Students listen to a panel of communications professionals during the Nov. 15 Career Kickstart event, “Break Through the Noise: Get the Internship.”

LAST CHANCE FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

What are your post-graduation plans? Not sure? Let Career Kickstart help! This series of events, sponsored by the UW Department of Communication Alumni Board, features the expertise of communication professionals who want to help you land your first job. Watch a video from “Break Through the Noise: Get the Internship.”

Public Relations in China and Worldwide

Date: Thursday, May 16, 2013
Time: 2:00 to 3:30
Place: Communications 126
RSVP: vsprang@uw.edu

Yung-kai Chung is a professor at Shih Hsin University in Taiwan; a board member of the Foundation for Public Relations, Taiwan;  an Honorary chair of Chinese PR Association; and a Fellow and APR in PRSA. His work experience includes Chief PR officer for Taiwan Provincial Government; Counselor and PRO for the Premier’s Office Chair, WORLDCOM Group; and  Asia-Pacfic Region National Chair for the International Public Relations Association. He is a graduate of the National Chengchi University, China and holds a B.S. in Journalism from Oklahoma Baptist University and an M.A. in Journalism and Public Relations from the University of Iowa. He is an experienced and interesting public speaker with experience nationally and internationally at conventions and universities.

Career Kickstart Happy Hour & Networking

Friday, May 17, 2013
4-6 p.m.
RSVP: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/378191
All students and alumni 21 and over

Meet and mingle with Department of Communication students, alumni, and friends at the District Lounge located in the Hotel Deca in the heart of the University District. No host bar with appetizers provided by the Department of Communication. This networking event is in celebration of a yearlong series of professional development events, including the Alumni Board sponsored Career Kickstart.

How to Prepare For a Job Interview

Date: Monday, May 20, 2013
Time: 5:00 to 6:30
Place: Communications 126
RSVP: vsprang@uw.edu

In this session, Alumna Jennifer Clark (Director of Sales – Sprint) will talk to students about how to prepare for a job interview and land that job.   There are many steps to consider when getting ready to start that job hunt.  Information in this presentation will include some of the following:

• Be proud of your accomplishments as a University of Washington Graduate!
• Follow your passion
• The interview process
• 1^st Interview and what is important as part of the preparation process
• First impressions – Dress For Success
• Resume Preparation & Reference Contacts
• What should you bring with you in an interview?
• Interview questions you should be prepared to answer
• After the interview – Next steps
• 30-60-90 Day plan – How to build one.
• Question & Answer Time

Previous Events

Thursday, January 17, 2013: What I Wish I Knew Before Graduating

Hindsight is always 20/20. The closer you get to graduating and taking those first steps into the real world, the more important it is to remember that everything – from the clothes you buy to your bedtime – will change. In our “What I Wish I Knew Before Graduating” event, you will hear from industry professionals who have been there and can offer up some of the advice they wish they had gotten before they graduated.

Find more information here. 5-6:30 p.m. CMU 126. RSVP: vsprang@uw.edu

Tuesday, February 19, 2013: How Did You Get That Job?

People with the coolest jobs in town tell you how they got ‘em … and how you can get the next one. Join speakers across an array of communications fields, including journalism, marketing/PR and social media, as they discuss the job choices that brought them to where they are today. They’ll also share tips on how you can parlay your unique experiences and talents into engaging new opportunities now and throughout your career.

Find more information here. 5-6:30 p.m. CMU 126. RSVP: vsprang@uw.edu

Wednesday, March 6, 2013: Make yourself more marketable: Land your dream job

Companies look at your individual experiences as only one part of the whole package. Are you sharing the right information? Join to define your personal brand identity and how you can use it to your advantage to land your dream job.

Find more information here. 5-6:30 p.m. CMU 126 RSVP: vsprang@uw.edu

Thursday, April 18, 2013: From Application to Getting Hired: Resume Bootcamp

Connect one-on-one with professionals in your industries to find out tricks of the trade to better prepare yourself for the job of your dreams and coach you in the along the way. Advance registration is required.

5-6:30 p.m. CMU 126. RSVP: vsprang@uw.edu

October 18, 2012: Social Media as a Tool to Connect and Land the Job

Presenters: Whitney Curry, Zillow

Learn resources and skills that help you land the job and remain competitive in the ever-changing technology landscape.

November 15, 2012: Break Through the Noise: Get the Internship

Speakers

• Dane Brandon, Software Developer at Redfin
• Darcy Jacobson (’05), Event Manager at Washington Biotechnology & Biomedical Association
• Amy Laughter (’04), Major Gifts Officer at Overlake Medical Center Foundation
• Megan Szerwo (’04), Communications specialist for City of Seattle, Seattle City Council
• Jen Whelan, Director of Marketing/Office Product Marketing/Unmanaged Team at Microsoft
• Travis Mayfield, Director of Digital Media Strategy at KOMOnews.com

Watch a video from “Break Through the Noise: Get the Internship.”

