ideas@work - 2010 by College of Communication UT Austin

ideas@Work bridging experience and educat ion

Neal Burns

The Advertising Futurist

John Daly

Cracking the Code of Success

Ann Hillis

A Passion for Speech and Hearing

Andrew Garrison Capturing East Austinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Vibrant Culture

Eli Reed

Making Pictures that Matter

the university of texas at austin college of communication | 2010

ideas@Work Ideas@Work is a publication of the College of Communication at The University of Texas at Austin. The University of Texas is an equal opportunity/ADA institution. © 2010, The University of Texas, all rights reserved. Publisher and Contributing Editor Nick Hundley Contributing Editor Lisa Crider Design Wyatt Brand, Inc. Faculty Editorial Advisor David Garlock Photography/Design Faculty Advisor Dennis Darling Contributing Writers Bryan Brah, Lisa Crider, Erin Geisler, Vivé Griffith, Nick Hundley, Ryan Sachetta, Robin Schwartz, Lauren Wolf Photography Cliff Cheney, Tara Haelle, Jenn Hair, Sean Mathis, Jesse Mendoza, Eli Reed, Spencer Selvidge, Ryan Tietz, Carolyn Yaschur, Curt Youngblood Illustrators Pam Caperton, Valerie Garza Cover Illustration Pam Caperton All inquiries and comments, including requests for faculty contact information, or for permission to reprint articles, should be addressed to: Editor, Ideas@Work The College of Communication 3001 Lake Austin Boulevard, Ste. 2.236 Austin, TX 78703 512.232.5988 512.471.1927 (fax) email: lisa.crider@austin.utexas.edu

Table of Contents Letter from the Dean

Features Streets Full of Stories UT student filmmakers turn their lenses on the vibrant culture of East Austin.

John Daly has Cracked the Code of Success

ideas@work 2010

10 12

Do manners matter? Professor John Daly links social competence to successfully climbing the career ladder.

Listening to your passion Director Ann Hillis brings energy and creativity to UT’s Speech and Hearing Center.

With an Open Heart Photojournalism professor Eli Reed teaches the art of making pictures that matter.

The Advertising Futurist Neal Burns’ unorthodox journey from psychologist to leading futurist for his industry.

14 onward, upward, outreach

With collaborative outreach programs, the College of Communication is engaging, educating and serving the youth of Texas.

profiles

UT journalism students get a first-hand taste of magazine production — Texas style.

Filmmakers Reel

Bruce Pennycook Dawna Ballard

Through Orange Colored Glasses

New Politics Forum Bill Minutaglio

When not in the classroom, UT’s film production faculty create films that document, inspire and entertain.

From across the globe the university of texas at austin college of communication | 2010

A look at the seasoned professional journalists teaching the next generation at UT’s School of Journalism.

CSD Bilingual Training Program Tips from the top – Public relations Strategies

28 3 4 5 6 7 8

Larry Browning

The University of Texas at Austin College of Communication

PROFILE

B ruce P

We do not fear the world. We live in it. And many of us try to change it.

ennycook

By Bryan Brah

Bridging Disciplines program in Digital Arts and Media moves UT Austin toward a dedicated computer gamedevelopment program.

LETTER FROM THE DEAN

Ideas at work... each day A common stereotype of the college professor is that he or she lives in an ivory tower, far removed from the workday world. That is not true of us in the College of Communication. We do not fear the world. We live in it. And many of us try to change it. Our undergrads are no different. In many ways, they resemble their cousins in Liberal Arts except they’re more impatient. If they get hold of an idea today, they test it out tomorrow. If they confront a problem tomorrow, they try to solve it by the end of the week. Sometimes this makes them precipitous — too ready to act, too willing to risk. This also makes them delightful to teach.

ideas@work 2010

are drawn from across the College but all are pedagoguesof-practice. They know how media companies think because they once worked for them. They know how to craft an ad because they formerly crafted ads for a living. They know about corporate communication routines and they know how to change a child’s articulation patterns. They know how to write a script, shoot a film, test audience reactions and calculate box office receipts. Faculty members in the College of Communication do not fear the world. They live in it, and it lives in them. And they put their ideas to work ... each day.

Roderick P. Hart

Dean of the College of Communication

photo by jesse mendoza

In Ideas@Work, we describe some of the remarkable teachers who teach them. The faculty members profiled here

It may come as a surprise to some that UT does

not have a degree program in computer game development, particularly with its proximity to the dozen or so game development studios scattered around Silicon Hills. But Bruce Pennycook is leading the fight to change that. Pennycook, who holds joint appointments in the School of Music and Department of Radio-Television-Film, heads the Bridging Disciplines Digital Arts and Media program. He also lives a life many of his students would envy. Pennycook spends much of his time playing computer games or composing and performing music. However, he is also one of the leading researchers in the field of new media development, having spent the better part of two decades examining the ways that humans and machines interact. Pennycook’s interest in human-computer interfaces stems from his long involvement in electronic music. He received his doctorate in music from Stanford in 1978 and quickly adopted digital recording and Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) technology for composition and performance. In addition to teaching his regular classes, Pennycook serves as UT’s liaison on the Digital Media Council, a nonprofit organization set up to support and create industry-led collaborations with educators and community leaders. He also regularly hosts workshops and symposiums about computer games with input from game developers. “I put a program together last year that was intended to look like a little company,” he says.

“We had students with all the major skills that a small gaming company would have. “We ran the course with help from practically every major game entity in town. These visitors, one a week, were truly valuable because they talked about real life and told the students what they need to go into the industry.” However, Pennycook notes the lack of a specific degree program in game development, as does Sharon Strover, outgoing chair of the Radio-Television-Film Department. Stover says she recognized UT’s need to provide game-development instruction early on. “I was instrumental in starting the Bridging Disciplines program in Digital Media,” she says. “I also started

Pennycook spends much of his time playing computer games or composing and performing music. the Digital Media Master Class on video games that Warren Specter led two years ago.” Rodney Gibbs, director of Fizz Factor, a game development studio in Austin, says he recognizes the hard road Pennycook and Strover face in training the next generation of game developers: “The game industry has been very supportive of [UT’s] existing programs and encouraging expansion as well. They’re taking steps, and the Bridging Disciplines program is the biggest one.”

