James Cessna, Andy Heidt, J. Intintoli, Cat Curtis Murphy
Contributing Editor
Nancy Broden
Contributing Writers
Nancy DeGennaro, Jimmy Hart, DeAnn Hays, Robin E. Lee
Special thanks to
Holly Allen, Joe Poe, Denise Shackelford, and Stacey Tadlock
University President
Sidney A. McPhee
University Provost
Mark Byrnes
Vice President of Marketing and Communications
Andrew Oppmann
Address changes should be sent to Advancement Services, MTSU Box 109, Murfreesboro, TN 37132; alumni@mtsu.edu. Other correspondence should be sent to M&E magazine, Drew Ruble, 1301 E. Main St., MTSU Box 49, Murfreesboro, TN 37132.
Lovely Experience
Photos by James Cessna
DOING IT ALL
It’s hard to believe that our Fall 2024 semester is already here! As you will see, the College of Media and Entertainment has been a whirlwind of activity by our faculty, staff, and students.
We celebrated the 50th anniversaries of the School of Journalism and Strategic Media and the Department of Recording Industry, as well as the 10th anniversary of our partnership with the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival. This fall will mark the 500th production of our mobile production truck that has broadcast and/or livestreamed sports, concerts, and other events since 2011.
This year’s student experiences with Bonnaroo were the largest and most comprehensive in our history. We filmed about a third of Bonnaroo’s 150+ concerts this summer, and our students were responsible for streaming half of the 46 Bonnaroo shows aired on Hulu. Our Audio Production students mixed the sound for these broadcasts.
Matthew Leimkuehler’s Journalism class and our Photography students had their Bonnaroo stories published by the USA Today Network and appeared in newspapers statewide. Two stories by Sidelines made the daily Bonnaroo national press briefing, alongside outlets like USA Today and Rolling Stone
One Video and Film Production student said, “This experience might have been one of the most educational and eye-opening opportunities I could ask for. One of the most valuable skills and lessons that came from this was being prepared for how to adapt on the fly and how quickly things can change while on the job.”
Our cover story features the life-changing success of the student-created college commercial called “We Do It All,” which won a Nashville/MidSouth Emmy and three prestigious Telly Awards. During Emmy night, one of the students told me, “This is the best night of my life!”
We’ve launched animation and advertising agencies to provide our students with hands-on experience with real-world clients that can boost their résumés and portfolios. I am delighted that other universities are approaching our college about enlisting our students to enhance their reputations. (You didn’t hear it from me, but one of our first clients was longtime rival Tennessee Tech!)
Americana radio station WMOT, a National Public Radio member housed within the college, has been lauded for its success during a time when other public radio stations are suffering. It embarks on a new chapter with the recent addition of a new satellite studio in Nashville, which will allow more in-person interviews with both local and touring roots music artists.
As you can see, it’s an exciting time in the College of Media and Entertainment, and the best is yet to come.
Thanks for taking the time to read M&E. I would love to hear from you. Please drop me a note at beverly.keel@mtsu.edu to let me know what and how you’re doing so I can share it with your fellow alumni.
Beverly Keel Dean, College of Media and Entertainment
“Women of True Grit” in music, entertainment, and journalism highlight conference by Nancy DeGennaro
Dressed in a teal feather boa once owned by the late comedienne Phyllis Diller, author and media personality Edie Hand offered nearly a dozen “pearls of wisdom” during the first Women of True Grit Conference at MTSU.
Several of the successful women that Hand profiled in her Women of True Grit book, which inspired the conference, also took part in panel discussions.
“When I was very young, my grandmother inspired me about wearing pearls and the pearls of many colors,” Hand said, referencing a slide that featured 10 colorful pearls. “It only takes a speck of grit inside an oyster shell to form a pearl.”
Beverly Keel, dean of the College of Media and Entertainment, moderated one panel that addressed “Finding Your Voice” during the March 12 conference. The panel comprised:
• Gina Miller, an entertainment executive and social justice activist
• Anastasia Brown, a music executive
• Alie B. Gorrie, a disability-inclusion consultant/trainer and theater artist
• Kelly Lang, a singer-songwriter and breast cancer survivor, who performed for the crowd
During another panel, Hand interviewed:
• Lana King, former Hallmark Channel CEO
• Marion MacKenzie Pyle, an award-winning writer/director/producer
• Paula Mosher Wallace, Bloom in the Dark network founder and author
The event was sponsored by the College of Media and Entertainment, Distinguished Lecture Committee, and National Women’s History Month Committee.
Hand, introduced as the keynote by Keel, talked about her own life story and her book that profiles more than 60 successful women who navigated through adversity.
The grit in life is challenges that “help us progress to the person we need to be,” said Hand, who recalled the pain of losing her three brothers and how it shaped her life.
“We cannot control life situations, but we can control how we respond to them. You don’t ever know where you’re going, but be ready and be prepared.”
A pearl of wisdom, indeed.
Kelly Lang, Alie B. Gorrie, Anastasia Brown, and Gina Miller
Edie Hand, Women of True Grit author
by DeAnn Hays
MTSU department strikes gold in five decades of music industry mastery
Founded with just two professors and one studio, MTSU’s Department of Recording Industry has been at the forefront of shaping the music industry and educating future recording professionals for five decades.
Today, the department has grown to more than two dozen professors, 1,400 students, 13 studios, six labs, and a songwriting center.
“It is no wonder you can find multiple MTSU alums at any music industry event you attend—whether on stage or behind the scenes. Where there is music, MTSU is there,” said Michelle Conceison, the new Recording Industry chair and an associate professor.
Famous names with MTSU roots include country artist Chris Young, Christian artists Brandon Heath and Lecrae, country artist Hillary Scott of Lady A, rap artist and songwriter Daisha McBride, and Grammy-winning songwriter Josh Kear, among others.
Students have worked with top celebrities like Bruce Springsteen, Celine Dion, Keith Urban, Jimmy Kimmel, and Kane Brown. Alums have also written songs for Alan Jackson, George Strait, Kacey Musgraves, Lady Gaga, Usher, Wiz Khalifa, BTS, and more.
Originally known collectively as RIM (Recording Industry Management), the department is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2024—a golden tribute to a highly regarded program whose alumni have produced an impressive haul of Grammy gold and many other accolades across all facets of the music industry.
“I’m very lucky and very grateful to have had the chance to work with everyone from that University,” Young told the crowd at the Music in the City event at Ole Red that helped mark MTSU’s milestone. “You hear so many people, so many times, not reference where they went to school. Everyone that I know that went to MTSU always just sings their praises.”
“Quite simply, there is no other program like MTSU’s Department of Recording Industry, which is why we have attracted students from all over the world,” said Beverly Keel, dean of the College of Media and Entertainment.
Since awarding its first degree in 1974, MTSU’s Recording Industry Department has graduated over 7,500 industry-ready alumni and has produced top songwriters, producers, musicians, and more. Former students have thrived in rap, hip-hop, country, rock, pop, Christian music, and other genres.
For the ninth year, the department has landed a spot on Billboard ’s international list of top music business schools. Alumni names are regularly found on Billboard charts and Grammy nominee lists.
And the beat goes on.
Christian Haseleu (r) and Geoffrey Hull (top r) were first faculty
Spinning Gold
1973 MTSU starts Recording Industry Management program.
1975 Interns begin work in Nashville recording industry.
1977 New RIM coordinator and first full-time faculty member Geoffrey Hull is instrumental in new 12-course curriculum. A 4-track recording studio is installed in Learning Resources Center simulation lab.
1978 Chris Haseleu is hired and develops audio/technology curriculum.
1980 Haynes House is converted into an 8-track recording studio. First student recordings are released as a memorial to student Andy White. A grant is secured to produce RIMusic I album. An Audio Engineering Society chapter forms.
1982 Students attend Country Radio Seminar in Nashville, featuring Dick Clark.
1985 RIM becomes first school in nation to release a student CD.
1986 Digital audio recording studio (now Studio C) is built in James Union Building as part of the new Center for Recording Arts and Sciences.
