The start of the year in SJMC has been full of learning about and covering sports and politics in Iowa and beyond.
Jen Sterling, associate professor of instruction in Sport Media and Culture, curated the Hawkeye Histories: Sporting Stories exhibition in the Main Library Gallery. The exhibit is free and open to the public through December 19, 2024, and highlights the importance of women’s athletics at UI. Two SJMC alumni, Chloe Peterson (BA 2023) and Grace Smith (BA 2024), have continued to cover Caitlin Clark with the IndyStar and were the focus of a recent profile on the pair. Grace served as a lead photographer on More Than a Moment: Elevating the Game with Iowa Women’s Basketball, and Chloe covered Iowa Women's Basketball as a Daily Iowan reporter. We continue to invest in providing strong sports coverage and have extended that commitment to covering local high school athletics in a new course, Prep Sports Report. Students in the class are covering high school teams and athletes in Eastern Iowa and have had stories and photos published in several professional news outlets.
(photo credits starting in the top left, then in clockwise order: Elise Gan, Rachel Bierman, Avery Arens and Joel Kellar)
Assistant professor Kylah Hedding and SJMC students attended the Democratic National Convention in August to learn about political communication. Students in Hedding’s Political Strategic Communication class have continued to engage with national and local politics. SJMC hosted a presidential debate watch party and is a supporter of Hawk the Vote, a nonpartisan student organization dedicated to voter registration. SJMC student Christine Valora serves as the Communications Director for Hawk the Vote. This week, SJMC is hosting a vice-presidential debate watch party open to all. Students in assistant professor of practice Ty Rushing’s Political Reporting class have covered local and state politics and learned about national politics. Associate professor of practice Erin Jordan moderated a panel with visiting journalists from the World Press Institute. SJMC is also supporting the 2024 Democracy at a Crossroads series presented by the Iowa City Foreign Relations Council. The series features speakers and events dedicated to exploring democracy around the world, including an upcoming public lecture by SJMC alum and professional advisory board member, Peter Gross.
We hope you received a copy of our Iowa Journalist summer/fall annual newsletter. If not, please update your mailing address and check out the PDF of the newsletter on our site. If you have a story to share, please send it to sjmc@uiowa.edu.
Melissa Tully, Director
