UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT NEWS

BEAMLAK LULSEGED was one of 12 students from around the country to receive the 4A’s Foundation’s 365Blackprint scholarship. Lulseged received $10,000.

MARAL ABDOLLAHI received the AAA (American Academy of Advertising) Dissertation Fellowship award for her dissertation titled “Consumers’ Reactions to Virtual Social Media Influencers and Strategic and Ethical Implications for Advertising.” The dissertation project was selected for funding in the amount of $2,000.

KENDAL ALDRIDGE successfully defended her master’s thesis, “From the Victorian Internet to Section 230: Journalistic Discourse, Government Regulation, and New Communications Technology.”

ANDREW LOCKE presented a paper at the IAMCR 2023 conference in July in Lyon, France, in the category of local journalism/alternative media.

ADHAM MOHAMED attended the PRSSA Leadership Assembly in Scottsdale, Ariz., in April, representing the School as chapter president.

LILY NGUYEN is an art director intern with Colle McVoy.

EITAN SCHOENBERG placed in the top 20 in the Hearst Sports Writing Competition for his Minnesota Daily story “Gabbie Cesarone’s long journey shaped her into Gophers soccer leader.”

JACOB GUSTI successfully defended his excellent master’s thesis, “Does News Coverage of Partisan Polarization and Issue Polarization Specifically Further Divide an Already Divided Public?”

CHRISTINA HARISIADIS successfully defended her master’s thesis, “From what made the ‘Red Man Red’ to Moana: Exploring how BIPOC members of Generation Z

MCKENNA PREMUS attended the 2023 AEJMC Midwinter Conference at the University of Oklahoma in February 2023. She presented her paper on “Understanding Media Literacy Education in an Interdisciplinary Context,” a research proposal for a study analyzing how media literacy is taught in different disciplines in higher education. Her publication “Understanding the Teaching of Media Literacy in Higher Education Environments” was accepted for presentation at the AEJMC Conference in Washington, DC, in August and received the Second Place Top Paper Award for the Scholastic Journalism Division.

DANFORD ZIRUGO successfully defended his dissertation and starts as an Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama this fall.

ALEX STEIL was named 2023-2024 editor-in-chief for the Minnesota Daily. MADDIE ROTH was named the 2023-2024 managing editor.

Four students participated in the Report for Minnesota program during summer 2023, joining outstate newspapers for a 10-week internship: HANNAH WARD at Brainerd Dispatch, DEVLIN EPDIG at Duluth News Tribune, JEROME WIRTZ at Mankato Free Press, and REYAN UGAS at Willmar’s West Central Tribune.

Two students were nominated for the Hearst Team Investigative Reporting category: MARY ELLEN RITTER for “America’s Burnt-out Teachers Fear for the Future of Education,” which was published in Los Angeles Magazine and BELLA CARPENTIER for “University student files complaint with Department of Human Rights over getting accommodations fulfilled,” which was published in the Daily.

This summer, three graduating seniors participated in the American Association of Advertising Agencies (the 4As) Multicultural Advertising Internship Program (MAIP). MUNA MOHAMMED worked remotely at Tinuiti in New York City; ANITA NGO worked at Colle McVoy in Minneapolis; and LUCKETT VANGUARD worked remotely at Dentsu Creative in New York City.

Each year, The LAGRANT Foundation (TLF) provides scholarships to undergraduate and graduate ethnic minority students who are attending accredited institutions and are pursuing careers in the fields of advertising, marketing or public relations. Five Hubbard School students were recipients of the 2023 TLF scholarship:

CONSTANCE DUOPU, LYIA GEBREMARIAM, SAHRA HUSSEIN, JESSICA THOMAS and FAMETTA ZUBAH. They are four of 60 undergraduate students who received a scholarship in the amount of $2,500.

One of this Spring’s CAMPAIGNS CLASS clients was Best Buy. The challenge was to develop a complete IMC plan to help Best Buy get Gen Z back in the stores. Four teams presented their final campaigns to Hannah Faiad, client and Hubbard School alum, in April.

In March, students in the AD STRATEGY AND CREATIVE DEVELOPMENT class presented their campaign ideas to the Minnesota State Fair (and alum Maria Hayden). In April, the students offered ideas to High End Confections on how to build awareness for its new product.

