experience in Charlotte, where she’ll live, intern and study while expanding her experience in one of the nation’s fastest-growing sports business markets.

As thousands of soccer fans streamed toward San Francisco Bay Area Stadium in Santa Clara, California, draped in national flags and chanting hours before kickoff, the energy was palpable.

Swiss fans dressed as cows rang cowbells, Australian fans carried enormous inflatable kangaroos, and Jordanian supporters congregated early outside the gates, waving oversized flags and singing in unison. Together, they created the spectacle that makes the FIFA World Cup unlike any other sporting event.

For , those moments were part of her daily routine during the tournament’s opening stages.

As a ticketing operations manager for FIFA, the ������Ƶ graduate spent several months helping fans enjoy the FIFA World Cup. While much of her work happened behind the scenes, Cirby handled everything from validating each seat in the stadium and accessible seating requests to one of the tournament’s toughest challenges: helping fans who unknowingly purchased counterfeit tickets.

“The more games have been played, the more variations of fake tickets have come out,” she explained.

While resolving ticket issues is part of the job, it represents only a fraction of Cirby’s experience. For all six Bay Area matches – including Team USA’s Round of 32 win – she served as the stadium ticketing manager and welcomed more than 410,000 fans to the region she grew up in.

“It’s the World Cup,” she said. “It’s once in a lifetime to be able to be part of an event like this.”

Cirby joined FIFA in January after nearly six years with the San Francisco Giants, where she built a career in ticket operations and services with her hometown team. But the opportunity to work the World Cup was one she couldn’t pass up.

“I was just kind of looking for jobs casually, just to see what was out there, and I threw in an application – and then it worked out,” Cirby said.

Her responsibilities have stretched far beyond match days. Cirby helped hire local stadium staff, prepare cross-functional training for various departments, and ensure FIFA’s ticketing spaces were ready before fans arrived. Once matches began, she moved between entrances and ticket offices, supporting staff and assisting fans whose tickets would not scan, who needed accessible seating accommodations, or who could not locate their tickets.

The role also gave Cirby a front-row view of the tournament’s global fan culture.

“It’s mesmerizing to see these fans and the passion that they have,” Cirby said. “I don’t get to see the full fan marches, but I get to see them arrive at our entrance and go through our turnstiles, and they’re still chanting and cheering.”

Cirby’s path to FIFA began at ������Ƶ, majoring in sport management. She fondly remembers attending MLB’s Winter Meetings with her classmates, where she placed resumes in the mailboxes of organizations with job openings.

“I probably put 20 to 30 resumes in and got a couple of interviews, but that’s how I got my first job with the Atlanta Braves right out of college,” Cirby said.

That first role with the Braves eventually led to opportunities with the Giants and, ultimately, FIFA. Looking back, Cirby encourages students interested in the sport industry to cast a wide net.

“Honestly, just apply,” Cirby said. “Putting yourself out there and applying can make a real difference.”

Her World Cup assignment also demanded resolution. For nearly two months, Cirby was based at a hotel in Santa Clara with other FIFA staff because of the long hours and the proximity to the stadium. The work has been especially demanding because Cirby has been doing it with a torn ACL, an injury she sustained this spring playing in a rec league kickball game. After consulting with doctors, she decided to postpone surgery until after the tournament.

“It’s really funny to be like, ‘Not only am I working the World Cup, but I’m walking like 25,000 steps a day on a torn ACL,’” Cirby laughed.

With surgery scheduled for late August, Cirby is looking forward to a well-earned break – and where her career will take her next. But this experience has reaffirmed why she chose a career in sports.

“I grew up playing soccer through high school, and I’ve continued to be a big fan,” Cirby said. “Seeing supporters from so many different countries bring that passion to every match has been the best part of the job.”

The strategic communications major is serving as a strategy and account intern, where he rotates between McKinney’s strategy and account teams. With a few weeks of the internship behind him, Arrasmith said the transition has been seamless thanks to the strong sense of community at the agency.

“Everyone here is so welcoming,” Arrasmith said. “Even though I’m the youngest person both in the agency and in my internship class, I don’t feel out of place.”

Arrasmith said McKinney has been on his radar for years. After his early exposure to the agency, he regularly checked the company’s internship page in hopes of one day earning a spot in the program.

As an account management and strategy intern, Arrasmith helps bridge communication between the agency and its clients. While the role has introduced new challenges, he arrived with a foundation built through classroom experiences and leadership roles at ������Ƶ.

For the past two years, Arrasmith has been involved with ������Ƶ’s student-run communications agency.

