ACU Journalism and Mass Communication

09/19/2024

JMC has some outstanding freshmen and new students! The first round came over for dinner this week. Bright group!

09/14/2024

The 23rd semester of JMC's Race & Media Colloquium kicked off Friday evening with Regina Burns (1983) as our visiting professor. She has a long career as a journalist, still going strong. But not long before Dr. Charlie Marler died, he told Regina that she needed to go to graduate school because Texas needs more African-American historians. She will complete her master's in history in a few months at North Texas, and this weekend she is sharing with 33 students details of her investigation into the history of Black barbers in Texas. Friday's guests were the Millers –Sienna, Marilyn and Floyd, who is publisher of the West Texas Tribune – who talked about their experiences as Black Texans. The opening session began with Dr. Doug Mendenhall presenting Burns with a textbook on historical research methods that previously belonged to Marler. As always, he had signed it with a flourish. Photos by Daniel Curd.

09/11/2024

Athena Triantopoulos spent the summer in Washington D.C. serving as a public relations and strategic communications intern at The Well News, an independent news organization, through the Fund for American Studies organization. “I got to learn about how a news organization functions from the inside out, and why communication professionals are so important to them,” she says. Athena, who plans to graduate in May, serves as vice president of the Student Government Association.

09/09/2024

Two JMC alumnae and two current students worked on the set of The Chosen over the summer. Holly Reichling, who graduated in May, worked for the production after serving as an intern last year in Utah. Along with Reichling this June and July, Brenna Raffels, Shelby Byrd and Jackson Eller were part of the production crew in Midlothian during shooting. The Chosen has a goal of telling the story of Jesus through the eyes of his followers.

09/08/2024

"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." | Philippians 4:8

09/07/2024

Congrats to Annie Kay Palasota, the recipient of this year’s M.K. Rotenberry Dream Big Scholarship! Annie Kay, senior advertising and public relations major from Denton, served as an intern over the summer at Walmart Stores in Bentonville, Arkansas. She’s also the group account director of Morris+Mitchell this fall. M.K. Rotenberry, a CBS Sports golf and football sideline producer and a 2017 alum, supports the department annually by funding the scholarship that encourages students to seek out the most challenging internships possible.

09/03/2024

The student media news team went into Lubbock in force Saturday, covering the ACU-Tech gridiron matchup and a postgame bus accident. Check out their stories and photos at acuoptimist.com.

08/19/2024

Classes start one week from today, but The Optimist staff is already hard at work producing news coverage for the ACU community! No bull!

07/25/2024

Our final 2024 Gutenberg Award honoree is Ryan Cantrell (‘11)! As digital and social media director for the 2023 World Series champion Texas Rangers Baseball Club, Ryan is responsible for the team’s messaging across all social media platforms! Ryan graduated from ACU with a degree in journalism.

07/24/2024

Our next 2024 Gutenberg Award honoree is Marjon Zabihi Henderson (‘04)! Marjon earned a degree from JMC in advertising and public relations and, as vice president for brand experience and special events, is responsible for all event planning and other special projects at upscale retailer Neiman Marcus! In addition, she’s serving this year as co-chair of the storied Cattle Barons’ Ball in Dallas, an event that will feature as its headliner Carrie Underwood.

07/23/2024

JMC’s first 2024 Gutenberg Award honoree is Joel Weckerly ('04)! Joel graduated with a degree in journalism and serves as director of communication at the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District in Houston, one of the largest school districts in the state. Before moving into strategic communication, he worked as a reporter and editor at several Texas newspapers.

07/22/2024

GUTENBERG ‘24! Throughout this week, the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication will introduce our 2024 Gutenberg Award Honorees. The annual awards go to alumni of the department who have distinguished themselves professionally and serve as a models of excellence for our students. This year’s group will be honored at our annual Gutenberg Event on Thursday, Oct. 17. Save the date and stay tuned for more details!

07/15/2024

07/09/2024

Hey ! Now is the perfect time to start thinking about how to successfully navigate your freshman year. 😸 We asked Wildcats and former Wildcats to offer their best advice for incoming freshmen & this is what they said! ☀️

“Go to class. Do your homework. Listen to your professors. Join one organization just for fun and one in your major. Find a local church and hang around after worship and talk to people there. Look out for the student who is always alone and invite them to sit with you. Register on time. Graduate on time. Enjoy.” – Dr. Cheryl Bacon (’76), professor and chair emerita of journalism and mass communication

“Success in college is linked to wise time management. Make sure you allot time for each thing that is important in life and all your classes and studying. Prioritize. Write out a schedule and stick to it.” – Pebbles Lee, lab operations manager for the biology department ⏰

“Eat at Betty Rose’s Little Brisket (when not at The Bean ... still called The Bean, right?).” – Derek Sciba (’00)

“Take advantage of all the opportunities ACU has: socially, spiritually and academically.” – Randall Uthe (’07)

“Don’t take an 8 a.m. class.” – Amanda Reiter (’00)

07/04/2024

Happy Independence Day, Wildcats! Today, we celebrate the land of the free and the home of the brave. 🇺🇸💜

06/26/2024

JMC was well represented!

06/17/2024

Congrats to 2023 JMC alum Sheridan Wood, who won a national Mark of Excellence award from the Society of Professional Journalists in Radio Feature Reporting! Read and listen to Sheridan's feature on archeological excavation at Paint Rock in the comments!

06/12/2024

06/07/2024

06/07/2024

Congrats to JMC alum Ron Hadfield, who’s among this year’s ACU Sports Hall of Fame inductees. Truly a well deserved honor!

ABILENE – Two of the greatest players in ACU football history, along with three other Wildcat standouts and a Lifetime Achievement Award winner who has chronicled the exploits of ACU teams and student-athletes for more than 40 years, will take their place among the university's athletics greats la...

05/26/2024

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." ~Romans 8:38-39

05/19/2024

Congratulations to next fall’s experiential learning organization leaders! Senior Ad/PR major Annie Kay Palasota, right, will lead Morris+Mitchell, our student-run strategic communication firm, and junior journalism major Ashley Henderson will serve as editor of The Optimist, our student media operation!

05/17/2024

New Student Spotlights ⭐️

Some of the new faces joining our department this fall!! Swipe to learn a little bit about them!

05/14/2024

Students working for the Optimist, KACU and ACUTV have won 19 awards in live and pre-submitted competition at the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association and the Society of Professional Journalists and regional awards.

05/12/2024

Congrats to all of our JMC graduates who earned their degrees yesterday! Proud of you!

05/11/2024

Congratulations to journalism and political science graduate Jaylynn Ward, who received the Dean Adams Achievement Award at today’s graduation! Jaylynn is headed to Columbia University in New York this fall to pursue a master’s in data journalism.

05/10/2024

Our Spring Commencement Ceremonies start today! Watch the live streams at https://bit.ly/4brK8yt 🎓

Friday, May 10, 2024 - Graduate Commencement Ceremony at 7 p.m. CT

Saturday, May 11, 2024 - Undergraduate Commencement Ceremonies at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. CT

Click here for more information about our Spring Commencement Ceremonies! https://bit.ly/4b3BUg4

05/03/2024

Grillin’ and chillin’ with the JMC Department. We love getting to spend time all together and celebrate the semester!

05/03/2024

Our 2024 Graduates 🎓

We are so proud of our graduates and can’t wait to see all they will accomplish!