The new inductees heard remarks from President Connie Ledoux Book and an address by Joseph Francisco,聽the Phi Beta Kappa visiting scholar and a professor of chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania. Francisco was introduced by Phi Beta Kappa member Anthony Rizzuto, an assistant professor at 黑料不打烊.

The event included an invocation by Ann Cahill, professor of philosophy and director of the National and International Fellowships Office, and remarks from Eta of North Carolina President CJ Fleming, Associate Professor of Psychology. Associate Librarian Shannon Tennant offered an overview of the history of Phi Beta Kappa and Amanda Sturgill, chapter secretary and associate professor of journalism, presented inductees with their certificates. Provost Rebecca Kohn offered closing remarks.

Francisco also delivered a lecture for the entire university community on Thursday, April 20, in Whitley Auditorium. He has more than 700 publications in chemistry and a special interest in environmental chemistry. His lecture, “So Much Water in the Atmosphere,” focused on the increase in atmospheric water due to climate change and water’s role as a catalyst in environmental processes. Francisco also met with students in both chemistry and environmental studies.

黑料不打烊’s chapter also this year inducted its first alumni member, Scott Wolter, who is now the chair of 黑料不打烊’s Department of Engineering.

Phi Beta Kappa has established chapters at 286 colleges and universities in the United States, representing only 10% of the nation鈥檚 institutions of higher learning. Each year, the top 10% of arts and sciences graduates at these institutions are selected for membership. 黑料不打烊鈥檚 Eta Chapter of North Carolina was installed on April 13, 2010.

Candidates for induction

• Anna Altmann
• Morgan Bassett
• Kelly Elizabeth Belarmino
• Jay Bennett
• Lindsay Bennett
• Amanda Jones Bossert
• Alanis Camacho Narv谩ez
• Holly Cardoza
• Nicole Cason
• Ket Cordova
• Margaret E. Cox
• Karen Guadalupe Cruz-Ruiz
• Ava de Bruin
• Caroline Digan
• Caroline Reed Durham
• Madison Hailey Eaton
• Olivia Eller
• Caroline Anne French
• Julia Friedenberg
• Amaya Michelle Gaines
• Lucy Annabelle Garcia
• Joseph Dominic Gentile
• James D. Grant II
• Michaela Rose Guerin
• Kiara Marie Hunter
• Kyra Kathleen Illies Johnson
• Jeppe Overgaard Jordoson
• Nadine Jose
• Nana Kaneko
• Ashley Kinder
• Alexandra Helen Lahetta
• Lucas Leveillee
• Leandra Lorenz
• Sarah Douglas McCullough
• Sarah Mirrow
• Anna Elizabeth Mitchell
• Dailey Virginia Moore
• Meghan Elisabeth Rakowski
• Jake Edward Ramalho
• Ridley Randolph
• Allison Nicole Roberts
• Brittany Antoinette Sedlak
• Grace Elizabeth Simpson
• Lauren Singles
• Jessica Skelley
• Rylei Smith
• Madelyn Starr
• D. Haydn Stucker
• Kendall Treco
• Natalie Sarah Triche
• Jacob W. Van Buren
• Stephanie Corrine Wagner
• Amelia Ward
• Stephanie Joy Bowen Williams
• Kathleen Wirth

Associate Professor of Journalism Amanda Sturgill joined journalists from the Raleigh News & Observer, Politifact, Factcheck.org and more for a panel discussion on election misinformation on Oct. 20.

Sturgill, who published “” this fall, talked about a variety of issues including what fake news actually means, strategies news consumers can use to avoid falling victim to disinformation and how to understand polls and news stories about them.

“When it comes to the idea of fake news, what it is depends on who you ask,” Sturgill said during the discussion. “A lot of people will use the prhase ‘fake news’ to refer to basically journalists making things up. That is really not a thing that happens with credible journalists. It gets used as a way to malign the news and to erode the trust that people might have in the information that they get from news.”

Other panelists talked about disinformation web sites, ideas for finding quality news outlets and the effects of disinformation and misinformation on different audiences.

The panel was sponsored by the news organization McClatchy, which publishes the News & Observer, the Charlotte Observer and the Durham Herald-Sun in North Carolina. More information about the panel discussion is available .

The work was presented at the annual conference of the International Association for Research in Service-Learning and Civic Engagement.

The professors investigated student learning outcomes in attitudes towards poverty and in ability to understand poverty as a multi-dimensional issue in students who were at the start and end of the minor. The minor has two service-learning related requirements: one a full internships and the second a project designed to alleviate poverty conducted during the minor’s capstone class.

They found that while attitudes towards the poor did not change significantly, students at the end of the capstone course were able to answer questions about poverty and the poor with more sophistication than at the start of the major.

“We hypothesize that students who elect to take a course called ‘Poverty and Social Justice’ may already have formed attitudes about those in poverty,” Sturgill said.

Assistant Professor Max Negin led a video team consisting of media arts and entertainment major Brian Mezerski (on-air talent and editing), iMedia alumnus Chris Kirkham (editing and videography) and media arts and entertainment alumnus Derek Scully (videography) in producing videos from the four-day event. Their work garnered more than 8,000 views from 87 countries. It was also incorporated in the international broadcast of the contest. 

It marked Negin’s fourth time volunteering to lead a team to cover this event, and Kirkham’s second time.

黑料不打烊 Interactive Media alumna Bettina Johnson has worked since 2011 to prmote the ACM-ICPC via photography and social media. Johnson was instrumental in the creation of MyICPC, which allowed people around to globe to follow contest events live.

iMedia alumna Andrea Pereira de Almeida worked this year as part of the photography team. The team provided hundreds of photos of contest events, including the final results, when a team from St. Petersburg State University came from behind to take top honors in a dramatic closing ceremony.