1989 RIM program and the center merge into a department.
1990 Students win a National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Student Music Award.
1991 The $15.5 million state-of-the-art Bragg Building opens including studios A and B, MIDI laboratory, and master classrooms.
1992 Department and degree names change to Recording Industry, and concentrations are added in Music Business and Audio Production. Mix Magazine cover features the program among the country’s best recording schools.
1993 20th anniversary is marked, with 900 majors and over 150 interns in Nashville, New York, and Los Angeles. Women in Recording Industry Forum is organized.
1998 Tascam Digital Audio Laboratory opens in Alumni Memorial Gym.
Hull and student advisee Norma Wyndham
Hull with guest lecturer Charlie Daniels, 1981
Stanley Jordan gives a performance and lecture, 1990
Textbook business
The Recording Industry (1997), Geoffrey Hull
Record Label Marketing (2005), Tom Hutchison, Amy Macy, and Paul Allen
The Business of Concert Promotion and Touring (2007), Rich Barnet
Influential series of books written by John Dougan and by Mike Alleyne
Marketing Recorded Music, 4th Edition (2022), lead co-authors include Tammy Donham and Amy Macy
The Business of Live Concert Touring, (under contract), Gloria Green
Artist Management for the Music Business (2007), Paul Allen
Department
chairs
Geoffrey Hull
Richard Barnet
Robert Garfrerick
Christian Haseleu
Loren Mulraine
Beverly Keel
John Merchant
Michelle Conceison
Spinning Gold
(continued)
1999 Retrospective CD celebrates program’s 25 years. Studio A is upgraded to 5.1 channels, and Dolby Labs agreement is signed.
2002 Upper-division candidacy program begins. Department boasts 1,716 majors and over 200 interns and graduates yearly.
2004 Studios D and E open in Ezell Building.
2005 First students enroll in M.F.A. in Recording Arts and Technologies program. The Nashville Music Industry is one of MTSU’s first online courses.
2006 Omega Delta Psi, first all-gender inclusive recording society, is formed.
2008 Commercial Songwriting concentration is added. M.B.A. in Music Business begins with Jones College of Business.
2011 Audio Production Professor John Hill wins a Grammy.
2013 MTSU hosts the first AES International Conference on Audio Education. Pro Session series starts pairing songwriting students and professional musicians.
2014 Long-term educational relationship begins with Bonnaroo music festival.
2014 Audio Production becomes stand-alone major.
2021 New facilities open: Studios D and E in Main Street building, Chris Young Café venue and live sound lab, and Immersive Sound Lab in Miller building. The Postproduction Laboratory adds Dolby Atmos. MTSU hosts the AES Audio Education Conference online due to pandemic.
2022 Songwriting Center opens in the Miller building. Online Music Business program starts.
2024 Recording Industry students write and produce original song, “We Do It All,” featured in a regional Emmy-winning commercial for the College of Media and Entertainment.
MTSU-connected professionals have now won 47 Grammys since 2001. Over 80 unique and specialty courses are offered.
MTSU’s School of Journalism and Strategic Media celebrates 50 years of telling stories and breaking news
by DeAnn Hays
Back in the early 1970s, MTSU commissioned a study about starting a communications program. Approved in 1972, the program began when Ed Kimbrell started the Department of Mass Communications, with sequences in advertising and public relations, news-editorial, graphics and photography, and broadcasting.
This spring the School of Journalism and Strategic Media, belatedly after the pandemic, celebrated 50 years of teaching students reporting, storytelling, breaking news, and everything in between.
Now part of the nationally esteemed College of Media and Entertainment, the school boasts more than 300 students, over two dozen faculty members, two degrees, and nine concentrations. Three of those concentrations are brand-new: Entertainment Journalism, Environmental Journalism and Communication, and Social Justice Journalism.
“I am so proud of the School of Journalism and Strategic Media, which is known throughout the nation for the education it has provided our students for 50 years,” said CME Dean Beverly Keel, an MTSU alumna and former award-winning music industry journalist.
“What I really admire is that it continues to provide the foundation for journalism, advertising, public relations, sports media, and media design while constantly evolving to address the changes in the industry. No matter how technology changes, our graduates are prepared to communicate.”
Making a World of Difference
Director Katie Foss says MTSU’s School of Journalism and Strategic Media equips students with professional knowledge and is focused on preparing the next generation of leaders in the ever-changing journalism and mass communication industries.
As one example, Matthew Taylor and Jun Zhang, both assistant professors, now run MTSU’s Social Media Insights Lab that offers hands-on access to opensource and subscription platforms used by leading brands like Unilever, Delta, Nestle, and GSK. The new Ever Blue Branding agency also provides real-world experience for students in Advertising and Public Relations, now elevated to a stand-alone degree.
“Our professors give students beyond-the-classroom experiences in any way they can—calling sports for ESPN+, going to the action to get stories, and working with real clients in our ad and PR agency. We involve students however we can,” Foss said.
“Our curriculum offers interesting and unique courses, like data journalism, crime and media, and election coverage.”
Alumni currently work as news reporters and anchors at major television and radio stations and newspapers, including NBC, CBS Los Angeles, SportsNet New York, the Associated Press, the Detroit Free Press the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Sirius XM Radio, and more.
“Whether it’s traveling across the state to immerse themselves in a community and writing about its most colorful characters, to visiting Iowa to report on the presidential election, our students receive real-world, hands-on experience,” Keel said.
“It’s our faculty who truly make the difference. They are the most caring, dedicated, and kind faculty that you will find anywhere. Indeed, they continue to mentor their students decades after graduation.”
Historical Highlights
1925: Sidelines began as a student-run, editorially independent newspaper on campus.
1938: English Professor Eva Burkett taught the first journalism course at MTSU.
1971: Ed Kimbrell was named the first chair to launch the Department of Mass Communications the next academic year.
1973: A Recording Industry major was added, and radio and TV courses were later offered.
1989: Now a school, the program moved under the umbrella of the new College of Mass Communications (rebranded to CME in 2015).
1991: The John Bragg Media and Entertainment Building was completed. “Our building is futuristic,” Kimbrell said. “It is built for the next century.”
2010: A journalism student created an award-winning insert in Murfreesboro’s Daily News Journal, covering cleanup efforts in the aftermath of the April 2010 tornado outbreak.
Working in Various Fields and Formats
2013: MTSU’s School of Journalism was named one of the “50 Best Journalism Schools and Programs at U.S. Colleges and Universities” by journalism professor Dan Reimold of the University of Tampa.
2021: School of Journalism and Strategic Media students earned a top 10 win in the national Hearst Journalism Awards Program for their November 2020 TV news special, “100 Years of Broadcasting.”
Notable alumni include Ken Strickland, NBC News vice president and Washington bureau chief; Justin Hart, Fox Soul supervising producer; Holly Thompson, WSMV morning anchor; Phil Williams, WTVF chief investigative reporter; Tracey Rogers, senior vice president and regional manager for Nexstar Media Group; and WBIR anchor Katie Inman, among many others.
The school’s anniversary events kicked off with news executives from Knoxville’s NBC affiliate WBIR leading a daylong symposium on television producing and reporting for journalism students. The school also hosted a fundraising
and networking event to commemorate the 50th anniversary celebration week. That event connected some of MTSU’s esteemed alumni with some of the school’s most promising students.
Williams returned to campus during the anniversary celebration to reflect on his illustrious career during a special event. His April 11 visit was sponsored by MTSU’s Free Speech Center and John Seigenthaler Chair of Excellence in First Amendment Studies.
For decades, Williams set the bar for serious investigative journalism on the state and local level, earning him the industry’s highest honors and praise from his peers. A 2023 recipient of the prestigious John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism, Williams is the first local television journalist to receive the honor and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.
Now ranked No. 1 in Tennessee for both journalism and sports media by the national Broadcast Education Association, the program sends students to the annual Bonnaroo music festival to file reports for various outlets and produces student journalism on digital platforms including the Sidelines news outlet. The studentrun Middle Tennessee News also recently notched two silvers in the national Telly Awards.