The University of Texas at Austin College of Communication

PROFILE

New Politics Forum

D awna B allard

By Lauren Wolf

Time Matters: Dawna Ballard finds a connection between Miles Davis, small businesses, information overload and parenting. Dawna Ballard, just ask Miles Davis. Ballard has one of Davis’ thoughts on time under the signature line of her e-mail account: “Time isn’t the main thing. It’s the only thing.” Ballard, an associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies, knows the jazz great’s words are a cultural variable for her research, because time is so often overlooked. In addition to teaching an undergraduate course examining the subject of time — her 2008 class Time Matters — Ballard has been able to consider the subject in research and consulting outside an academic setting.

Ballard has one of Miles Davis’ thoughts on time under the signature line of her e-mail account: “Time isn’t the main thing. It’s the only thing.” In summer 2009, Ballard and the Office of Survey Research at UT’s Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Participation conducted a needs assessment for the City of Austin’s Small Business Development Program — which provides counseling and classes for Austin small businesses. With her background in research and organizational communication, Ballard was perfect for the project. “Every five to seven

ideas@work 2010

years we try to identify what needs small business owners have, and then whether our current services and the way they are delivered are meeting those needs,” says Rosy Jalifi, assistant director for the city’s Economic Growth and Redevelopment Services Office. Ballard and the research team created a document with recommendations for SBDP based on responses to traditional pen and paper surveys, online surveys and focus groups. While working on the project, Ballard did not necessarily expect to see time issues, but they crept in as she listened to business owners on why they did not take advantage of SBDP offerings. With a keen sensitivity to time, Ballard was able to tell the city, “one thing you need to consider isn’t simply what you offer, but how it’s delivered.” Her suggestions included incorporating more online business resources that can be used anytime “to allow entrepreneurs to be more fluid with their time.” More recently Ballard has focused her research on the way technology can help contain information overload. Time management has become an important reality for Ballard with an infant child at home. Ballard sees the old adage up close every day: not enough hours exist to answer every e-mail immediately, which is why she fell in love with answering these questions about time. “It’s not just an academic issue,” she says. “It has genuinely helped people’s quality of life.”

Political professionals help university students start careers in politics and public service. It’s not always easy for Republicans and Democrats to

photo by spencer selvidge

If you want to know how important time is to Dr.

By Nick Hundley

get along, especially for an entire weekend. But the New Politics Forum manages to bring them together. Started in 2003 by the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Participation, the New Politics Forum introduces students to political strategists, journalists and researchers from across the political spectrum. So far, over 800 students from 44 colleges and universities across the state have attended the New Politics Forum. Statewide venues have included Rice University, The University of Texas at Austin and the State Capitol. The forum holds a “campaign boot camp” each year, teaching students the ins and outs of working on a political campaign, as well as an “election debriefing” following significant national, state and local elections. Dr. Sharon Jarvis, associate director for research at the Annette Strauss Institute, says the program enables students to transition from talking about politics in the classroom to a reality. “Research shows that young people need transitions to engagement,” Jarvis says. “They need to see how they can participate. New Politics Forum provides that opportunity. While there are other campaign schools, it is the only program in the country that is nonpartisan, taught by active professionals and youth focused.” Jarvis feels many students have used the forum to make the contacts that lead to their first job after college, whether working on a campaign or in state government, or doing advocacy or media work.

Mark Harkrider, who owns his own lobbying and political strategy firm, Harkrider Group, LLC, has served as an instructor at the New Politics Forum since its inception. He has also helped many young people he met at the event find work in politics and public service. Harkrider explains it is a great place for campaigns to recruit because, “you encounter a group of kids who are interested enough in politics to give up an entire weekend. It’s hard enough to find students who are dedicated to public service, much less a room of a hundred of them. In the audience are potential Karl Roves and David Axelrods.”

“It’s hard enough to find students who are dedicated to public service, much less a room of a hundred of them.” Past instructors have included Matthew Dowd, chief strategist for George W. Bush’s 2004 campaign; Pareg Mehta, training director for the 2008 Democratic National Committee campaign; CNN journalists Rick Sanchez and Betty Nguyen; and top political researchers. The Annette Strauss Institute, which started the forum, is a research and outreach organization in the College of Communication and receives funding for the program from the Hatton W. Sumners Foundation.

The University of Texas at Austin College of Communication

PROFILE

CSD B

B ill M

ilingual Training Program

Bill Minutaglio has focused his unerring prose on hurricanes, industrial disasters, a U.S. president and attorney general, even social commentator Molly Ivins.

Bilingual certification program prepares students to help treat English language learners with speech and language disorders.

inutaglio

By Nick Hundley

By Ryan Sachetta

of 2007 to become a clinical professor at the School of Journalism, he knew the pronunciation of his seemingly-simple Italian name — MIN-UH-TAG-LIO — was going to be a challenge for some. After all, when Minutaglio was writing “First Son,” the first biography of former President George W. Bush, the ex-president finally gave up on the correct way to pronounce it and went with the less-than-elegant — MONO-NU-CLE-OSIS. Minutaglio laughs it all off. Maybe when Esquire magazine has published your picture next to one of Ernest Hemingway, a little barb from the president just rolls off your back.

