Alex Carter is working towards his Ph.D. in advertising, while also working for the School of Advertising and Public Relations as a Graduate Teaching Assistant. Prior to his time at the University of Tennessee, he worked with Eastman Chemical Company and Creative Energy. He graduated from East Tennessee State University in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree in public relations, advertising, and applied communication.

Balancing a career while also completing a graduate degree can be difficult. The College of Communications and Information has recently introduced an online master’s degree program which allows students to receive their graduate degree on their own schedule. The program consists of asynchronous courses which incorporate all four of the college’s concentrations into one program. Students complete courses in public relations, advertising, journalism and electronic media, communications studies, as well as information sciences.

Dollywood and Abramorama in association with The Dollywood Foundation partnered to present a free one-night-only live streaming world premiere event for The Library That Dolly Built, the Land Grant Films documentary about Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.

Originally scheduled as a nationwide live event on more than 300 screens this spring, the world premiere for The Library That Dolly Built was reimagined as a free live stream screening of the film on Dec. 9 The screening was followed by an acoustic performance by Dolly Parton. 

In what has become a tradition every four years, journalism and electronic media students in Professor Rob Heller’s Media Graphics class (JEM 380) created billboard designs to encourage voter participation in the presidential election.

Heller’s class partnered with Lamar Advertising, which ran student billboard advertisements prior to the 2016 presidential election. This year, Lamar Advertising cycled through four student designs on an electronic billboard in Memphis.

The idea for this project began in 2012 when the class worked with the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy to post 12 designs around campus.

The College of Communication and Information’s Adam Brown Social Media Command Center will be monitoring the social media conversation and trends before, during and after the presidential election.

PhD student Alex Carter, the head graduate assistant in the lab, has been leading the center’s monitoring and coverage of the debates heading into the election.

Senior journalism and electronic media major Kate Luffman had a dream of one day
photographing college athletics, and her dream became a reality when she started volunteering for Vol Photos, the photography team of the University of Tennessee Athletic Department. Luffman began as a volunteer student photographer in 2018 and has since been promoted to a staff student photographer.

You may also recognize Luffman through her creative game day paintings on The Rock, which often gather social media attention.

As part of his journey to becoming a news anchor after graduation, senior journalism and electronic media major Ford Sanders has gained experience with news stations on the local and national level. During his time as a UT student, he has worked with WVLT-TV and the UT Today program in Knoxville and with CBS’ New York City-based programs. 

As many students around the country had their summer internship plans put on hold because of COVID-19 and economic uncertainty, the University of Tennessee’s New York City Alumni Chapter quickly organized a virtual internship program for future communicators. 

The VOLs Remote Internship pilot program paired five interns from CCI with social media and digital communication roles at nonprofit organizations dedicated to education.

Ben Weprin (’01) has developed a national brand on building and repurposing hotel properties in college towns to appeal to alumni returning to their alma maters. His latest project has brought him back to his own alma mater, and he has given fellow Vols a chance to be a part of the project.