“We have grads working at ESPN, NBC, the Hallmark Channel, USA Today Network, the Nashville Predators, NASA, TikTok, Nissan, Delta Air Lines, and nonprofits,” Foss said. “Our graduates are sports editors and analysts, social media coordinators, and graphic designers. They work in digital marketing, social media, recruiting, and more.”
School of Journalism and Strategic Media graduates are making their marks in many ways not even conceived 50 years ago, and they’re poised for what the future holds in the next 50 years.
Leaving an Imprint
Leon Alligood retired from MTSU’s School of Journalism and Strategic Media in December 2023 after 15 years of teaching.
Before joining MTSU, he worked as a reporter and writer for nearly 30 years— 22 of those years for the Nashville Banner and then The Tennessean. While at The Tennessean, he primarily wrote human interest and narrative stories on a variety of beats. He also covered the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division in Afghanistan and Iraq as an embedded reporter.
Alligood’s writing won numerous awards in state, regional, and national contests. As just one example, he was recognized by the National Weather Service office in Nashville for his work highlighting several weather service programs.
In recognition of his outstanding service to journalism, Alligood was inducted into the 2017 class of the Tennessee Journalism Hall of Fame.
As faculty advisor to the MTSU student news outlet, Sidelines, which routinely wins numerous awards each year for editing, reporting, and design, Alligood impacted hundreds of future journalists.
MTSU journalism student Maddy Williams is one example. The moment she walked into his American Media and Social Institutions class during her freshman year, she said, “I knew I’d learn how to be the reporter I aspired to be.”
According to Williams, the choice to take Alligood’s class “set the scene for the rest of my journalism degree and future career.”
Foss
Alligood
View Potter’s work
Photos from Dark Waters (2023)
SSCARY SOUTHERN SCAPES
Photography professor explores “murder ballad” sites
Kristine Potter has been capturing the light from myriad angles with her lens for many years.
Dark Waters, her second monograph, features a dark and brooding series that reflects on the Gothic landscape of the American South, as evoked in the popular imagination of “murder ballads” from the 19th and 20th centuries.
In a New York Times Book Review piece titled “To Enter This Place Alone Is to Take a Risk,” Nashville author Margaret Renkl wrote that Potter’s book “upends the tradition altogether” by showcasing where the crimes immortalized in the songs can take place — and often have.
“The landscapes in these photographs are not so much threatening as bereft of protection,” Renkl wrote.
“In the South, our most isolated places are at once the most beautiful and the most blood-soaked, and Ms. Potter understands that women are in no way the sole victims of this violent legacy.”
Potter’s seductive, richly detailed black-and-white images channel the setting and characters of these songs, capturing the landscape and creating evocative portraits that stand in for the often-unnamed women at the center of their stories.
A recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship in Photography, Potter teaches in MTSU’s Department of Media Arts as an assistant professor of Photography. She earned her Master
of Fine Arts from Yale University and displayed her creativity in MTSU’s 2022 Photography Faculty Exhibition.
In 2021, her work was included in But Still, It Turns, an exhibition and book curated by Paul Graham that launched at the International Center of Photography in New York and traveled to France’s prestigious Rencontres d’Arles festival in 2022. Potter, whose monograph Manifest was published in 2018, also is the 2019–20 recipient of the Grand Prix Images Vevey.
Her work explores masculine archetypes, the American landscape, and cultural tendencies toward mythologizing the past. In her original “Dark Waters” collection, Potter used video, photographs, and sound to depict threatening waters and the people around them and investigated a feedback loop between nature and myth: how a threatening landscape primes a culture for violence, and a violent culture projects threat onto a landscape.
The book, issued in 2023 with text by Brooklyn-based author Rebecca Bengal, features 63 images of places like Murder Creek, Bloody Fork, and Deadman’s Pond, which are haunted by both the victim and perpetrator of violence in the world Potter conjures.
MTSU alumni across musical genres celebrate multiple awards in 2024
by Andrew Oppmann
Named a “Grammy-winner factory” a few years back by NBC News, MTSU saw alumni collect several more gramophone statuettes at the 66th Grammy Awards show in Los Angeles this year.
Julien Baker (’19), a Recording Industry student before majoring in English, captured three Grammys out of six nominations as a member of boygenius, an indie supergroup with Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus. Previous two-time winner and alumnus Lecrae won two more Grammys, for Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song for “Your Power” and for Best Contemporary Christian Music Album for Church Clothes 4
Joining Lecrae in the album award was first-time winner Connor Back (’18), an Audio Production graduate who earned a Grammy for his mixing engineering work on Church Clothes 4 and earned a certificate for his engineering work on the song “Your Power.” Back works for Reach Records, Lecrae’s independent record label.
Jason Hall (’00), a Recording Industry major, and Jimmy Mansfield (’14), an Audio Production graduate, won Grammys for engineering, mixing, and vocals work for Lainey Wilson’s Bell Bottom Country, chosen as Best Country Album. Hall and Mansfield have been part of past Grammy nominations.
While not singled out for a nomination, Josh Kear (’96), a Recording Industry minor who majored in History, co-wrote the song “Watermelon Moonshine” on Bell Bottom Country
The number of MTSU-connected Grammy winners since 2001 now stands at 23 people with a total of 47 Grammys in categories from classical to pop to rock to country to gospel.
Lecrae with two more Grammys
Photos by Getty Images for the Recording Academy
Other Outstanding Output
In the last two decades, MTSU alumni, students, and faculty from across the University have been a part of more than 164 Grammy Award nominations. Alumni also up for Grammy awards in 2024 included:
• Two-time winner and Recording Industry graduate Brandon Bell (’04), who was part of three Grammy-nominated efforts for his engineering work
• Three-time winner and Recording Industry major Tony Castle (’95), nominated for his engineering work as part of the team on Willie Nelson’s Bluegrass, up for Best Bluegrass Album
• Randy LeRoy, an MTSU student through 1991, who was nominated for Best Historical Album as part of the team that produced Playing for the Man at the Door: Field Recordings from The Collection of Mack McCormick, 1958–1971
• Recording Industry alumnus Phillip Smith (’16), honored for engineering work for Brandy Clark’s self-titled album, up for Best Americana Album
Black Tie and Red Carpet
Prior to the Grammy ceremony, the University recognized Keith and Bell at an event at the Mama Shelter hotel rooftop spot, where alumni, industry professionals, students, and faculty gathered to reconnect and wish the school’s nominees well.
MTSU President Sidney A. McPhee and Beverly Keel, dean of the College of Media and Entertainment, presented each a special certificate.
McPhee also caught up with Baker in Los Angeles and conferred on her the title of honorary professor of Recording Industry.
MTSU students also participated in the trip, experiencing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to hit the Grammy red carpet and even work at the Recording Academy’s black-tie charitable fundraising event honoring legendary rocker Jon Bon Jovi as MusiCares’ Person of the Year.
The six students from MTSU’s College of Media and Entertainment represented the University’s ninth trip to the music industry’s biggest awards weekend. In addition to the MusiCares event, students toured recording studios and iconic music venues and met with recording industry professionals.
Zoe Naylor, a senior from Murfreesboro majoring in Journalism and French, covered the trip for Sidelines, the University’s student news outlet, and the MTSU Student Voice, the University’s student-run social media team. Naylor said in addition to gaining valuable experience in entertainment and event reporting, she also enjoyed “the possibility of seeing some awesome artists at the awards ceremony!”
Grammy Winners in 2023
MTSU Department of Recording Industry alumni Brandon Bell and Tony Castle received 2023 Grammy Awards for their work on albums by Brandi Carlile and Willie Nelson, respectively. Both are multi-Grammy winners for their music engineering work.
At the 65th annual Grammy Awards, Bell received the best Americana album award for engineering Carlile’s In These Silent Days, and Castle earned his latest Grammy for perfecting icon Nelson’s new country album, A Beautiful Time
Bell (’04) earlier won the bluegrass album Grammy for mixing Nobody Knows You, the Steep Canyon Rangers’ 2012 release.