“All that I really ever wanted to do in journalism was hang out with people on the corner and ask them how it’s going and how they got there.” For someone whose unerring prose has been compared to New Journalism icons like Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson, Minutaglio is quiet and unassuming. “All that I really ever wanted to do in journalism was hang out with people on the corner and ask them how it’s going and how they got there,” Minutaglio says. He has done that well, moving up from the corner to

ideas@work 2010

chronicle the lives of President Bush, Alberto Gonzales and Molly Ivins. (Minutaglio is co-author of the 2009 biography, “Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life.”) “Bill’s reputation preceded his arrival at the University,” says Tracy Dahlby, chair of the School of Journalism. “I knew he was a marvelous narrative writer and a very experienced reporter, who had done a number of well-received and finely crafted books.” That reputation was burnished by his having worked as a reporter for the San Antonio Express News, Houston Chronicle and The Dallas Morning News, serving as Southwest bureau chief for People magazine and writing for The Sporting News, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Esquire, Outside and Newsweek. The introduction to his 2003 book “City on Fire,” about the 1947 Texas City disaster that killed nearly 600 people, shows Minutaglio’s talent in chronicling the lives of anonymous citizens: “The stories of ordinary, heroic Americans racing to an apocalypse should never be forgotten.” One of his classes, Reporting and Writing Non-Fiction Books, transforms the classroom into a real-life laboratory for book ideas, in which students complete a 40-page, cameraready book proposal for publishers and literary agents. “You might not go into journalism,” he tells his students, “but I want you to respect and understand its importance and why it can inspire, inform and investigate.”

Professors Lisa Bedore and Elizabeth Peña are on

photo by carolyn yaschur

When Bill Minutaglio left industry in the spring

the front line of training speech-language pathologists in the Communication Sciences and Disorders Department. In the process, they are helping to address a vital need for schools and hospitals across the country. Bedore and Peña run the bilingual certification program, a specialization in the speechlanguage pathology master’s program that prepares students to help treat English language learners with speech and language disorders. Started in the early 1980s, the program seeks to address the shortage of professionals qualified to identify and treat language impairments in this population. “One in five students speaks a language other than English,” explains Peña. “However, only five percent of speech-language pathologists are bilingual.” Consequences of this shortage mean many children do not receive treatment at a crucial time in their development, according to Peña. “The younger a person is, the more effective the treatments are,” she explains. As part of their training, students take all the classes that are part of the normal master’s program in speech-language pathology, but with two additional courses,” Bedore says. “The first is Language Theory and Bilingualism, for which students develop a research project. The second is Collaborative Models, in which students learn the survival skills they will need to work in schools.” Bedore explains that students also complete a portion of

their clinical training working with English language learners. “Students are expected to complete 125 to 150 clinical hours in a bilingual environment, out of a total of 375 clinical hours.” Some of the training is done at the UT Speech and Hearing Clinic, under the guidance of clinical training supervisor Melissa White. Students also may complete their clinical hours off campus, at local elementary and middle schools, hospitals and community centers. “Students learn how to collaborate with parents and classroom teachers to provide support for English language learners with communication difficulties,” says Anita Mendes Perez, a research associate in the Communication Sciences and Disorders

“Often, students emerging from the program get their first job and they are the only bilingual speech pathologist in an entire school district.” Department and teacher of the Collaborative Models course. While there is an emphasis on Spanish-speaking populations, students bilingual in any language may attend the certification program. “Often, students emerging from the program get their first job and they are the only bilingual speech pathologist in an entire school district,” Peña says. “So it gives them the skills they need to hit the ground running.”

The University of Texas at Austin College of Communication

PROFILE

TF ips Top

LB arry

rom the

rowning

By Robin Schwartz

Larry Browning stitches together observations to advise businesses from Sri-Lanka to Norway.

By Nick Hundley

Learning from others’ experiences and mistakes In any career, it is not uncommon to learn from your

mistakes. Fortunately for public relations students at The University of Texas at Austin, some classes make the learning process easier to handle. Instead, they get to learn from seasoned professionals like Terry Hemeyer how to succeed and prevent mistakes — as part of an upper-level Public Relations Strategies course created in 2006 and taught by working communication executives. Hemeyer, a senior lecturer in the Advertising and Public Relations Department and recipient of UT’s “Eyes of Texas”award for teaching, is executive counsel to Pierpont Communications, a public relations firm in Houston. The retired Air Force colonel teaches one of two Public Relations Strategies classes.

He says public relations mistakes frequently come from employees being pressured to make decisions too quickly. “If you can, avoid that at all costs.”

ideas@work 2010

The door to Professor Larry Browning’s seventh-

photo by spencer selvidge

Hemeyer has done high-level PR work for the U.S. Air Force, the Pentagon, Pennzoil and Service Corporation International. He says he wants to share the benefit of his experience with students. “I really want to give back to these young people, what I’ve learned … the mistakes I’ve made,” he says. He says public relations mistakes frequently come from

employees being pressured to make decisions too quickly. “If you can, avoid that at all costs,” he says. “I find if I can think about something overnight and sleep on it, I come up with a different answer the next day.” Jeff Hunt and Paul Walker, who together teach the other section of the course, also call upon their careers past and present to inform their class. Hunt, co-founder and principal of the communications consulting firm PulsePoint Group, has over 23 years of experience in public relations and marketing, including clients such as American Express, AT&T, Coca-Cola, Dell, DuPont, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, McDonald’s, Nike and Motorola. Hunt says their students develop campaigns for clients such as Austin musician Bob Schneider, the San Antonio River Foundation and the Alamo Draft House. “Students get to see the direct connection between what we teach and the applicability to real world clients,” Hunt explains. Paul Walker — former head of digital media at Cohn & Wolfe, who helped Dell and Nike pioneer their social media campaigns — is currently special assistant to the president of UT, helping to develop a social media strategy to engage alumni. Walker makes social media central to the class, given the demand for graduates with these skills. “People that go through our class have a big advantage,” he says. “They learn social media monitoring tools they can use right away in a business setting — tools that if they know, are guaranteed a position.”