Arrasmith has served as an account supervisor with Live Oak and credits the organization for preparing him for the fast-paced agency environment.

“I feel I have a good grasp of what’s going on and what people are talking about,” he said.

While familiar with agency work, Arrasmith said the internship has broadened his understanding of how different departments collaborate to serve clients.

He’s also gained exposure to an industry he knew little about before arriving at McKinney. Working with the agency’s health division has required him to learn healthcare terminology, pharmaceutical companies and industry-specific concepts.

“I didn’t know anything about health or pharma, so it’s been a lot of just taking the time afterward to educate myself,” he said.

Despite the learning curve, Arrasmith said the experience has reinforced the value of curiosity and continuous learning.

“I found great success in just always asking questions, always wanting to learn the most I can about a subject, because that shows people that you are interested, you’re engaged, and you actually care about what you’re doing,” he said.

As he enters his third year at ������Ƶ, Arrasmith hopes to leave the internship with meaningful relationships across the agency, developing a network he can lean on for guidance. To make that happen, he has set a personal goal of taking at least 10 colleagues out to lunch before the summer ends.

Some lessons start with a lecture. Others begin with a camera in hand, a deadline looming, and a story waiting to be told.

That’s how Blake Pierre-Louis described his experience in ������Ƶ’s Emerging Journalists Program, where the rising senior from Rochester, New York, joined 17 other high school students for a 12-day immersive journalism experience.

“It was like a two-week crash course in everything you might need to know if you’re getting into journalism,” Pierre-Louis said. “It’s a great opportunity to get hands-on experience and actually learn by doing instead of sitting in a classroom. You get to actually go out, apply concepts and use what you’ve learned.”

During the residential program, which ran June 15-26, the students worked as members of a functioning newsroom while reporting on stories on and off campus. Their assignments took them to the North Carolina State Capitol, the International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro and the Winston-Salem Dash, while media tours introduced them to journalists at WUNC News and ABC11 WTVD-TV. They also produced professional web stories, a newspaper and a television news broadcast.

.

“We had an incredibly cohesive and collaborative group of students join us on campus this summer,” said Colin Donohue, assistant professor of journalism and EJP program director. “They were diligent and enterprising and intrepid. As important, they were generous and kind. They possess tremendous potential, and I look forward to seeing them apply their skills in their hometowns and in their schools.”

Led by Donohue and Kelly Furnas, EJP curriculum coordinator and associate teaching professor of journalism, students quickly moved from classroom instruction to real-world reporting.

For Thailik McCormick, a rising senior at Central Carolina Academy in Sanford, North Carolina, the experience built on the foundation he established as a founding member of his school’s broadcasting program.

“EJP does a really good job of throwing a lot at you, but then also making sure that you can apply these things really quickly, so you can retain them,” McCormick said. “I was presented with the information, and then immediately told to go apply it.”

The experience also expanded his vision for what his future might hold.

“Two weeks ago, I might have told you I’d study entrepreneurship or accounting, but now I’m really looking into public relations or marketing – and use the hard skills that I’ve worked on here and translate them into a field of my choice,” McCormick said.

Aly McFadden, a rising senior from Clark, New Jersey, said one of the most memorable experiences came while producing a full-fledged television newscast, where students were trusted with everything from anchoring and audio work to directing and producing.

“Everybody in that room made us feel like we were professionals,” McFadden said. “Even if I made a mistake, everybody made me feel like it was OK. It was such an interesting collaboration of people that you’ve known for two weeks who are all using their skills together to create one big production.”

McFadden said working alongside classmates from across the country became one of the most rewarding aspects of her time at ������Ƶ.

“It’s really eye-opening to see so many people have so many different life experiences,” she said. “Being in a room with people who are just as passionate about journalism as you are is incredibly motivating. I can’t wait to see them on the news or read their articles.”

Established in 2021, the Emerging Journalists Program introduces high school students interested in journalism and media careers through immersive, experiential learning. Students earn four hours of college credit and are paired with ������Ƶ student mentors who continue to provide guidance after the program concludes.

This year, a record 52 students from across the country applied to the program, with all applicants invited to participate in the virtual Exposure experience before 18 students were selected for the on-campus Immersion cohort.

Donohue also credited School of Communications students Charlie Crum ’28, Blair Mitchell ’29 and Emma Perman ’29 for serving as strong counselors and mentors throughout the experience.

“EJP is one of the most professionally fulfilling experiences I’ve participated in,” Donohue said. “I hope a year from now we can celebrate a sixth cohort.”