Castle (’95) had won two Grammys for engineering Nelson’s projects featuring the songs of George Gershwin and Frank Sinatra.
Getting in Tune
The Grammys weren’t the only music business trip MTSU students took in 2024. Audio Production students (alongside three department professors) also flew to Austin, Texas, in March to attend South by Southwest’s annual music festival.
With four days at the festival, the 2024 trip served as MTSU’s first time collaborating with SXSW. Professor Frank Baird spearheaded the project, with support from colleagues Mike Hanson and Chris Collins.
The purpose of the trip was to instill crew culture and event safety—vital aspects of touring life learned through action.
Crew culture is about timeliness. Getting through TSA and operating as a group not only at the airport, but throughout the festival. Navigating uncertainties. Coordinating early mornings, long days, and late nights. Having a buddy system. The list goes on.
“Crew culture is unique to the professional touring industry,” Baird said. “A lot of it is the ability to hang. That’s something that I teach in my classes. You show up early. You have to be personable. You just need to hang out.”
In order to obtain admission to SXSW’s music festival, the students had to volunteer around 40 hours. The volunteer shifts sharpened the students’ knowledge on event safety through reporting incidents and crowd control.
“They’re getting a look at what a music festival consists of: crowd control, security aspects, interaction with patrons, and even interaction with talent and behind the scenes folks,” Collins said.
The University hopes to continue building its relationship with SXSW.
[Editor’s note: This is a condensed article written by Sidelines Lifestyles Editor Destiny Mizell.]
Julien Baker named honorary professor
Baker with boygenius bandmates
Photo by Getty Images
A TRUSTED SOURCE
Visits to the MTSU Free Speech Center website make up the largest percentage of web visitors MTSU receives on an annual
by Drew Ruble
“Experts say attacks on free speech are rising across the US”
That was the headline of an Associated Press article centered around new threats to free speech in America.
The AP reached out to Ken Paulson, director of the Free Speech Center at MTSU, for expert commentary for the article.
Paulson, a founding editor of USA Today and former dean of the MTSU College of Media and Entertainment, told the AP that many states in recent years have reverted to the anti-speech tactics employed by people like Sen. Joe McCarthy during the “Red Scare” of the early 1950s.
“We are seeing a concerted wave that we have not seen in decades,” Paulson said, adding that the very best protections against censorship
basis
are awareness, insight, and a nationwide commitment to freedom of expression. That’s precisely what the Free Speech Center at MTSU is all about: Through its educational website, timely editorials, and expert status, the center is providing much-needed awareness, insights, and support for our precious freedoms of speech.
Weaving a Web
The MTSU center’s one-of-a-kind First Amendment Encyclopedia is the most comprehensive First Amendment resource available to the public. Along with its news website—a joint project of the center and its on-campus partner, MTSU’s John Seigenthaler Chair of Excellence in First Amendment Studies—the center has become the go-to source for online information about free speech. There is really nothing else like it on the web.
SUPPORT THE CENTER . . . SUPPORT FREE SPEECH!
The Free Speech Center is dependent upon financial support from those who share our belief that education about our most fundamental freedoms is critical to American democracy. Independent funding allows the center to develop classroom programs, teaching guides, educational videos, and grade-specific books. It also allows the center to maintain and expand its First Amendment Encyclopedia and daily First Amendment reports.
To support the work of the Free Speech Center, please click on the Donate button at the Free Speech Center website: mtsu.edu/first-amendment Visit mtsu.edu/first-amendment for more information and to support the center’s mission. Drop us a message at freespeechcenter@mtsu.edu
Annual visits to the MTSU Free Speech Center website and First Amendment Encyclopedia soared by 1.1 million in the 2022–23 fiscal year to a new high of more than 5 million users. That constitutes the largest percentage of the total web visitors MTSU receives on an annual basis!
National Reach
It’s not just the Associated Press taking notice of MTSU’s leadership on free speech topics—hundreds of similar published articles annually cite the center.
This map demonstrates how MTSU (through the Free Speech Center) is spreading the word to millions of Americans about the need to protect the First Amendment and our most fundamental freedoms.
STATES WITH ARTICLES CITING THE FREE SPEECH CENTER
20–31 citations
10 or more citations 5 or more citations 1–5 citations
Clearly, the Free Speech Center is routinely treated as an authority by highly respected and neutral news sources on a topic of growing concern in our nation.
The center is successfully filling that role while operating as a nonpartisan and nonprofit institution simply conveying the urgency of the work it does without stepping into politics or alarmism.
Collaborative commercial about media programs captures MTSU’s first Emmy by
Andrew Oppmann
“We Do It All,” a video ad showcasing the College of Media and Entertainment, started with a concept from Marie Barnas, chair of the Department of Media and Arts. It ended with the University’s first Emmy. Along the way, the commercial was made possible by a huge collaboration between faculty and students across departments in the college.
The one-minute spot, which debuted last year, earned a regional Emmy Award at February’s 38th annual Nashville/MidSouth Emmy Awards. MTSU alumnus Nic Dugger, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) chapter president, presided over the ceremony.
“I’m over the moon. My time at MTSU has been incredible, but this is like the cherry on top,” said Kelty Greye, a Commercial Songwriting student who co-wrote the music, sang, and played fiddle in the spot.
Action, Animation, and Acting
Allie Sultan, an associate professor in the Video and Film Production program, directed the commercial and coproduced it with Bess Rogers, an assistant professor in Recording Industry. It was created in five weeks start to finish.
“It’s been a thrill,” Sultan said. “Freshman filmmaking students in my class worked for two days filming their first commercial!”
Emily Rink, an Animation major, worked with Paul Griswold, professor and campus visual effect guru, to create the featured anime.
“How fun is that? They had the idea to turn Grace Chu, our student, into an anime character,” Sultan said. “So Emily just rotoscoped the shot and drew over it frame by frame. She did it in a couple of days. It was amazing. So we were able to put that in the commercial. I think it’s such a great moment where Grace is drawing, and she’s so passionate that she becomes her own character she’s creating.”
Finally, the onscreen talent—all students—come from the Recording Industry and Media Arts departments and the School of Journalism and Strategic Media.
Featured prominently in the spot is overall narration and onscreen appearance by Recording Industry student Liliana Manyara. Manyara pops out of the LED wall as part of Barnas’ concept and “walks” through the college throughout the video, weaving in various Journalism, Media Arts, and Recording Industry programs.
Original Song Credits
Rogers worked with students in her Songwriting for Film, TV, and Gaming course to create the music for the commercial.
“This commercial was a fantastic opportunity for the students,” Rogers said. “It was our first project of the semester, and the students had no prior experience with this.”
Greye and Audio Production majors Peter Van Wyk and Phillip Beima wrote and recorded the selected song submission, also titled “We Do It All.”
“This whole experience, from the songwriting contest to write a commercial song, recording it in the studio, filming it, and then ending up at the Emmys, I have learned so much through every step of this,” Greye said. “Also, it’s been the coolest experience of my life.”
Student Nick Edgerson, who records as Legendary Nedge on the student-run record label Match Records, performed a rap he wrote in a tempo change as part of the commercial’s centerpiece song. The music was recorded in Studio D, one of MTSU’s newest recording studio facilities, with the assistance of Professor Bill Crabtree.
Kelty Greye
Liliana Manyara
Phillip Beima
Post-Production Pride
Students then completed the audio mix of the commercial in Professor Matt Foglia’s Advanced Sound for Picture course.
“Almost everything you hear on the track was written, recorded, played, and produced by students,” Rogers said. “I’m incredibly proud of them and of everyone who lent their talents to make this happen.”
The commercial, debuting online and on True Blue TV, aired on the national broadcast of The Judds’ final concert, which was filmed at Murphy Center as Wynonna Judd’s all-star tribute to her late mother and duet partner, Naomi. MTSU’s Division of Marketing and Communications, which proposed a CME-created ad to Dean Beverly Keel, co-produced and sponsored the spot. The video also won three Silvers in the Telly Awards and a faculty creative Award of Excellence from the Broadcast Education Association.