floor office in the College of Communication is neat and devoid of clutter. A corkboard on his door is empty of paper, one solitary push pin looking lonely near the middle. Inside, the Communication Studies professor’s office has plenty of clutter, including notes and scraps of paper piled everywhere. These scraps hold Browning’s careful observations on the roles that lists and stories play in an organization. Browning’s notebook travels everywhere with him, as he jots down details which he will later stitch together into narratives. At 66, Browning’s youthfully inquisitive disposition contrasts with his authoritative 6 foot 5 inch frame. He uses his lanky legs like an axis, rocking to-and-fro in his chair, glancing out a floorto-ceiling glass window that looks out on the UT campus. Browning travels between the often-divided spheres of academia and the real world in search of narratives to study complex organizations. “I have found a way to do research that both has practical value to real world practitioners,” he says. And “people from the academic world say, ‘Oh that’s valuable,’ and ‘We didn’t know that.’” Browning uses an approach called “grounded theory” — a research method that operates almost in reverse fashion from the scientific method. Instead of taking a narrow hypothesis and trying to prove it, grounded theory asks broader questions that encourage elaboration. Browning might ask someone: “tell us what are you doing and

why are you doing it,” explains Keri Stephens, assistant professor at UT who works closely with Browning. He has applied his approach to Motorola, IBM, the U.S. Air Force and to companies from Sri-Lanka to Norway. Rather than studying what doesn’t work at a company, Browning studies what does work. Motorola hired him to investigate an innovative organizational style they used called a leadership team. Browning staked out the company for six months, interviewed the major players involved in the team, listened and watched everything people did. Later, he told Motorola some anecdotal narratives about the company. “Out of that analysis, they transferred the practices to

At age 66, Browning’s youthfully inquisitive disposition contrasts with his authoritative height. other teams in Motorola,” he says. By explaining what they were doing right, the company could inadvertently address delays in its production line by replicating its successes. Away from his work, Browning even stitches details into his personal life. Last summer, preparing for his son’s wedding, Browning applied his narrative observational skills to compose lyrics for a wedding song. “My discovery is that the same thing that stimulates understanding for conceptual material sometimes takes a lyric, or a poetic or musical turn,” he says.

The University of Texas at Austin College of Communication

S East of I-35 in Austin, the tough-as-nails boxer Ann Wolfe

trains local kids at her gym — in boxing and life, while Elena Lopez successfully fights off developers to stay in the house she moved to in 1953, even as the rest of her block is razed. Guitarist Clarence Pierce keeps the blues humming with his band, the Eastside Kings. Charlie Machado transforms a childhood penchant for racing lawnmowers into a career racing motorcycles that earns him the moniker, “the world’s fastest Mexican.” If the universe is made of stories, as poet Muriel Rukeyser claims, then East Austin’s part of the universe is particularly dense. And its stories are making their way to film through the East Austin Stories documentary film project. Since 2001, film students at The University of Texas at Austin have collaborated with East Austin residents, business people and

ideas@work 2010

patrons to create a visual record of the community, through dozens of documentary shorts. The five-to-seven-minute films are seen by hundreds of audience members at local screenings and are available on the East Austin Stories Web site. For Austinites, and people across the country, they provide a glimpse into the city’s most culturally diverse and rapidly changing neighborhoods. East Austin Stories is the brainchild of Andy Garrison, an associate professor in the Department of Radio-Television-Film, and a filmmaker who encourages his students to see themselves foremost as storytellers. “Everybody’s got stories — that’s part of what defines us as human beings,” he says. “We are stories, we tell stories, we share stories. There’s an endless cache of stories everywhere. So for stories, this doesn’t have to be East Austin necessarily.” But it was East Austin that captured Garrison’s interest shortly

after he moved to the city in 1997, forging friendships with community proponents such as Miguel Guajardo, Juan Valadez and John Williams. The three helped Garrison conceive of a way to get students involved in exploring East Austin while also learning, often for the first time, to make a film. “I wanted my students to get off the 40 Acres, to see the city and meet other people,” he says. “I wanted to do that too. But I also wanted to build a collection of stories that could be useful for the people in the communities from where they came. I’d like the stories to help strengthen communities.” According to Valadez, who was youth pastor at Our Lady of Guadalupe church when he met Garrison, the communities in East Austin are rooted in tradition. Even as the area has started to become trendy, it has retained the way of life it has known for a century. “East Austin has been an area where people walk on the street and know their neighbors — whether they like them or not is beside the point,” he says. “They see each other on a regular basis. It’s very open and there are a lot of people who have been there for generations.” It’s also an area that’s changing rapidly, facing the same kind of massive development that many inner city areas face across the country. “It’s taken East Austin by storm,” Valadez says. “A lot of people are in culture shock because they don’t know how to deal with it.” Some documentaries have captured the impact of that change, including “La Casa Lopez,” which details Lopez’s struggle to keep her house from developers. Even as people have knocked on her door month after month, trying to buy the house, Lopez has remained firm in her determination to live in her home until she dies. Students are responsible for choosing their own topics, and urged to think about things they have a personal investment in. To help them identify topics, each semester the class may take a tour of East Austin and be put in contact with churches in East Austin — such as Our Lady of Guadalupe, Wesley United Methodist, or Dolores Catholic

Church — where students can make contact with community members who might be helpful for stories. From there, the students operate the same way independent filmmakers do, arranging interviews and securing permissions and facing unanticipated obstacles due to anything from weather to documentary subjects who change their minds about participating. “We basically have four or five weeks to make a documentary short,” says Christina Kim who, along with fellow students Helen Gagne and Jennifer Perales, worked on the film “For Me and Him.” “You form your own group. You do the production. You are supposed to promote the screening. It’s about learning to be a professional.” “For Me and Him” focuses on two teen mothers who attend Reagan High School and are part of its Parent Effectiveness Program. Since its inception, East Austin Stories films have screened at the SXSW Film Festival, the Austin Film Festival, Cine Las Americas, the Americans for the Arts conference, the Dallas Video Festival and a “Faces of Austin” exhibit at the Austin City Hall and have been featured on the PBS program “Docubloggers.” It was always Garrison’s vision that the films made for East Austin Stories would have a life beyond their initial screening. As such, they’re archived in a newly redesigned Web site — www.eastaustinstories.org — featuring the complete catalog of films linked through YouTube. Viewers have the ability to link to the films and comment, as well as browse by subject, name and filmmaker. This benefits the students, who would usually have to work much longer before having a wide audience for their work, and the potential to benefit East Austin communities as well, Garrison believes. For an area that is underrepresented in the media in general, getting its stories into the world can build networks and strengthen community. “These stories are cultural capital,” Garrison says. “They have value, and they belong to the people who gave their stories out. The value is not in holding them. The value is in sharing them.”