“Well Read” is a popular weekly television program for those who love books and lively, engaging conversation about ideas raised in good literature. New episodes are available every Tuesday via YouTube or at TVW.org/well-read.

Mimi Pierce with her dog, Sophie.

This past fall, the Department had the pleasure of visiting with alumna Mimi Pierce, and hearing about her recent venture into the world of nonprofits. A longtime advocate for the arts and education, Pierce is spearheading the development of the Nordso Foundation, an organization dedicated to the cleanup of plastic waste from the Salish Sea.

In honor of her late son, Martin King, the foundation hopes to educate the youth on the ecological effects of plastics on sea life, and the importance of keeping our environment clean and healthy for future generations. The Foundation plans to use Martin’s boat, the Nordso, a 26-foot trawler, as a tool to build on the excitement for the community, and to go out and begin the complex job of cleaning up the Salish Sea.

Although the foundation is still in its early beginnings, Pierce says she is excited for what’s to come, and cannot wait to get this tribute to her son up and running. Starting a foundation is difficult, “sometimes one step forward and two steps back,” said Pierce. But every day brings new possibilities, and Pierce is more than willing to lead the way. “There aren’t too many 88 year old people I know who want to start a foundation,” she laughs.

Pierce hales from Seattle, and is a retired real estate agent. She grew up an avid skier, writer and was top of her class in high school.  During her time as a student in the Department of Communication, she served as the Business Manager for The Daily. In her sophomore year, she left school to join the Marines. She served for one year in World War II before returning to UW to complete her degree. From her first marriage, she had two sons a year apart, George King and Martin King. She later completed her Masters in Teaching from UW and worked as a teacher of grammar at Mercer Island High School.  After some time as a teacher, she moved on to work in real estate and did very well over her 7 year career in this field.  She also was an avid sailor and the skipper of her own 27-foot sailboat. Today, she is very active and involved in the arts community, serving on boards or committees of PONCHO, Pratt, and Cornish. She also loves to play bridge, cook, and take her dog, Sophie, for walks. Rather, “she’s taking me for a walk!”

“Helping project teams communicate.” That’s the slogan for Communication Resources Northwest, an organization started by alumna Meg Winch (B.A., 1984).

In many industries, it’s standard practice for companies to compete with each other to “win” projects to work on. An organization will issue a request for proposals and one of Winch’s client firms will issue a proposal to design a building, build a highway system, plan a waterfront, or whatever the job may be. With a huge number of firms competing for the same job, it is Winch’s goal to choreograph, prepare, and coach her client’s formal presentation to win the project.

Born in Chicago, Illinois and raised in southern California, Winch’s father was transferred to Richland, Wash., to work at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. After graduating from Hanford High School, Winch selected the University of Washington for her undergraduate education, majoring in Speech Communication.

“The level of rigor and inquiry that is supported and encouraged by the University has encouraged me to think about issues and topics much more deeply, which I think has served my clients very well, in that as an organization we tend to…really seek to understand the culture and characteristics of the organization in which we serve and the projects in which we work,” Winch said. “That traditionally leads to a far better outcome.”

After receiving her master’s at Purdue University in Communication and Group Dynamics, Winch returned to the UW in 1985 to do some doctoral work. She was soon recruited to work for a consulting company that focused on presentation work.

“After about a year working there, I decided to branch out on my own and formed (Communication Resources Northwest) in 1989, primarily so that I would have creative control over my work and focus the company on providing very research-based, rigorous services in communications to our clients,” Winch said.

While her graduate studies allowed her to study communication systems in places as diverse as nursing homes, an automobile manufacturer, a bottling company and a high-tech developer, Winch’s company is centered in specific areas.

“We focus primarily in the private sector for architects, engineers, contractors and planners,” Winch said. “In the public sector we work with a variety of county, state and federal organizations on project management, facilitation and those sorts of things.”

Even in a more concentrated field of work, Winch said, the communication is still incredibly diverse across organizations. It’s her job to understand the communication system in which her clients operate to enact change, rather than superimposing her vision of what the world should look like.

However, Winch said, there are also similarities across all organizations.

“Work happens through communication and I think organizations are defined by their communication system, probably more so than in any other way,” she said. “They’re similar in that people still need to communicate messages. They have a strong desire, and I would say in fact, an emotional and psychological need to be heard and understood.”

While some of her more fun projects have included working with the design team of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, and working as part of the design-build team delivering renovations to Fantasyland at Disney World, Winch said the most memorable is whatever she is working on in the moment.

“Always treat what you’re doing right now as most important,” she said. “I find that it changes the communication to be more successful.”