The Nashville/Midsouth Region, one of 19 NATAS chapters, encompasses Tennessee, all of North Carolina except Asheville, and the Huntsville, Alabama, TV market.
In another True Blue tie to the event, students from Associate Professor Bob Gordon’s advanced production class crewed the live broadcast of the Emmy ceremony along with video film production alumni—including the executive producer, director, graphics producer, and playback producer—using MTSU’s Mobile Production Lab truck.
“This was truly a collaborative effort with a lot of faculty and students who came together, and I’m just so proud of how it turned out,” Sultan said.
The College of Media and Entertainment truly does it all.
Nicolas “Legendary Nedge” Edgerson
Bess Rogers (l) and Allie Sultan
From Pulitzer winners to musicians, filmmakers, and comedians, invited experts give students and community insights into hot topics 1 3 2 4 5
National Book Awardwinning scholar Imani Perry discussed how the South’s people and cultures have influenced the nation, speaking during Black History Month as part of the College of Media and Entertainment’s Tom T. Hall Writers Series of lectures. A scholar at Princeton University, Perry is author of South to America: A Journey Below the MasonDixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
Comedian Gary Mule Deer participated in a Q&A session following a screening of a documentary on his life, Show Business Is My Life, But I Can’t Prove It,” along with his wife, Nita, and his manager, MTSU alumnus Ryan Blazer (’04). Mule Deer combined comedy and classic country music during a six-decade career.
“Green Room Conversations” tour creator Julie Williams (center) performed and took part in a panel March 27 as MTSU served as the launch site of the multicity college tour about sexual harassment in the music industry. Williams, a survivor and CMT Next Women of Country artist, joined forces with advocacy organization Calling All Crows and social impact leadership firm The Change Agent·cy.
As part of MTSU’s Pulitzer Prize lecture series, two honorees spoke on campus recently, including Anna Wolfe, who reported on welfare misuse in Mississippi involving former NFL quarterback Brett Favre. Wolfe, investigative reporter on poverty for the Mississippi Today nonprofit news organization, won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Local Reporting for her work.
Pulitizer finalist Meribah Knight visited MTSU to discuss her “Kids of Rutherford County” series that received global attention for exposing how hundreds of children— some as young as 7—were unlawfully arrested and jailed. A senior reporter and producer at Nashville Public Radio, she spent three years working on the series.
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Heirloom: Guitar writer and director Daniel Putkowski appeared at MTSU to showcase his recent film, which chronicles the progression of the steel string guitar from a parlor instrument to the universal sound of modern music in international arenas. Putkowski appeared as part of the Center for Popular Music’s “American Guitar” lecture series.
Dynamic mother-daughter duo Rita Mitchell and Britt Mitchell, who are authors and empowerment coaches, shared “What They Know for Sure About Elevating Success” in a talk sponsored by the College of Media and Entertainment.
Kathy Roberts Forde, author of the award-winning book Journalism and Jim Crow: White Supremacy and the Black Struggle for a New America, gave the keynote lecture at the 48th annual AEJMC Southeast Colloquium hosted by MTSU. The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication event marked the first time the School of Journalism and Strategic Media hosted an internationally recognized journalism organization.
Musician Mac Phipps, whose lyrics were used against him for a 2001 manslaughter conviction, held a special “Un-Rapping the Issue” webinar with MTSU students on the controversial practice of using rap lyrics in criminal court cases. The talk was hosted by MTSU’s Urban Entertainment Society student organization.
Brkwyipoi Kayapó screened and discussed her film, Indigenous Filmmaker Warriors in Defense of Biocultural Conservation, during a Distinguished Lecture Series visit to MTSU along with some Brazilian colleagues. MTSU film professor Paul Chilsen and students have helped indigenous Brazilian filmmakers use their talents to bring attention to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.
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Tyke T awarded honorary professorship for music success and mentorship to Memphis youth
MTSU alumnus and hip-hop artist Tyrone “Tyke T” Stroble (’09, ’11) found himself being ushered back on stage by friend and MTSU College of Media and Entertainment Dean Beverly Keel during a concert at the Orpheum Theatre in Memphis.
Keel had told him in advance that “something’s going to happen” at the concert in 2023, but the MTSU graduate wasn’t expecting such an honor from his alma mater— an honorary professorship in Recording Industry.
“What I’m about to give you cannot be bought,” Keel said during the onstage presentation. “Memphis is strong at MTSU, and Memphis makes MTSU strong. You make us strong, and we’re going to learn more and more from you now that you’re an honorary professor.”
Stroble shared by phone days later that he was “still in shock. I really don’t know how to accept it.”
“I was the first person on my mom’s side to get an undergraduate degree. I was the only person in my family at the time to get a master’s degree from MTSU,” said Stroble, who earned an M.B.A. and a B.B.A. in Marketing from MTSU.
“It just wasn’t the path, like nobody was going to college.
“And so for me now to be an honorary professor. . . . I’m just thankful [Keel] saw something in me to make this happen.”
Before the concert, Stroble invited some high school students and Keel to sit in on his sound check for a behind-the-scenes look that many youths from that area may never see again. Keel said that in addition to his industry success, Stroble’s dedication to music education and giving back to his community makes him such a worthy recipient.
“In fact, he spends time with students from Memphis’ Crosstown High who are studying songwriting, production, and music business, and he is dedicated to building his career in Memphis, as opposed to moving to New York or L.A., and making things easier for the next generation,” Keel said.
Stroble’s career includes landing in the Top 50 of four Billboard charts with his sophomore EP, 2017’s The Prelude. He credits MTSU with much of his success.
“It means the world to stay connected to a place that literally has given me everything, because without that University I would not be the Tyke T that I am today,” Stroble said. “And the University has done so much for me, anything I can do to give back I’ll always be willing to do it.”
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Jimmy Hart
ALUMNI ACCOLADES
Nexstar Media Group promoted accomplished media executive Tracey Rogers (’91) to senior vice president and regional manager for its broadcasting division, overseeing Nexstar television stations and digital operations in multiple markets across the country. She had served as vice president and general manager of WKRN-TV in Nashville since May 2017. Rogers’ numerous awards for excellence in journalism include an Edward R. Murrow Award.
Brittney Spencer (’17) is featured on Beyoncé’s album Cowboy Carter, which dropped earlier in 2024. Spencer, 35, is one of a few featured singers on “Blackbiird,” a reimagining of the Beatles song “Blackbird.” She also released her inaugural album, My Stupid Life, in January 2024. Named to CMT’s annual Next Women of Country list in 2021, she later made her network television debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live and first appeared on the Grand Ole Opry in May 2021.
Shane Smith (’97), director of technology at LMG Inc. in Florida, a global touring and entertainment provider, recently donated lighting equipment worth more than $18,000 to the MTSU College of Media and Entertainment to help train students to properly set up stage and studio productions.
ACCOLADES ACCOLADES
Daisha McBride (’18), who goes by The Rap Girl, is featured in a BET documentary film titled In Her Element
The film is part of Queen Latifah’s series Queen Collective, which puts a spotlight on Black female and nonbinary directors by airing their short films.
The film follows McBride as she prepares to put on her first headlining show at Nashville’s Acme Feed & Seed.
A few scenes feature MTSU and the campus. Senior MTSU film student Chris Banegas also appears.
Journalism alum Sara Cardona (’16) was named the main sports anchor and reporter for Miami’s WTVJ, a television station owned and operated by NBC. The bilingual broadcast journalist began her new role in June 2023. She also contributes to sports coverage on WSCV (Telemundo 51). Cardona previously covered University of Kentucky and University of Florida athletics as a sports anchor and reporter in Lexington, Kentucky, and Gainesville, Florida, respectively.