“everybody’s got stories – that’s part of what defines us as human beings”

photo by ryan tietz

Student filmmakers Ben Lyon and Carlyn Hudson filming at the Victory Grill in East Austin.

film students document richness of east austin’s diverse and changing communities

photo by sean mathis

words By Vivé Griffith Photos by Sean Mathis & Ryan Tietz

treets full of stories

The University of Texas at Austin College of Communication

being named a University Distinguished Teaching Professor and publishing six books and more than 100 articles and chapters — also serves as a teacher of communication to businesses, government and nonprofits. Over the course of his career, he has traveled the world over to conduct talks and trainings to show people how they can improve their communication skills. “I have a missionary zeal to convince the world that what I study — communication — is the most important thing in their lives,” Daly says. “And it is important — certainly when you’re 18 years old, but also if you’re 35 years old working at a company. It is absolutely vital when you’re an executive in a large company.”

25 years of teaching, Daly has worked with hundreds of organizations, across nearly all sectors of business — including finance, energy, technology, pharmaceuticals and government — with clients such as Goldman Sachs, Exxon, IBM, Marriott, Continental Airlines, Pfizer and the Army. Daly seems like a tightly contained volcano of energy. He talks and walks fast as if he has somewhere to be — and he does. Daly says he travels about four times a month to give talks, typically on weekends during the semester. “My first priorities are obviously my classes and my work, but this is a way for making my classes more effective and making me more effective in the community as well,” he says. He has travelled to far-flung regions of the globe including China, Malta, Kazakhstan and Indonesia. In fact, he has been to every continent except Africa and Antarctica. In the process, he has accumulated over 5 million frequent flyer miles with American Airlines.

in over

John Daly has cracked the code of success in social and business settings - and teaches everyone, from students to the White House - the consequences of their actions. Words

sometimes, the little things can make — or break — a career. business dinner, dressing one degree more formal than necessary or saying “nice to see you” instead of “nice to meet you,” in case you’ve met the person before. John Daly knows the consequences — 12

ideas@work 2010

Nick Hundley / I llustration

Valerie G arza

professional and otherwise — of everyday interactions. As a professor in the Comm unication Studies Department, he has dedicated his life to cracking the code of success, and sharing its secrets with others. “There is a certain set of social skills that is very important to being successful,” Daly explains. “It’s actually the deepest form of discrimination in our society — that some people are just not socially competent. And

that lack of social competence haunts them no matter how smart they are or how hard they work.” His insights on how individuals and organizations can improve their communication have been sought from Wall Street to the White House. daly, who has accumulated numerous accolades in his academic career — including

daly has taken his gospel all the way

photo by curt youngblood

like using the correct fork at a formal

to the White House, advising the Clinton administration on how to improve its customer service as well as how to make government more lean and responsive to citizens. A committee including then Vice President Al Gore recruited Daly for his expertise in customer service. Among the changes the administration made under his advisement was to include more conference facilities at

the White House — including the White House Conference Center, an annex across Pennsylvania Avenue on Jackson Place. Daly says he began giving talks over 20 years ago, after being approached by UT’s business school — before it was the McCombs School of Business — to do a presentation for Kraft Foods. Afterwards, he says Kraft asked him to do more presentations, and from there he began giving talks and consulting more frequently as “other companies heard about me from word of mouth.” daly has a joint appointment and has

taught for over 20 years at the McCombs School of Business — both in its traditional and Executive Education programs. Chantal Delys, assistant dean and director of the Texas Executive Education program, says Daly f requently contributes to their non-degree business education programs for professionals, including sessions for its Custom Program. Daly visits their clients all over the world, from young professionals to executives, reaching people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to attend a session at UT. For executives, Delys explains, “being in class is at the expense of being on the job. The value of their time is very high. So the value of the program experience must be compelling.”

Daly also teaches at UT’s Archer Center, a program bringing students f rom U T campuses across the state to Washington, D.C., to participate in internships and take part in classes focusing on government, policy, politics and persuasion. Center director Katie Cook Romano, a former student of Daly’s, explains that Daly tries to gives students in the Archer program the practical skills they will need in their internships and careers. This includes office and professional etiquette, such as where to put your nametag at a networking event: “The right side,” she recalls. “So when you shake with your right hand their eyes will follow the line to your nametag.” A.J. Josefowitz, manager of Leadership and Organization Development at 3M’s Electro and Communication business in Austin, regularly recruits Daly to give talks to 3M employees and leaders. Josefowitz says Daly brings credibility to his talks because of his research-supported arguments. “There’s a big difference between a motivational speaker and John,” he explains. “Depending on the venue and audience, you might want a motivational speaker. John might agree. But in terms of helping out with a cultural change, leadership changes and basic ways to change behavior, I would think a guy like John would be more effective.”

“I

have a m issio nar y zeal to co n vi n ce the w o r ld that wha t I stu dy commu nic atio n is the mo st imp ortant th ing in their liv es."