In the public sector, working for the Leavenworth National Cemetery stands out to her as well. She said although it was a sobering experience, she felt that she was able to add a lot to the development.

Winch also serves as chair of the Snohomish County Human Rights Commission, where she spends most of her free time. Without any idea that she would own her own company, Winch said it has allowed her to raise children and work professionally at the same time.

“It was something that we started simply as an ability to have creative control and it never occurred to me that I would be owning a company for 25 years,” she said. “But it provided a great venue for doing the types of work that I like to do.”

Jennifer McClearen, left, a graduate student in the Department of Communication, talks with undergraduate honors student Sean Wong about his research project, “A.S. Roma, Seattle Sounders and Female Soccer Fans: A Study of Fandom.”

By Kristina Bowman -

This year’s honors students will research topics including the reinforcement of bipartisanship in the media, speech codes in an urban community, Internet pornography and others. The students presented their research topics on Wednesday to faculty and graduate students who chatted with them one-on-one in a relaxed setting complete with cookies and coffee.

James Kim, a junior, is researching the verbal response to Internet pornography. He said people were a little shocked when they saw his poster, which included blurred images of pornography. Kim said he became interested in the topic because he has friends who are concerned with sex trafficking. “A lot of these women are victims of human trafficking,” he said of the women who appear in the images. To research the verbal response to porn, Kim plans to do a content analysis on the comments of six videos.

Jessica Kamzan, right, talks about her research project with Principal Lecturer Lisa Coutu.

Jessica Kamzan, a senior, became interested in learning how diverse groups co-exist in a community while she was studying abroad in Rome with faculty member Lisa Coutu. She studied the Trevi Fountain and observed people from all over the world coming to take pictures of the Roman landmark. She is transferring that interest to the University District and plans to do ethnography research on the Ave to understand speech codes and oppositional codes in an urban community.

The other research projects include:

• Krista Dyer, Reinforcing bipartisanship in the media
• Kirsten Johnson, How are daily newspapers using Twitter to drive readers to their online content?
• Sheridan Smalley, an examination of the content diversity of daily news on mobile phone news applications
• Sean Wong, A.S. Roma, Seattle Sounders and female soccer fans: A study of fandom

Professor Valerie Manusov, who teaches the honors class, said students will use the feedback from the session to complete their research proposals and give the feedback to their faculty advisors, who will help them with the research. Students generally complete their projects by the end of spring quarter. Students who will be juniors or seniors during the 2013-14 academic year may apply to the honors program in May.

Floyd McKay (Ph.D., 1995) has worn many hats throughout his career, and he says that the progression has been natural. “I think journalism is an area in which you can move, not only from one medium to another, but really from one field to another and use your journalistic skills,” McKay said.

Born in North Dakota, McKay moved to Oregon when he was 12 years old. He is a graduate of Linfield College and began his career with a community newspaper, The Springfield News, in 1958. Two years later, he moved to the Oregon Statesman, now the Statesman Journal, in Salem where he began covering the political scene. It was during this time that McKay was awarded a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University, a prestigious award given to mid-career journalists for a year of study and exploration at the University.

He left the Oregon newspaper industry in 1970, joining KGW-TV, the KING Broadcasting Company station in Portland, as the news analyst.

“I had no idea that I would ever wind up in television,” McKay said. “We didn’t watch much television at home.…When KING hired me, they really took a risk. I suppose they were looking for a pretty face and there I was.”

McKay won an Alfred I. duPont Columbia Award with a documentary he produced about the Northwest timber industry while at KGW-TV. He said this production “helped set the agenda as we moved away from old growth and into an era of managed forests.”

Other memorable reporting topics included covering regional elections, as well as a documentary on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 1982, which still stands today.

After 16 years with the news station, McKay was ready to leave local television and joined forces with a man he had become acquainted with throughout his political reporting career. McKay was named administrative assistant to then Oregon Governor Neil Goldschmidt for two years, who he said shared a lot of the same priorities about what needed to be done in the state.

“By the time I left full-time journalism in 1986, I had really done most everything I had wanted to do in journalism in the region and I wasn’t interested in being a national journalist,” McKay said. “So teaching was a really good natural progression.”

After his service with the governor, McKay went back to school to get a master’s at the University of Maryland and was hired at Western Washington University in 1990. He served as chair of the Department of Journalism from 1994 to 2002. This is when he decided to come to the University of Washington to achieve a Ph.D.

“I needed a deeper background particularly in media history, which is one of the subject areas that I was teaching at Western,” McKay said, “and although I had done quite a lot of reading, I had never really taken any academic courses in the area, and of course that’s an area where the UW is very strong.”

