March 06, 2002
Student media conference to be held April 4-7 at Mansfield University
Contact: Kevin Hensil, khensil@passhe.edu
Pulitizer Prize winning journalist Joby Warrick of The Washington Post will present the keynote address at the first Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education Student Media Conference to be held April 4-7 at Mansfield University of Pennsylvania.
Warrick, who won the 1996 Pulitizer Prize for public service while working for The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., will speak on the topic “Investigations in the Heartland: Finding the big story in a changing landscape” at 6:30 p.m., April 5, in the North Manser Dining Room. Warrick is a member of The Washington Post’s investigative reporting team and has received numerous awards for his coverage of public health and environmental issues, ranging from nuclear waste to food-borne illness.
Other conference speakers will include Neill Borowski, deputy New Jersey editor and former director of computer-assisted reporting/analysis for The Philadelphia Inquirer; Patricia Bradley, a professor in the School of Communications and Theater at Temple University and author of Slavery, Propaganda and the American Revolution; and John M. Roman, a veteran, award-winning reporter for the Delaware County Daily and Sunday Times, whose work has included an exclusive interview in a Florida jail with an escaped death-row killer and an interview with one of the Watergate “burglars.”
Other scheduled presenters include Will Adair, information director for the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference, and Kenn Marshall, director of communications for the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education.
The conference was developed to provide “something for everyone involved in a student newspaper and other campus media,” according to conference chair John Dawe, publisher of The Flashlight, Mansfield University of Pennsylvania student newspaper.
Sessions will be included for journalism and other communications students on such topics as the role of student newspapers on college campuses, covering campus sports events and campus crime and the importance of student media to the State System and its member schools.
The conference will be co-sponsored by The Flashlight, Mansfield University, the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education and College Community Services, Inc.
With more than 98,600 students, the State System of Higher Education is the largest provider of higher education in the Commonwealth. Its 14 universities offer more than 250 degree and certificate programs in more than 120 areas of study. More than 360,000 System alumni live and work in Pennsylvania.
The state-owned universities are Bloomsburg, California, Cheyney, Clarion, East Stroudsburg, Edinboro, Indiana, Kutztown, Lock Haven, Mansfield, Millersville, Shippensburg, Slippery Rock and West Chester Universities of Pennsylvania. The System also operates branch campuses in Clearfield, Kittanning, Oil City and Punxsutawney and several regional centers, including the Dixon University Center in Harrisburg and the University Center for Southwest Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh. The regional centers are part of the Educational Resources Group, which is responsible for coordinating statewide programming.