The University of Texas at Austin College of Communication

D i r e ctor A nn H illis runs t h e UT S pee c h a n d H e aring C ente r with e n e rgy , creat i vit y a n d a s pl as h o f bus i n e s s acum en . W ords

In the late 1960s, seventhgrader Ann Mackie spent the day at the preschool where her mother taught. As Ann sat in the back and observed her mother lead a class of 4-year-olds in circle time, a fair-haired girl with delicate features caught her attention.

ideas@work 2010

E rin G eisler | P hoto

L is a C rider

he girl who caught her eye, Catherine Ann, loved playing with blocks and fought with the other children over toys. She was not shy about expressing herself. But unlike the other children, she was profoundly deaf. Her hearing aid, which she wore under her dress, consisted of a box draped around her neck like a huge necklace with wires plugged into her ears. As Ann watched with curiosity, Catherine Ann was asked to leave circle time for repeatedly — and blatantly — pinching one of her classmates. Following Catherine Ann’s time out, Mrs. Mackie reminded her of the class rules and consequences for not following them. Catherine Ann would have none of it. The precocious little girl turned off her hearing aid, squeezed her eyes shut and presented the most beguiling smile Ann had ever seen. Ann was smitten. “Here was a 4-year-

old who could not hear a horn honk or an airplane engine overhead, yet she had the wherewithal to captivate an entire classroom and take control of the situation,” she recalls. “At that moment, I decided I had to learn more about it.” Intending to become a teacher to the deaf, she started reading biographies of people from the deaf community, such as Helen Keller and Keller’s teacher, Anne Sullivan, before moving on to textbooks. “I remember reading every book in the library that had anything to do with deafness and deaf culture,” she says. The library explorations led her to speechlanguage pathology, the study of the disordered aspects of speech, language and hearing — including aphasia, stuttering, articulation, language delay in children and voice problems. Many of these disorders result from traumatic brain injury, strokes, developmental delays or hearing impairment.

ast-forward to present day, where Ann (now Hillis) has been director of the Speech and Hearing Center in the College of Communication at The University of Texas since 1999 — a journey that began with the encounter with Catherine Ann. Hillis oversees the clinic that helps individuals with speech, language and hearing disorders. Under the guidance of clinical faculty in the Communication Sciences and Disorders Department, graduate students at the clinic assess and treat individuals from the community with a wide variety of hearing and speech impairments. After earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in speech pathology, as well as a master’s degree in business administration, Hillis spent nearly 20 years leading cutting-edge speech pathology programs at healthcare centers in Texas and Florida. Craig Champlin, chair of the Comm unication Sciences and Disorders Department, remembers recruiting Hillis. “We were looking for someone with an uncommon skill set,” Champlin says. “We needed to hire an individual with a speech-language pathology background, but we also wanted someone who could balance the needs of the graduate students, clients and research faculty with the financial obligations of the Center.” With only four full-time staff clinicians at the Center, Hillis, who does not have a client caseload of her own, serves as the speech-language pathology pinch hitter, enabling clients to keep their appointments when a staff clinician is absent. Most of the Center’s clients come for hearing assessments with many of them returning for hearing aid fittings conducted by graduate students. Thanks to a sliding fee scale, the Center provides essential services to clients — from newborns to seniors — who might not receive care otherwise. The majority of these clients are referred by a physician, teacher or healthcare facility. One patient’s mother, whose son received treatment for language difficulties following a car accident, explains, “Ann has a gift for explaining complex brain functions in simple terms and has always made herself available to

Ann Hillis

The precocious little girl turned off her hearing aid, squeezed her eyes shut and presented the most beguiling smile Ann had ever seen. Ann was smitten. answer questions via phone or e-mail. She eased our concerns and gave us a great sense of security.” illis also shines in managing the graduate education aspect of the Center and tracking students’ heavy load of clinical hours. “Thanks to her MBA background, Ann was able to analyze the problem and create an electronic program that allows students to log their hours, and faculty to track them,” Champlin notes. “During a recent site visit from the Council of Academic Accreditation, the administrators were impressed with the tools she had developed and asked if they were available for purchase and use in their home institutions.” The Center also serves as a channel to identify and recruit speech or hearing-impaired individuals to participate in academic research projects geared toward developing evidencebased practices for better hearing screening tests and stuttering intervention. “Our faculty members are continually making new discoveries and providing evidence for what does and does not work in the way of diagnostic and treatment methods,” Hillis says. “Our students benefit by learning these new

techniques before they’re out in the field, and our clients benefit through early intervention and preventative treatment.” In addition to serving clients at the Center, clinical faculty and graduate students serve a larger client base out in the community. Hillis sends a team of second-year graduate students to hospitals, preschools, healthcare centers and nursing facilities to administer speech, language and hearing assessments. Students benefit from Hillis’ connections to the medical industry, which typically provides the most sought-after internship experiences for second-year graduate students. “Ann manages the department’s relationships with about 30 internship coordinators at healthcare facilities, schools and clinics in Central Texas,” Champlin says. ore than a decade into her job, Hillis continues to be energized by her work: “I enjoy the creativity the Center enables — whether it’s in how we create a clinical training program for students, the way we design a treatment protocol for a client, how we develop new processes to meet industry care standards or the way we manage the finances while delivering the best possible care.”

The University of Texas at Austin College of Communication

hat makes a great photographer? For Eli Reed, clinical professor

of photojournalism in the School of Journalism, the answer lies at the intersection of art, human emotion and storytelling. ¶ Reed, a full member of Magnum Photos, the elite international photojournalist collective, has spent much of his career documenting the victims of poverty, prejudice, natural disasters and wars across the globe. Telling their stories, helping others to walk in their shoes, is his life’s work. Reed calls it “concern photography,” and it’s at the heart of his philosophy as a photojournalist and teacher. Reed believes: “what is at the core of my work is, in essence, a meditation on being a human being.

Photojournalism great Eli Reed teaches the art of master storytelling and creating pictures that matter. words by lisa crider | photos by eli reed

ideas@work 2010

reed portrait by cliff cheney

With An Open Heart

“A big problem in the world is people’s lack of concern for people who are affected by things out of their control,” Reed says. “When you disavow your humanity, you disavow yourself. You have to care. If you do, good things will happen with your pictures.” Reed’s body of work is extraordinary and ranges from the haunted eyes of a Rwandan refugee, to the exuberance of boys playing in a Kenyan refugee camp, to a quiet moment between a white tuxedo-clad groom and his young ring bearer in South Carolina. Reed compels us to look — to really see his subjects, not as abstract objects, but as living, breathing people. The goal of his

photography is not to only capture the essence of the moment, but to also reveal the hidden, unseen story — making pictures that matter. As a sought-after Magnum photographer, Reed has shot on assignment for publications such as National Geographic, LIFE magazine, Newsweek, The New York Times and the Washington Post. He’s also worked for organizations such as the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations and Save the Children. Two comprehensive books have come out of Reed’s long term reporting: “Beirut: City of Regrets,” published in 1988, chronicled the lives of Lebanon’s residents during their

