SSU Students: Opportunity to lead community discussions following national presidential and Massachusetts senate debates

• October 1, 2012

Interested in politics? Want to discuss the debates and expand your education outside of the classroom? The Political Science, Communications and History Departments are hosting a series of events to take place at King’s Beach Towers in Lynn, MA and is seeking students to take part in the conversations.
To participate, you need to watch at least one of these debates:
October 3—Domestic Policy
October 11—Vice Presidential debate
 
Following the debates, you will coordinate with Political Science professor Dan Mulcare to visit King’s Beach Towers and participate in a 1 hour discussion at their Lynn facility. Students can attend one discussion session or all three. Carpools will be set up prior to the event. Students from all majors are welcome:
 
October 4,—Kings Beach Towers (4:00pm)
October 12,—Kings Beach Towers (4:00 pm)

If you are interested in participating, email Daniel Mulcare at dmulcare@salemstate.edu.

RELATED EVENT
Election Panel: “Fact, Fiction and Public Opinion: The Election of 2012”: Michael Dukakis, former governor and presidential candidate; Sister Marge Clarke, lobbyist, educator, and economist; Chuck Kolb, chemist, physicist, and President of Aerodyne Research Inc.; Michael Goldman, Democratic political consultant; Jennifer Nassour, former Chair of the Mass. Republican Party; and Keli Goff, political journalist and television commentator. The program will be held on Monday, October 15, 2012 (7:00-9:00 pm, Vets Hall), followed by a reception (MLK).

The Communications Department wants YOU!

• September 17, 2012

New Course! Trending Topics in Health and Medical Journalism

• July 31, 2012

Post by Ellen Golub
 

New Course for fall semester:

Professor Ellen Golub’s COM 472 - Trending Topics in

Health and Medical Journalism

Once classic assessment of journalism education is that schools teach the discipline well, but students graduate without any substantive knowledge—they’re weak in subject areas, the beats.  That’s why I decided to teach a course in health and medical journalism this fall semester. It’s an interesting and developing niche that incorporates and hones several skills transferable to other fields. It’s rich in subject depth, incorporating everything from diet and exercise to climate change. I think you’ll enjoy much of the thought and writing in this discipline, which is often both  profound and moving. (We will read Oliver Sacks, Atul Gawande…)

Health and Medical care is a H-U-G-E economics story—because our economy is buckling under the strain of almost 20% of every dollar vanishing into “the health care system.” Obviously this is also a human story, intertwined with lifestyle choices, grocery lists, aging, and issues that are often decided at the ballot box. Americans spend more than anyone else in the developed world on health care, but get worse results. Do we have a weak health care delivery system? An unhealthy lifestyle? A system that skimps on prevention but pours a third of every dollar into the last year of life? Is the Twinkie America’s number one public enemy?

If you’ve been saving up one of your electives for something interesting and useful, this course may be your ticket. What? Afraid of statistics and math? Me, too. But a brief tour of the basics will be painless and worthwhile. Looking at trending topics in health and medicine, we will come to understand and assess research studies, while becoming knowledgeable in important fields like diet and diabetes, mental illness and neuroscience, gender selection, big pharm, and climate change.  Just think: while sitting in your basement waiting for them to lift the tornado warning, you’ll be able to explain to your family why all this is happening.

As if the glitz of end of life issues and the enticement of bird flu and peanut allergies isn’t enough of a reward… this course will also give you the opportunity to write and place a few articles in the field while keeping a blog—all of which adds up to some nifty content for your senior portfolio. COM 472 – Health and Medical Journalism is good for you no matter what your concentration. And it’s a hybrid, too, so you get the best of both worlds. Hope to see you there.

We’ll be back soon.

• July 31, 2012

Post by Chris Fauske
 
You’ll be back, too, or starting at SSU. Either way, there’ll be a lot we’ll expect you to read, a lot you should read anyway, and a lot that someone, somewhere, will one day assume you’ve read.
 
How to cope?
 
The answer is here:

The irony is that you’ll need to read (really read) the book to find out how to how to talk about books you haven’t read.
 
It’s worth it. Trust me.
 
Happy reading!
 

• June 25, 2012

Post by Chris Fauske

In Halifax, Nova Scotia, last week for the biennial gathering of Money, Power and Print:  interdisciplinary studies of the financial revolution in the British Isles, 1688 - 1776 I walked past a very large hole in the ground. Obviously, whatever had stood above the hole, the size of a city block, had recently been razed. The answer came instantly. What had once stood in the heart of the city was “the newspaper.”  It may no longer be downtown, but, at least for now, the ghost of the Chronicle Herald past lingers as a palpable reminder that many newspaper companies still own thing of significant tangible value: real estate.

Summer is here…

• May 22, 2012

Post by Chris Fauske

Summer is here, and soon enough it will be hot, hazy and humid enough that thoughts will turn to how best to get cool again.

What better time to catch up with those films all Communications majors should know well enough to move in and out of at will?

Not clips. Not summaries.

Just the whole film, all of it.

PRSSA Students Win Bell Ringer Award

• May 15, 2012

Post by Robert Brown

The SSU Public Relations Society of America team (Ellory Jacobs, Lauren Charbonneau, Amy Ouelette, Roberta Lantigua) has been notified that it has won a Public Affairs award from the Publicity Club of New England and will attend the annual  Bell Ringer Awards dinner on June 4 at the Waltham-Marriott Hotel.  The campaign, designed to raise awareness about the nation’s obesity crisis, featured an event targeted to Salem children and their parents. It attracted more than 200 attendees from Salem who spent a Sunday afternoon playing games in Vets Hall, and dancing in front of a giant Wii screen.  The Bell Ringer awards, judged by PR practitioners,  recognize excellence in PR agency and departmental public relations, social media, public affairs, consumer relations, and other categories. The Bell Ringer award is PRSSA’s third since 2010, and fifth overall.

COM Senior Honored at State House

• May 15, 2012

COM senior Jacquelynn Palazola received a “29 Who Shine” Award award from Governor Deval Patrick at the State House last week. Photo credit: KulbakoPhoto.com