BACKPACK, the student led brand communications agency, had a banner year. The organization continued work for its largest client, Serve Minnesota. It added so many new clients that it had to start contracting work for fall 2023. The students gained valuable pre-professional experience in account management, ad strategy, media planning, production, content creation, and creative development. Backpack celebrates 10 years at the Campus Club on September 13, 2023. If you or someone you know participated in CLAgency or Backpack, please contact Jennifer Johnson at joh02016@umn.edu to attend.

NSAC GOES TO NATIONALS!

After placing fourth at semifinals, the Hubbard School’s National Student Advertising Competition team went to the American Advertising Federation’s #ADMERICA event in St. Louis (June 1-4) to compete at Nationals. The University of Minnesota won the Best Presentation Group award among the eight finalists, and senior Luckett Vanguard won Best Presenter. This is the second year in a row that the Hubbard School NSAC team attended the National competition.

ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT: LOU RAGUSE

After reporting and anchoring around the country, Raguse came back home to KARE-11 and is now a published author.

❙ INTERVIEWED BY AMANDA FRETHEIM GATES

When Lou Raguse (B.A. ’04) was in high school in Wheaton, Minn., he was more likely to say he wanted to be an author or a comedy writer on a show like “Seinfeld” than a journalist. He was always creative, participating in the school play and on the speech team, developing a love for current events through his social studies class, and taking over the school newspaper with a buddy.

Because he also loved sports, Raguse came to the University of Minnesota thinking he might study to be a sports anchor, like those on ESPN. But one journalism course with the late, great Paul McEnroe hooked him, and broadcast courses with Ken Stone sealed the deal. He was meant to be a journalist.

“There were so many good print journalists teaching at the U,” he said. “My whole life I wanted to set myself apart from the crowd, and the creativity aspect of being a journalist really stood out to me.”

His notoriety started before even leaving the U; he earned student Emmys and other awards.

His senior year, Raguse was nominated for a William Hearst Journalism Award and was invited to San Francisco for the championship competition. He had just two days to traipse the city and gather the information to film, write and edit two different stories. He took home first place.

After graduation, Raguse worked as a reporter in Sioux Falls, S.D., reported and anchored in Tucson, Ariz., and reported and anchored in Buffalo, N.Y., before returning to Minnesota and joining KARE-11 in 2015. Over the years, he’s covered huge stories, including the Daphne Wright trial, the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, the kidnapping of Jayme Closs, and the trials of the officers charged with killing George Floyd.

When getting his start in South Dakota, Raguse said he had the choice between covering “cops and courts” or the education beat. “I knew if I did the cops and courts, I would have more lead stories,” he said. “I became an expert on court cases and crime and I brought that expertise to other markets.”

Many of the huge stories he’s covered in his nearly 20-year career have not been easy, and perhaps even traumatic, and covering those stories day in and day out can take a toll. Raguse gets inspiration from his long-time idol, Boyd Huppert, who is nationally recognized for his thoughtful, engaging storytelling, and he’s learned that being stoic or unfeeling while covering traumatic events is doing himself and his subjects a disservice.

“I’ve probably given more hugs than other reporters,” he said. “You’re an unbiased reporter but that doesn’t mean you can’t be a trusted shoulder. Something that is universally sad is sad and that’s not biased. I’m able to carry the emotion I experience into the story and that makes my reporting better, by being more human.”

It could be his empathy that has made Raguse become an authority of sorts on cold cases, producing several stories for a KARE-11 “Minnesota Unsolved” series and, most recently, writing his first book, Vanished in Vermillion: The Real Story of South Dakota’s Most Infamous Cold Case, which published in February. When he worked in South Dakota, he covered the cold case of two 17-year-old girls who disappeared in the spring of 1971 and was leaving many questions unanswered. The case was finally solved in 2013. Once there was a resolution, Raguse could see the potential for a book. He did research in his spare time, traveling back and forth to South Dakota (made easier since his in-laws live there).

His hometown of Wheaton has its very own cold case, about a man who was found dead in a river. And while Raguse has covered the story for KARE-11, and thinks it’s possible it could make a good book, it remains unsolved. “It’s hard to read about hard things without the mystery, or intrigue,” he said. “But to write a book about it, I strongly feel there does have to be an ending.”

For Raguse, the plan is to continue to cover the cops and courts beat, give a voice to the victims of cold cases as long as KARE will let him, and even write another book. “I hope to remain in Minnesota. I love reporting here.”