Kakuma Refugee Camp. August 2001. Boys playing in the camp

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Civil War. A second, “Black in America,” featured 175 photographs taken from the 1970s through the 1995 Million-Man March in Washington, D.C. Reed also is an accomplished film still photographer – his work on such films as “Poetic Justice,”“Baby Boy,”“Higher Learning,” “Kansas City,” “Clockers,” “The Jackal,” “A Beautiful Mind,” “Cinderella Man,” “8 Mile,” “Two Weeks Notice,” and “2 Fast, 2 Furious” made him one of the most sought-after photographers in the motion picture industry and allowed him to work with film greats Robert Altman, Ron Howard, legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins and actor Russell Crowe. “Russell Crowe is really a wonderful photographer in his own right,” Reed says. “He understands light and is very meticulous.” Reed’s favorite shot of Crowe is “The Last Supper,” taken during a fashion shoot for Interview Magazine for the film “Cinderella Man.” Reed says that Crowe was thoroughly involved in styling of the photo, which took advantage of natural light flooding in from a skylight in the tavern where they were shooting. Since 2005, Reed has been sharing the lessons of a lifetime with UT students. He considers teaching fledgling photojour-

Photos clockwise from top left: President Barack Obama, photographed at the White House, July, 2009; A lone construction worker hammers away at the wreckage of the World Trade Center in New York City on September 12, 2001; Russell Crowe, photographed for Interview Magazine in New York City during the filming of "Cinderella Man," 2004; Rwandan refugees in the Benaco refugee camp, Tanzania, 1995; Ibirauera Park, Sao Paulo Brazil

"You have to care. If you do, good things will happen with your pictures." nalists the art of “seeing with an open heart,” a responsibility. “You really have an obligation to pass on what you’ve learned to the kids that are coming up,” Reed says. “It’s one of the best things you can do.” From his base camp in the School of Journalism — a cramped, windowless office overflowing with books, photographs, film posters and prints accumulated from a lifetime of reporting and traveling, Reed works with students, including accompanying them to post-Katrina New Orleans and the 2009 Presidential Inauguration. “I want to know, is there a concern? a connection?” Reed says. “Many student’s first attempts take the easy way out. They have to take the next step. Be daring. When they learn to go out with an open heart, it brings an honesty to their work. It’s exciting to see what they can do when they think outside the box, when they learn to walk in their subject’s footsteps.” A gentle, genial man with a with a ready smile and an easy 18

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view more of reed’s work at www.magnumphotos.com/elireed

laugh, it is easy to see how this big man with the kind eyes has charmed subjects and made lasting friendships all over the world. At UT, his willingness to work with students outside the traditional classroom has created lasting relationships as well. “Eli is the main reason I’m a photographer,” says Dawn JonesGarcia, a photojournalism graduate student and Reed protegé. In 2005, while waiting for another professor, Reed came by and struck up a conversation — when the subject turned to photography, Reed offered to critique her work. It was a chance meeting that changed her life. “He’s been my mentor ever since.” says Jones-Garcia. “I was just a UT staffer taking a few photojournalism classes with my educational benefit. Eli saw my passion and my talent and encouraged me to make a career change. I applied for the graduate program, got in — and now I’ll be graduating with a master’s in May.” Though Reed has traded war zones and film sets for the classroom, he hasn’t forsaken the work of his life — photography in the cause of social justice. Last fall, on the eve of the vote by the Nobel Committee that would award President Barack Obama a Nobel Peace Prize, Reed presented images from Magnum’s archive of civil rights photographs at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Norway as part of the “From King to Obama” exhibition. Reed’s lecture, titled “My Concern Photography,” was one of the best-received presentations of his career. And during this year’s Christmas break, Reed journeyed to Lagos, Nigeria for a joint Magnum/Ashoka Foundation project to document a program that donated three portable toilets to a school there. Since most rural Nigerian schools lack basic sanitation, a trip into the bush for a toilet break can mean a deadly encounter with a cobra or python. Installation of the portable toilets has resulted in an astonishing 70 percent increase in student attendance. “Sanitation isn’t glamorous, but it has a real effect on people’s welfare,” Reed says. “This is work that really means something to me.” Reed’s videos and images will be used in a forthcoming book and a multi-media Web site about the project. By late January 2010, Reed was back in Texas, immersed in his other great love — teaching and organizing a bi-weekly, informal student get together. “It’s what I enjoy,” Reed says. “It doesn’t get any better than this.”

The University of Texas at Austin College of Communication

the advertising

F ut ur i s t words by Nick Hundley photo by Jenn Hair

Neal Burns: An unlikely career for a man who says he is neither an academic nor a businessman. Although he is a professor of advertising, Neal Burns has never taken a class in advertising or marketing. Instead, he earned a Ph.D. in physiological psychology and has studied how the different regions of the brain affect behavior. Early in his career, he also worked as a drug developer for pharmaceutical giant Parke-Davis and as a scientist on NASA’s Project Mercury, the space program that launched the first American into space. But if Burns is an unlikely professor of advertising, it’s not for a lack of expertise. In fact, he came to teach at The University of Texas in 1997 after a 30-year career as a leading figure in the advertising industry. “I have always been interested in behavior,” he explains, “and so advertising has been a natural outgrowth.” Burns seems to revel in being at the forefront of technology and discovery, whether at NASA or in advertising. A self-confessed 20

