“Beacon” Shines Again

April 22, 2013

The Beacon made an impressive showing at the regional Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) conference at held at Gonzaga University, winning first place in five categories in the Mark of Excellence awards, according to Nancy Copic, student activities. The Beacon also won second place for best all-around weekly college newspaper (5,000 students and fewer). First place winners will advance to the national SPJ competition and winners will be announced at the national SPJ conference in Anaheim, Calif., in late August.

First Place winners include:

General News Reporting: Philip Ellefson, “Access Denied”
Feature Writing: Kate Stringer, “Molly’s Legacy: Hope for Haiti”
Column Writing: Amanda Munro, Sarah Hansell, Lydia Laythe
Sports Photography: Jackie Jeffers, “Round Two!”
Editorial Writing: Caitlin Yilek, Opinions editor

Second place winners include:

Best All-Around Non-Daily Student Newspaper (schools with 5,000 or fewer students)
General News Reporting: Kelsey Thomas, “Students cooperate but still can’t party”
Feature Photography: Joey Solano, “The story behind the ink”
In-depth Reporting: Rosemary Peters (last year’s editor in chief), “What’s in our Air?”

Third place winners included Jackie Jeffers, who won in Breaking News Photography for “He said yes!”

Region 10 includes collegiate newspapers in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska. For more information contact Copic at 7470 or copic@up.edu.

Andrew Lafrenz, integrative health and wellness, presented “The Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on College Students Mental Well-Being and Physical Activity Levels” a poster presentation at the 2020 Oregon Public Health Association Annual Conference, Portland, OR, October 12-13, 2020. Conference provided virtually due to COVID-19 pandemic.

Stephanie Salomone, mathematics, wrote “Building and Sustaining Community by Centering Affective Learning Goals.” (with student coauthor Branwen Schaub) in Assessment Update Special Issue on the theme of “Adapting Assessment Methods to Rapidly Changing Circumstances,” Volume 32, Issue 6, Nov. 2020. Retrieved from https://assessmentinstitute.iupui.edu/au/index.html.

Rachel Wheeler, theology, had her article, “The Revelatory Tide: Desert Spirituality and Contemporary Water Crises,” published in Spiritus 20, no. 2 (Fall 2020): 176-193.

Jakob Kotas, mathematics, served as editor for Advances in Nonlinear Biological Systems: Modeling and Optimal Control, Applied Mathematics Series Vol. 11, American Institute of Mathematical Sciences (Oct. 2020). Available at this link. He also cowrote “An alternative model to prion fragmentation based on the detailed balance between PrPSc and suPrP” (with Monique Chyba, Vincent Beringue, Human Rezaei, Angelique Igel-Egalon, and student coauthors Yuliia Kravchenko, Christopher Eblen) in “Advances in Nonlinear Biological Systems: Modeling and Optimal Control, Applied Mathematics Series Vol. 11, American Institute of Mathematical Sciences (Oct. 2020).

Christina Ivler, Shiley School of Engineering, presented “Hover Handling Qualities of Fixed-Pitch, Variable-RPM Quadcopters with Increasing Rotor Diameter” (with Farhan Gandhi and student coauthors Ariel Walter, Michael McKay) and “Development and Flight Validation of Proposed Unmanned Aerial System Handling Qualities Requirements” (with Truong, K., Kerwin, D., Otomize, J., Parmer, D., Tischler, M.B., Gowans, N.) to the Vertical Flight Society 76^th Annual Forum, Oct. 6-8, 2020.

Susan McDaniel, performing and fine arts, presented three art songs attributed to Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799), one of the earliest known Western classical composers of African descent (with Arwen Myers, soprano) as part of “Celebrating Every Voice! A concert featuring music of BIPOC composers” at CollabFest, the online conference of the International Keyboard Collaborative Arts Society, 15 October 2020.

Rebecca Smith, education, had her article, “Flipped learning during a global pandemic: Empowering students with choice,” published in International Journal of Multidisciplinary Perspectives in Higher Education, 5(1), 100-105. See the article using this link.