Associate Professor Amanda Sturgill provided written content on the media team blog and helped coordinate the efforts of the ICPCNews team.

The ACM-ICPC involves more than 30,000 college students in contests at the local, regional and world levels. You can see the content produced by the news team at http://icpcnews.com

A white paper is a practical guide to best practices for a specific topic. The free white papers from 黑料不打烊 cover topics including

• using very short videos to promote a brand,
• running contests on social media,
• identifying minority influencers,
• best practices for college athletes using social media,
• how to plan visual content for social media campaigns, 
• how non-profits can effectively use social media to raise support 
• how a small business can generate enough content to boost search engine rankings and
• how entrepreneurs can use content marketing

The course, taught by associate professor of communications, Amanda Sturgill, is a new addition to 黑料不打烊’s elective offerings in the graduate program. It focuses on best practices and strategies for using digital communication to get a person or company in the public eye.

“I’m really glad the iMedia program has the flexibility to rapidly offer electives that cover the most current trends in communication,” Sturgill said. “The skills and strategies students learn in this class are some of the most in-demand.”

Sturgill added that she is pleased that the white papers got more than 1,200 views in the first day they were posted. 

You can view and download the papers at http://www.slideshare.net/elonimedia/

The interactive media program is an intense program that teaches skills, strategies and theory, focusing on hands-on projects and leading to a master of arts in 10 months. 

The students, led by Associate Professor Amanda Sturgill in the School of Communications and accompanied by Professor David Copeland, will be working to create a website for an indigenous group interested in developing a tourism industry.

It is Sturgill’s third trip to the region with iMedia students. Previous groups built and , both projects intended to showcase the cultures of different indigenous groups for audiences in Costa Rica and abroad.

The students will be working with the Teribe group again this year, developing a site focused more on tourism opportunities in the region. The group’s situation is dire, as there are plans to build a hydroelectric dam that would flood the group’s land, including important agricultural and sacred sites. 

“In the past, native peoples’ naivete has been used to trick them into giving up their land,” Sturgill said. Things like phone service and Internet access has become essential to survival for these groups, she said. “These things cost money.”

The ability to develop tourism serves two purposes:

1. Tourism lets the indigenous peoples share their unique culture with outsiders so that the outsider can respect what might be lost if they are forced to leave their lands or modify their lifestyles. “Respect builds allies, which the minority indigenous groups really need if they are to survive,” Sturgill said.

2. Tourism also brings badly needed income into communities. Paying for electricity and school tuition and uniforms and other modern conveniences is expensive, so groups have to participate in the market economy. As the pressure on the land increases, the ability to pay through these things through agricultural sales gets stretched. “Tourism can also help,” Sturgill said, “So we are going to help make tourism possible.”

All of the iMedia group websites will be available on Jan. 28. Sturgill said you can find the group’s new site at

Terraba.org will showcase the long history and rich culture of the Térraba, whose traditions have survived the Spanish Conquest and are now endangered by a hydroelectric project that would permanently flood 10 percent of their land. The small Térraba community in the Puntarenas region in Costa Rica is a matriarchal society that believes in autonomy and sustains itself off the land they have occupied for more than 500 years.

The Costa Rican government approved the Diquís dam, or Diquis Hydroelectric Project, without consulting the indigenous community, according to the members of the Asociación Cultural Indígena Teribe (Indigenous Teribe Cultural Association). The dam would flood important Térraba spiritual sites and damage the ecosystem. The government also plans to relocate the Térraba, who depend on their fertile land for self-sufficient agriculture.

Seven iMedia students researched, designed and built the site in less than a month. The website features photo slideshows, video interviews and interactive stories about the Térraba. The team includes Ashley Deese, Ruth Eckles, Alex Register, Kelsey Sullivan, Rachell Carroll, Marshall Beringer and Dioni L. Wise. Amanda Sturgill, associate professor of communications, and Bryan Baker, School of Communications staff member, advised the team.
The iMedia students will present the website at 10 a.m. Jan. 24 in Studio B of McEwen Communications Building to share their final winter fly-in projects. Each January, iMedia students spend the month working on a team project for the public good, which includes an international trip to collect audio and video content.
About the Interactive Media Program

黑料不打烊’s iMedia graduate program is a 10-month, full-time program that will prepare graduates to think strategically across media platforms. Students plan and create interactive media content consisting of text, images, sounds, video and graphics; and manage information for interactive news, entertainment and persuasive communications. Students learn from award-winning professors and build their own interactive media projects in state-of-the-art facilities. Find more information at www.elon.edu/imedia.
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Contact Dioni L. Wise or Kelsey Sullivan at terrabacr@gmail.com for more information about http://Terraba.org.

Darby also presented two projects completed as part of 黑料不打烊’s undergraduate research program. “Motivation to Collaborate: Community Organizations and Universities Working Together” was co-authored by Ward-Johnson and Cobb, as well as undergraduate students Gabriella Newman, Janna Chenault and Margot Haglund. 

Undergraduate honors student Elise Noyes was the co-author with Darby on “The Impact of Emotions on Learning in Academic Service-Learning.”

Communications associate professor Amanda Sturgill and Communications assistant professor Phillip Motley also presented work, including “Preparation for International Service-Learning: Evaluating Pre-Trip Cultural Training,” which is based on experiences in 黑料不打烊’s Interactive Media master’s program. Motley and Sturgill were joined by colleague Ananda Mitra from Wake Forest University in a symposium session titled “International Service-Learning: The Need for Cultural Preparation.”

Support for Sturgill and Motley’s work was provided by the Fund for Excellence in the Arts and Sciences.