Jaelee Roberts (’23), guitarist and primary vocalist with Sister Sadie, made her Grand Ole Opry solo debut in September 2023. While Roberts had performed several times on the Opry stage, this marked her first appearance under her own name, performing music she has recorded for Mountain Home Music.
ALUMNI ACCOLADES
Alumna and music artist Hunter Wolkonowski (’20), who performs as HunterGirl, fulfilled a dream with her debut at the Grand Ole Opry in March. While attending MTSU, the Winchester native donated her time and talent to help raise funds for the Charlie and Hazel Daniels Veterans and Military Family Center by singing at two of the University’s Veteran Impact Celebrations. Surprising Wolkonowski on the Opry stage, MTSU staff presented the rising country star a personalized bomber jacket from the Daniels Center. She also performed on the Opry’s Salute the Troops show this May that highlighted MTSU and the Daniels Center.
The animated student film I’ll Never Know Her, by alums Madison McCallum (’22) and Shea Spears (’22), was accepted into the Student World Impact, White Rabbit, and six other film festivals. With musical collaboration by MTSU studentrun Match Records alumni Abbie Garrett, Ethan Forrest, and Andy Modaff, the video tells the story of Serena, a theater janitor, who longs to sing center stage but lacks the confidence to stand alone.
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Ashley Barrientos (’23) was recently named one of this year’s 50 climate leaders by the climate news organization Grist. Barrientos’ rise to fame began when she took a position with Brooklyn-based Impact Media to create content for their Instagram account, @impact. The popular account, with more than 2 million followers, covers a wide range of social topics. Although the account covered some environmental news, Barrientos saw an opportunity for more. Her goal became to create straightforward climate content that resonated with younger audiences. In 2022, she became the founding editor of @environment, an Instagram account covering climate news and awareness that now has more than 830,000 followers. The account, owned by Impact Media, got a jolt when music superstar Ariana Grande shared a post to her Instagram story, and Leonardo DiCaprio even gave a full repost.
Nashville Lifestyles magazine hosted its annual Music in the City event at Ole Red in February, featuring a performance by country music megastar and former MTSU student Chris Young In a Q-and-A session before the show with Alison Hudak, editor of Nashville Lifestyles, Young discussed his alma mater. Then, MTSU President Sidney A. McPhee and Beverly Keel, dean of the College of Media and Entertainment, presented Young with a framed photo montage showing students using the Chris Young Café, which he helped build on the MTSU campus.
Bill Lickman (’24), a U.S. Air Force veteran, was one of four USAF Joint Staff Military Security Forces members on duty when terrorists crashed an airliner into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. After helping people evacuate, he returned to the smoke-filled, burning building to protect critical facilities and senior Department of Defense leadership, including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. He later received a Purple Heart for injuries he suffered that day. Lickman graduated from MTSU this May with a degree in Video and Film Production and received the Veteran Leadership Award during the spring Graduating Veterans Stole Ceremony. While at MTSU, Lickman, 45, served as production manager and highlight camera operator for MTSU’s ESPN+ sports broadcasts, photographer for Sidelines, social media manager for MTSU’s student-run TV production company, and Student Government Association veteran senator.
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2024 CME Wall of Fame inductees
Trish McGee (’90), vice president of public relations for the Bohan Agency in Nashville, has more than 30 years of experience spanning the tourism, entertainment, theme park, not-for-profit, and hospitality industries. As an earned media and communications strategist, she has contributed to successful campaigns on behalf of such notable brands as the Ryman Auditorium, Grand Ole Opry, Tennessee Performing Arts Center, Lucas Theater for the Arts, Dollywood, and Imagination Library. At Bohan, she provides public relations representation for the Department of Tourism in Pigeon Forge, one of the Southeast’s most popular vacation destinations. A Tennessee native, McGee has a Mass Communication degree with a public relations emphasis in the recording industry. Director, writer, and editor Wes Edwards (’01) has directed 150-plus music videos and commercials for household names like Amazon and Pepsi. He has won two CMA awards, two ACM awards, a CMT award, and a Gospel Music Association Video of the Year award. Edwards also has two videos in Billboard’s best 100 videos of the decade for 2010–2019. In 2019, he co-founded the production company Strange Arcade, where he serves as executive producer, with his partner, Angie Lorenz. In 2022, he directed American Anthems, a six-part music documentary series for PBS that celebrated unsung heroes with original songs by top artists. The show earned four Emmy nominations, including one for directing. Edwards has a Mass Communication degree with a concentration in Radio and Television.
Big Loud Records songwriter and country artist HARDY (’13) soared to new heights in 2023 with the release of his critically acclaimed half-country, half-rock sophomore album The Mockingbird & the Crow, adding to 4 billion career streams. The artist, whose given name is Michael Hardy, is a five-time Academy of Country Music award winner, two-time Country Music Association award winner, and the 2022 BMI Country Songwriter of the Year. HARDY has written 15 No. 1 singles. Boasting a Recording Industry degree from the Commercial Songwriting program, HARDY spoke at one of MTSU’s graduation ceremonies this spring. HARDY, who at 33 is believed to be the University’s youngest alumnus to return as a Commencement speaker, told graduates, “Don’t be afraid to say yes to an opportunity just because you don’t think you will see an immediate result. You never know where your successes will come from. . . . Take a chance on yourself.”
Incarceration altered his life; now MTSU film student Brian Maxwell helps reform local inmates
by Robin E. Lee and Drew Ruble
Brian Maxwell is an Honors Buchanan Transfer Fellow, a 43-year-old married father of three (his oldest son, Mike, also attends MTSU), and a Video and Film Production major who graduated this spring with a 4.0 GPA.
But Maxwell hasn’t always led such a model life. In 2000, as a young man entering his 20s, Maxwell was arrested (for the first time) for simple possession of marijuana. Between repeat offenses and parole violations, he would spend the next six years in and out of jail.
His story represents two very different lives. But recently, through his volunteer work, Maxwell’s two worlds have collided.
Maxwell is giving back to current inmates in Rutherford County with hands-on training and education in audio and video equipment and production to help them chart a more positive course for their futures. It’s training they would not otherwise be able to receive and is unlike any other correctional education program currently offered in the state. And it is experience Maxwell put toward his Honors thesis.
Losing His Way
Maxwell vividly recalls seeing the movie Back to the Future in theaters when he was just 5 years old. He says the movie ignited his passion for film production. He recalls the lights and sounds, the larger-than-life action sequences, and the story itself.
He graduated from high school in 1998 and moved from Horn Lake, Mississippi, to Smyrna, not far from the MTSU campus. He got a job working in a computer room at a book distributor. His goal, though, was to begin film school at MTSU. But life choices altered his plans.
Maxwell had started smoking marijuana when he was 16. He said it helped with his depression. One day, though, he was pulled over by the police for a broken taillight and was caught with marijuana in his car. He was arrested for simple possession.
“The first time I spent in jail, I felt complete shame. There was a pit in my stomach. I couldn’t look up from the floor,” Maxwell said. “[But] it took less than 30 days before I was all smiles and heckling the guards for an extra sandwich. I became institutionalized very quickly.”
Over the next six years, Maxwell was in and out of jail several times. It was always either a new charge for a small amount of marijuana or a probation violation that led to reincarceration.
“I feel like probation is a scheme designed to send poor people to jail. I would fail a drug test or miss a high-dollar payment toward my fines, and they would issue a warrant for my arrest,” Maxwell said. “It was an escalating time frame. The first violation was 30 days, the second was 60 to 90 days, and the third was 90 to 364 days. The longest stretches I did at one time were 180 days and 145 days.
“I was terrified the first time, nervous the second time, and felt like a veteran of the system by the third. I honestly don’t even remember the person I was before my time in jail, and I was confident that I would go to my grave institutionalized.”
Maxwell spent his 21st birthday behind bars at the Rutherford County Correctional Work Center. Sadly, his father passed away while he was incarcerated.
It was 2006 before he was finally clear of the system.
“The air smelled cleaner, food tasted better, and a massive weight was lifted off me mentally,” he said.
