Laurie Alfaro Accepts Position at City Colleges of Chicago

WRD recently caught up with former faculty member Laurie Alfaro as she begins a career at the City Colleges of Chicago. Below, Laurie tells about her new position and shares about her experiences as a student and teacher in WRD’s New Media Studies program. Tell us about your new position at City Colleges. What will you be doing? I am the new Faculty Co-Chair of Computer Information Systems at Wilbur Wright College.

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WRD Alumni Spotlight: Tim McElroy

This week, the WRD Alumni Spotlight features Tim McElroy, a 2015 graduate of the BA in WRD program. He currently works as a writer for a digital marketing firm in Chicago, Illinois. What have you been doing professionally since you earned your degree? I’ve been working at a digital marketing firm in Fulton Market, located in the West Loop. As a writer in this setting, I’ve been working a wide range of various jobs within my company . PR, press releases, ghostwriting, copywriting, editing – the list goes on and on.

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Annette Vee Encourages Audience to “Keep Coding Weird”

On October 13, Annette Vee presented “Coding for Everyone: What Does it Mean to Call Computer Programming a Literacy?” Hosted by the department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Discourse, the audience for this event included undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty from both WRD and NMS, as well as students and faculty from fields like Computer Science and English. This event was especially relevant to students in Sarah Read’s WRD 500: Proseminar in WRD, who read and discussed Vee’s article “Understanding Computer Programming as a Literacy” in their ongoing conversations about literacy.

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WRD Alumni Spotlight: Brendan Bergen

This week, the WRD Alumni Spotlight features New Media Studies graduate Brendan Bergen. He currently works in Athletic Communications at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. What have you been doing professionally since you earned your degree? After graduating, I accepted a position in Athletic Communications at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. In my role I serve as our department lead for website/digital content and social media strategy, while also performing a traditional public relations role for our sports teams on campus.

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News and Updates

News and Updates from MA Alumni and Faculty

  Here’s some news on what our MA in WRD and MA in NMS graduates and faculty have been up to in the last five months… NMS Alumni Daisy Franco (2012) began a new job in May as Director of Public Relations and Marketing for the City Colleges of Chicago. Kim Galovich (2014) recently started a position at Digital Marketing for RXBAR, a Chicago start-up company that sells natural protein bars. She handles email marketing and online advertising and manages website content. Mike Garabedian (2015) has a new position as an Account Coordinator at Fishman Public Relations in Chicago and Northbrook,

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NMS 580: A New Way to Read Old Texts

In Winter Quarter 2016, the MA program in New Media Studies (NMS) will offer NMS 580: Markup and Text Encoding in the Humanities, a core course in the new certificate in Digital Humanities. Though the course has an NMS course number, the instructor, Prof. Antonio Ceraso, hopes it will also draw students from the MA in WRD and humanities disciplines such as English and history—all of whom can benefit from the new tools and perspectives the course offers.

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WRD Alumni Spotlight: Allison Guntz

This week, the WRD Alumni Spotlight features Allison Guntz. Allison graduated in 2015 with Bachelor’s degrees in Communication and Media and WRD. At DePaul, she worked as a tutor for the Office of Multicultural Student Success’s Study Jams program and was involved in University Ministry and the Office of Mission and Values. She is currently participating in a year of service program, through which she works for a food pantry in Chicago.

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Conference Spotlight: Computers and Writing

Graduate students in NMS or WRD: Have you done research in a graduate class related to digital technologies or pedagogy? Would you like to share that research with a wider audience? If so, consider presenting at the annual Computers and Writing Conference! This academic conference will happen from May 19-22 at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, NY. The theme for 2016 — Crossing Wires: Reaching Across Campus, Between Disciplines, and Into Communities — challenges presenters to consider how new media and digital technologies cross boundaries and expand horizons, in both scholarship and pedagogy.

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WRD Guest Speaker: Annette Vee

We are pleased to announce that this quarter’s guest speaker will be Annette Vee from the University of Pittsburgh. The event will be held Tuesday, October 13 from 4:20-5:50pm in the Scholar’s Lab on the first floor of the Richardson Library. She will be giving a talk called, “Coding for Everyone: What Does It Mean to Call Computer Programming a ‘Literacy’?”.

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Sato gives two thumbs up

Alumni Spotlight: Colin Sato

In this latest alumni spotlight, BA in WRD alumnus Colin Sato shares about his experiences as a high school math teacher. What have you been doing professionally or since you earned your degree? About 8 hours after I turned in my last final, I was on a plane to Tulsa to begin training with Teach for America to be a high school math teacher. I’ve been teaching mathematics to the students at Nathan Hale High School in Tulsa ever since.

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