Although McKay technically retired in June 2004, he hasn’t stopped writing. He has continued to do freelance work and wrote a twice-monthly opinion column for The Seattle Times for six years. In 2008, he began writing for Crosscut.com.

“I’m really enjoying getting back into writing with Crosscut,” McKay said. “It’s been a good experience for me and a new form of media, which is always interesting for someone who is now is his 70s.”

McKay said he is reporting on plans to ship coal through Northwest ports, which “is among the most significant reporting jobs that I’ve done despite the fact that I’m supposedly retired.”

But don’t think he left out radio in his bag of tricks.

“We have a little show up here in Bellingham called The Chuckanut Radio Hour, which is sponsored by the local, independent bookstore Village Books,” McKay said. “We do an hour every month and my role is to interview an author. It’s been fun because I never did radio before.”

The basis for everything he has done in his career lies in quality writing.

“There are always jobs for people who can write well and who can analyze detailed material and write for an average reader,” McKay said.

With all the job changes and mediums, McKay said, “It really makes it an interesting career. I have no regrets at all on that.”

Joanne Silberner interviews Haitian physician Dr. Ruth Damuse while covering a story about cancer in developing countries. Photo by Ansel Herz.

Almost a year ago, freelance public radio reporter and artist-in-residence Joanne Silberner was awarded a $12,000 grant by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting to investigate how cancer is affecting people in developing countries. A veteran health reporter, Silberner used her nearly 20 years of experience covering health policy, global health and other health-related issues for NPR to report on those fighting cancer against tremendous odds in Uganda, India and Haiti.

Joanne Silberner at work in Mirebalais, Haiti. Photo by Ansel Herz.

She kept a blog that was published on the Common Language Project website to write about personal experiences along the way. Five of Silberner’s stories will air on the PRI/BBC/WGBH radio program “The World” in a series airing Dec. 3-7. The scheduling is as follows:

• Dec. 3: Profile of a Ugandan oncologist
• Dec. 4: Fighting breast cancer in Haiti
• Dec. 5: Testing for cervical cancer
• Dec. 6: Cancer and infectious diseases
• Dec. 7: Treating cancer pain

Silberner’s story, “Seattle Doctor Takes Cancer Treatment To Developing World,” is also airing on KUOW’s “Morning Edition,” “All Things Considered,” and “The Conversation”. She will be interviewed on “Weekday” with Steve Scher on December 14, to talk about the challenges faced by this Fred Hutchinson oncologist, working in Uganda.

More people die from cancer than from HIV, TB and malaria combined worldwide, but the disease was, until recently, ignored by health groups and governments in developing countries. Tune in to these programs to find out more about this issue.

“Introduction to Photojournalism” will be taught by Steve Ringman, a photographer for The Seattle Times. The workshop is scheduled from 12:30-4:30 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 1, and Friday, Feb. 8, in Communications 302.

“Devil in the Details: How to Bump Up Your Writing Using Color and Description” will be taught by Maureen O’Hagan, a reporter for The Seattle Times. The workshop is scheduled from 12:30-4:30 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 15, and Friday, Feb. 22, in Communications 302.

How to enroll

Download and complete a “498/499 course permission form.” It’s on the Undergraduates page of the Department of Communication website. Choose “499 – Directed Research C/NC (section B).” Put in the name of the workshop where it says: “The nature of the work which I propose ….”

Take the course permission form to Tabitha Bronsema in the Undergraduate Student Services Office, Communications 118, by 4:45 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 7. You must complete enrollment by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 9, to reserve your space in the workshop. After that date, the workshop will be opened to other students.

The workshops are graded credit/no credit. Each workshop will have approximately four assignments, some of which will be done during the Friday meetings and others that will be done as homework. You cannot make up work missed during the Friday meetings. That means you must attend both days of a workshop to receive credit.

Questions? Contact Randy Beam at rabeam@uw.edu.

More about Maureen O’Hagan: O’Hagan has been a reporter at The Seattle Times since 2002. Before that, she worked for Willamette Week, a feisty alternative weekly in Portland, and for The Washington Post. She has received national and regional recognition for her work, including awards for narrative writing, investigative reporting, education reporting, sports reporting, food reporting and health care reporting. Today, she spends as much time poring over dense public records as sitting in strangers kitchens, just listening. And she wonders often about her good fortune.

More about Steve Ringman: Ringman has photographed the Contra War in Nicaragua; earthquakes in El Salvador, San Francisco and Mexico City; the culture of baseball in Japan and two World Series in the United States; global warming in the Arctic and the Bering Sea; and malaria-relief efforts in Tanzania and Zambia. Ringman has twice been named Newspaper Photographer of the Year by the National Press Photographers Association. Ringman worked for the San Francisco Chronicle, Antioch (Calif.) Daily Ledger and Pittsburg (Calif.) Post-Dispatch prior to joining The Times.