Following his final release, Maxwell started working in construction. He worked as much as he could, sometimes earning less than minimum wage, but when he broke two vertebrae in his spine on a construction site, his work opportunities shrank.
“I struggled to find work for about six months because I could no longer lift anything. I was in tremendous pain for about a decade,” he said, adding that for a time he was homeless.
He was fortunate to eventually find a desk job at a storage facility. Then, when the Affordable Care Act passed, he was finally able to get surgery on his fractured back.
“I was no longer in pain and could do things I thought I would never do again,” he said.
MAXWELL TEACHES CURRENT INMATES ABOUT VIDEO AND FILM PRODUCTION, AS WELL AS SOFT SKILLS.
At long last, he turned his sights toward his long-held dream of making movies.
A New Direction
Maxwell wanted to study film at MTSU. But first he needed to establish himself as a good student. He used the Reconnect Grant to attend Motlow State Community College, where he became an honors student. After completing his associate degree at the Smyrna campus, he took advantage of MTSU’s Honors College Transfer Fellowship to enroll at MTSU.
Honors students at MTSU must complete a thesis before graduation. Maxwell’s thesis details his life, but part of it also reflects on his passionate volunteer work at the Rutherford County Correctional Work Center, where he was once imprisoned.
On a weekly basis, and using his own equipment, Maxwell teaches current inmates about video and film production, as well as soft skills they wouldn’t otherwise learn while incarcerated. The inmates receive hands-on experience with audio recorders, microphones, boom poles, slates, cameras, tripods, and editing software.
“I speak their language, and that is more important than any of my actual knowledge,” Maxwell said. “I connect with them on a deeply emotional level due to our shared experiences; I want to be an example of who they can be. The situation they are in does not define who they are.”
Maxwell hopes that those he is teaching might now have a path forward if they choose to pursue it after his lessons with them are complete.
“You will never reform criminals by sending them to jail. All you do is normalize the experience for them while making them
more efficient criminals at the same time,” he said. “Instead of being in situations where they can learn a skill or take a parenting class, inmates are instead offered 20 hours a day in their cell with a few hours to waste playing card games in a slightly bigger room. You must educate and uplift to reform a person.”
It’s not the only volunteer work Maxwell is involved with. He has also helped at Ables Recreation for people with disabilities, Adam’s Place and The Waterford retirement homes, and several local libraries for children’s book readings, in addition to raising thousands of dollars in donations for Autism Speaks (Maxwell’s other two sons, Keith, 15, and Kevin, 14, have autism).
Maxwell said he enjoys teaching and is pursuing a master’s degree in filmmaking at MTSU starting this fall.
Beyond that, he wants to keep making movies with his son, Mike, who is also majoring in Video and Film Production with minors in Mass Communication and Honors at MTSU.
“In a perfect world, we find funding and get to make a big budget Hollywood movie,” Maxwell said. “[But] I’m more of a live-in-the-moment and take-it-as-it-comes guy, so if the winds blow right, I’ll follow the breeze.”
A recent ASCAP/MTSU Songwriter Showcase highlighted students Harmony Redford, Emily O’Neal, Jaelee Roberts, Sofia Lynch, and Anna Wharton performing. ASCAP Vice President Mike Sistad stopped by to watch the showcase.
Rising senior Michai Mosby, who is studying Advertising and Public Relations, was reelected as Student Government Association president for 2024–25 after becoming one of the youngest SGA presidents ever elected to the MTSU post.
Hayden “Gracie” Sizemore, an Interdisciplinary Media alumna who minored in Film Studies, was recognized as a Future Trailblazer at the 2023 National Women’s History Month awards. Sizemore, vice president of Women in Film and film manager for Student Programming and Raider Entertainment, worked to improve weekly screenings and the student film festival.
MTSU’s student-run record label, Match Records, launched the Tiny Dorm Concert series starting in fall 2022 and recorded several episodes in Deere Hall. Artists featured have included Legendary Nedge, Austin Daniel, Treat Coastal, Aslin, and Chaz Crawford The Give Me a Beat living-learning community was involved in the production along with a student production crew.
Kinsey McBride won the June Anderson Center Undergraduate Student of the Year award. She produces a podcast with Shan Foster, executive director of AMEND Together and vice president of external affairs for YWCA Nashville & Middle Tennessee.
In February 2024, M.F.A. student Anderson Hall completed a final project in immersive audio in collaboration with French company L-Acoustics and Clair Global. L-Acoustics flew in their technician to be a part of the experience, and Clair Global donated equipment. Students in RIM 4335 Advanced Sound Reinforcement and RIM 4333 Sound System Design and Optimization, also participated. Büzie, a rising star on MTSU’s student label, Match Records, headlined the concert after Carter Elliott’s opening act.
Rising sophomores Marcus Rosario, a Journalism major, and Sidelines staffer Hannah Ferreira, a double major in Psychology and Political Science, were named as inaugural Andrew Goodman Foundation ambassadors for MTSU. The foundation supports youth leadership development, voting accessibility, and social justice initiatives.
FRESHPERSPECTIVES
Katie Foss, whose book Constructing the Outbreak: Epidemics in Media and Collective Memory put her in the spotlight, was named director of the School of Journalism and Strategic Media. Since joining the MTSU faculty in 2008, Foss has carved out a scholarly niche at the intersection of media and medicine in the U.S. Author of three books and editor of three more, she has written extensively about how news and entertainment media shape Americans’ understanding of public health issues. During COVID-19, Foss published many epidemic-themed articles in popular media, from Smithsonian Magazine to the Washington Post she was honored with a National Women’s History Month Trailblazer Award at MTSU.
New Recording Industry Department chair
Michelle Conceison brings a strong mix of real-world experience and heart of a teacher to lead an innovative department celebrating a half-century of existence. Conceison is a business owner and artist manager who has had artists sell out world tours. She’s also had artists have top albums and radio singles. Conceison, who owns Nashville-based management and marketing company MMGT, started her career in advertising, but she’s always been an educator at heart. She came from a family of educators. Her dad spent almost four decades teaching in the public school system in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
PERSPECTIVES
EntertainmentMTSU’sCollegeofMediaand recently installednewchairstoleadtwoofits three award-winning departments.
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Generous donations from supporters and faculty members led to the purchase of a new Yamaha Disklavier piano for the Recording Industry Department, dedicated in honor of Professors Emeriti Marilyn Wood and Bob Wood. The previous piano in Studio B had been in service since the early ’80s. The Disklavier option allows for performances on the piano to be captured and later re-created. This has significant educational benefits, allowing students to practice recording the instrument without having to hire a pianist for practice. Studio B is used by students in Recording Industry and the M.F.A. in Recording Arts and Technologies programs (more than 1,000 students total). The department also regularly invites professional artists, songwriters, and musicians to campus to perform in these facilities, which brings visibility to the University and is a valuable experience for students. The new piano helps support these events.
Gloria Green was named Educator of the Year by the International Entertainment Buyers Association (IEBA)—the leading not-for-profit trade organization for live entertainment industry professionals who buy, book, and sell talent. At its 53rd annual conference held in Nashville (and hosted by Jo Dee Messina), the organization recognized 17 award winners across various categories. An associate professor, Green teaches courses including Artist Management, Concert Promotions and Touring, Music Publicity, and Talent Agency Fundamentals. Prior to teaching, she was a music agent at the world–renowned William Morris Agency (now WME) where she negotiated concert bookings for a diverse roster of Christian and country music artists including Cece Winans, Charlie Daniels, and Randy Travis, among many others.
Professor Leslie Haines’ animal artistry is on exhibit at Oxford University’s Bodleian Libraries, showcasing more than 150 manuscripts, prints, posters, sculpture, and books using the alphabet as inspiration. Now a permanent part of the libraries’ collection, Haines’ Animal Abecedary: A One-of-a-Kind Alphabet Book is among only a handful of international artists’ works included in the Oxford exhibit, “Alphabets Alive!” Her book features 26 witty juxtapositions of animals and letter-appropriate elements, such as a dapper, suit-wearing cat holding a large, unexpected cicada with wings formed from old book pages; a kimono-clad kangaroo with a knife; and a popcorn-nibbling penguin wearing pants. Such recognition isn’t unusual for Haines. Target stores snapped up two of her hat designs, and she designed the most recent arts license plate for the state of Tennessee.
Jennifer Woodard, assistant dean of the College of Media and Entertainment, was elected chair of the Multicultural Division of the Broadcast Education Association— the premier international academic media organization. The division aims to increase the level of awareness of the contributions and concerns of traditionally underrepresented groups, especially racial and ethnic groups; to encourage more research; and to encourage electronic media curricular acknowledgment of the contributions and concerns of these groups.
A song written by Associate Professor Odie Blackmon, the director of MTSU’s Songwriting Center, has been named one of the top 25 country songs in 50 years. “She’ll Leave You With a Smile,” recorded by George Strait and Blackmon’s first No. 1, was named No. 8 in the list by Country Aircheck, a radio and industry news outlet. Still played by Strait at stadium shows, the 20-year-old hit was the first song by Blackmon that he heard on the radio. “I was writing one day with a co-writer, and my girlfriend burst through the door and said, ‘Your song is on the radio!’ We all ran outside, jumped in the car, and just sat there and listened to it.” Blackmon returned to his alma mater to teach in 2014.
Since 1960, the MTSU Alumni Association has recognized accomplished alumni with association honors. A 2023 True Blue Citation of Distinction was awarded to William “Bill” Crabtree (’90) of Crossville, an MTSU Recording Industry professor, who was honored for Achievement in Education (MTSU faculty). And the 2023 Young Alumni Achievement Award, given to a graduate age 35 or younger making a positive impact in the world, went to Justin Hart (’11), an award-winning television producer from Memphis.
FOCUS
News about happenings in MTSU’s College of Media
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and Entertainment
Start Your Cameras!
Media Arts students manned cameras, ran video packages, produced audio, and built a stage for a special NTT IndyCar Big Machine Music City Grand Prix last fall in Nashville after rain canceled broadcast of a pit stop competition. And in an ongoing partnership with the Bonnaroo music festival since 2015, the MTSU team handled livestreaming video and audio production for 53 performances from This Tent and That Tent stages for the popular Hulu platform in June. Featuring the college’s nearly $2 million Mobile Production Lab truck the talented Media Arts Productions crew produces many other live events annually, including MTSU sports for ESPN+, the CMA Awards Red Carpet Special, and more. Bob Gordon, new interim Media Arts chair, serves as executive producer. “I’ve never seen another school that has such a program,” C3 Presents’ Daniel Gibbs said after Bonnaroo. "It does seem like it is the gold standard.”
Veterans Sharing Stories Via Songs
MTSU’s collaboration with Operation Song and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame recently brought together another group of military veterans whose stories need—and deserve—to be told. Six times since 2016, with the help of professional songwriters and students in MTSU’s Commercial Songwriting program, the veterans’ stories have been turned into songs and performed at the end of the day.
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Drawing Animation Acclaim
A film from MTSU’s Animation program—ranked tops in Tennessee and No. 8 for the nation’s Top 25 Animation B.S. programs by Animation Career Review—was awarded Best Animation Comedy at June’s International Student Media Arts Festival in Seoul, South Korea. Students Dani Oliver, Ashten Royse, Olivia Armstrong, Star Akhom, Allen Marin, and Emily Mishoe created Bubbles, about a social media influencer who is still living in her own bubble, for the festival’s “Climate Change and Cities” theme. MTSU hosted the festival (formerly Wonderful World) in 2023. Media Arts also recently launched the in-house firm MT Imagine for students to take on animation projects for real-world, paying clients.
Fight Song Harmony
The top-tier Department of Recording Industry helped the Band of Blue produce an updated recording of MTSU’s fight song, as 67 members packed into Media Arts’ Studio One.. A project two decades in the making, it required a lot of technology in a tight one-hour window.
THE LEADING THE LEADING
Manifesto Debate
Deborah Fisher, director of the John Seigenthaler Chair of Excellence in First Amendment Studies at MTSU, talked with the New York Post about the public debate regarding the release of Covenant School shooter Audrey Hale’s manifesto. Additionally, she participated in an interview with LiveNow from Fox on the subject.
Blues Eye
Photojournalist and alumnus Bill Steber took a visual and interactive journey into the world of Delta blues with his installation last fall at the Baldwin Photographic Gallery on campus.
Steber’s “Deep Roots: Evocations of the Mississippi Blues” featured a collection of images, artifacts, and mixedmedia artwork from his 30-plus-year exploration and documentation of the Mississippi blues culture.
Master’s and Majors on the Move
Two proposed media master’s degrees, an M.S. in Digital Media and an M.F.A. in Film and Television, are under development after preliminary approval by the MTSU Board of Trustees.
Recent changes in undergraduate programs include:
• Advertising and Public Relations elevated to a major, with Advertising, Public Relations, and Public Relations-Recording Industry concentrations
• Photography degree now a B.F.A.
• Journalism’s Visual Communication concentration changed to Media Design
LEADING EDGE LEADING EDGE
MTSUNEWS.COM
Roots Radio Rockin’
WMOT-FM Roots Radio 89.5 continues gathering 1,500 of its closest friends and fellow music lovers for its Roots on the Rivers fundraising music festival at Nashville’s Two Rivers Mansion each June. Marking its third year in 2024, the festival includes a Family String Band Circle, where kids and adults can try out a variety of instruments. WMOT, the Nashville region’s only 100,000-watt Americana music station, broadcasts from MTSU’s Bragg Media and Entertainment Building.
mtsunews.com/wmot-roots-riverfestival-2023
Crisis and Mental Health Help
Shamender Talwar, a British crisis and social psychologist who assisted families following the 2023 Covenant School shooting in Nashville, also spoke to MTSU’s and the wider community at Dean Beverly Keel’s request. Cofounder of The Unity of Faiths Foundation (TUFF), Talwar and TUFF leaders were joined by PLA Media’s Pamela L. Lewis and Mark Logsdon, an MTSU graduate. Lewis introduced Keel to Talwar during The Road to Nashville songwriting contest, a global project promoting mental health that MTSU joined.
mtsunews.com/crisis-socialpsychologist-talwar
Digital Landscape Literacy
The world is at their fingertips thanks to their phones, tablets, and computers, so it made sense for 20 young members of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Rutherford County to gain hands-on experience in podcasting and digital media literacy at an annual MTSU camp. “Come to Voice,” launched by School of Journalism and Strategic Media professors Jennifer Woodard and Ken Blake in 2021, teaches communications skills such as audio, video, internet usage, and media literacy. mtsunews.com/digital-literacy-campsummer2023
Confidence Boosting
Media graduate and TV production guru Nic Dugger (’00), who began building a nationally recognized business when he was 12, told graduates at his alma mater last year: “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” Dugger, founder and owner of TNDV: Television and chief marketing officer for Live Media Group, joked that he’d missed his own graduation in his haste to head cross-country for a job.
mtsunews.com/springcommencement-2023
Chronicling Country Music
MTSU’s Center for Popular Music (CPM) partnered with other organizations to present the works of legendary country music photojournalist Alan L. Mayor last fall at Bobby Nashville hotel in historic Printers Alley. Mayor’s extensive archive of images, housed in the CPM after his death in 2015, chronicles iconic country musicians over decades of the everchanging industry. The College of Media and Entertainment research center is devoted to studying American folk and popular music since the early 18th century.
mtsunews.com/mtsus-center-popularmusic-alan-mayor
“Dream” Recording Session
Nashville gospel artist Brenda Ivey Robertson, who has battled kidney disease for years, just couldn’t stop smiling after being treated to a special recording session at MTSU. It had been decades since she’d been in such a studio setting. Robertson was invited to campus to preserve her musical gifts after contacting Dean Beverly Keel about donating some of her albums, DVDs, and scrapbooks to MTSU’s Center for Popular Music and perhaps talking to students.