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fan and writer of science fiction, he wears ofthe-moment black frame glasses and carries an iPhone that seems to vibrate unceasingly on his desk. According to Burns, he came to advertising inadvertently, when he took a job as the senior staff scientist at Honeywell, the consumer product and engineering firm that develops everything from aerospace equipment to household thermostats. “After a short period of time at Honeywell, they made me director of marketing. Then after being there for 10 or 11 years, I decided I wanted to start my own advertising agency.” In 1973, he did just that. Along with a few friends, he created a successful agency, The Burns Group, which merged with Carmichael Lynch Advertising in 1985. He became senior partner and director of research and account planning, helping Carmichael Lynch become among the most respected advertising agencies in the country. Over the course of his career, Burns devel oped campaigns for such clients as 3M, National Car Rental, NorWest Bank (now Wells Fargo) and Group Accor, which owns the Sofitel, Novotel, Mercure and ibis hotel brands as well as Motel 6. Perhaps his most successful campaign, for

motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson, began in 1985. According to Isabella Cunningham, chair of UT’s Advertising Department, Burns helped to reinvent the brand, which she feels: “had totally lost its edge against the Japanese manufactures of motorcycles that were cheaper and dominating the market. The campaign reestablished Harley-Davidson as a high-profile luxury brand. This is most difficult, and they did it in a couple of years. It was one of the most inspiring campaigns I’ve ever seen.” Lee Lynch, Burns’ former partner and founder of Carmichael-Lynch, says the campaign “walked the fine line to make the communication seem kind of dark, but not too dark. Think Harley bad boys without being Hell’s Angels. “He’s seen as a futurist,” Lynch points out. “He has accurately predicted where the business has gone for a number of years. He was an early adaptor of the planning technique, a research methodology that attempts to make sure a communication is personally relevant to the intended market.” As founder and director of the account planning program in the Advertising Department’s graduate program, Burns and his students

develop campaigns for a range of clients as part of their coursework. American Airlines enlisted Burns and his students to help develop a strategy to address public concern with flying after 9/11. Burns says they recommended “the issue was not to mention security, but to emphasize comfort and the importance of the destination.” Flor Lozano, a graduate of the account planning program and a principal at Synergia Planning in Austin, remembers Burns’ course in Advanced Account Planning. Lozano and a team of classmates worked on

was attempting to expose a broader audience to opera. “We did an ad with Willie Nelson and a quartet and said: this is Texas Music too,” Burns recalls. Burns also regularly brings in top industry professionals to speak to classes and at forums on advertising. In 2009, Burns hosted the conference, “AdWakening — The 21st Century Agency,” on the future of the advertising industry. He invited advertisers who have developed innovative strategies in the face of a dramatically shifting media landscape. Lozano says Burns was instrumental in

their services to companies and organizations that might not otherwise be able to afford them. “He has not forgotten his social obligations,” Cunningham says of Burns. “He’s a businessman, but he’s never forgotten that there are accounts that need his support and cannot pay.” Burns tries to prepare his students for the 21st Century advertising industry. “There’s a challenge in teaching advertising, to be as current as you can possibly be,” he says, explaining that media platforms and types of entertainment that have long been the lifeblood of the advertising industry — newspapers, maga-

“He’s seen as a futurist,” Lynch points out. “He has accurately predicted where the business has gone for a number of years.” a project for Capital One called RFID — or radio frequency identification — where purchases could be made with a device that fits on a key chain. “Our team did research on what students carried in their wallets, how they paid, and the possibility of using it,” Lozano says. “It was a good response. We were the winning team.” Burns and his students have also created campaigns for the State of Texas, the State Lottery and the Austin Lyric Opera, which

introducing her to her career path. “He helped me to identify my passion for being a planner — that’s something that I wouldn’t have gotten just from writing papers and reading research. “Not everyone has what it takes for account planning. You have to have that curiosity. He does a great job of identifying people who have that talent and spotting and encouraging it from his time in the industry,” Lozano says. Burns and his students have also provided

zines and television — are now in jeopardy as consumers increasingly turn to new media. With many of these new platforms, consumers have the opportunity to bypass advertisements all together. “Among the academics here [at UT],” he says, “I’m not an academic. I’m a businessman. But [to] my colleagues in the advertising agency business, I was always a Ph.D., an academic. But both of them are wrong.”

The University of Texas at Austin College of Communication

Through Orange Colored Glasses# Words

Nick Hundley | Photos

Tara Haelle

“After working on burntORANGE, they can tell employers they can ‘take a magazine to press’ on their own”

Black, White and Orange David oversees the editorial and design team of burntORANGE and over the 10 years in production has produced 13 editions of the magazine.

From left to right: Ramona Flume, Kate Hull, Emily Watkins and Jenn Hair

burntORANGE gives journalism students their first taste of full-scale magazine production

Before 2000, journalism students at The

University of Texas at Austin often had to leave campus to obtain first-hand experience in magazine production. However, the creation of burntORANGE magazine that year heralded a new opportunity for students.

BurntORANGE, a campus magazine

“created by students for students,” enables students to undertake every aspect of magazine production — including writing, design,

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production and advertising — under the watchful eyes of College faculty members. Originally called ORANGE magazine, the idea came to Dave Garlock in his Magazine Management course, which he has taught since 1989. A senior lecturer and head of the magazine sequence in the School of Journalism, Garlock realized teaching writing alone didn’t provide the myriad skills needed for many jobs at magazines. “If students get a job with a newspaper,

they’ll pretty much be reporting and writing stories,” Garlock explains. “However, if they get a job at a magazine, they’ll often have to understand how the production process works.” In addition to writing, he says, they may be expected to have experience with layout, advertising, and working with printers and other contractors. “After working on burntORANGE, they can tell employers they can ‘take a magazine to press’ on their own,” he says.

visiting families the chance to see their picture featured on a mock cover of burntORANGE magazine. With the help of onsite cameras and printers, students pose for their pictures and leave with them emblazoned on the magazine’s cover template. Garlock says the event is a great outreach opportunity for the College and UT: “It gets kids starting to think about UT and journalism at an early age. They walk away with a publication with the College of Communication’s name on it.”

While it has a distinctly campus audience in mind, the

Garlock, who was an editorial director of a New York

magazine’s appeal has gone beyond the confines of UT. Every year at Explore UT, an annual open house event for families and community members to visit UT and learn about its programs, Garlock and some magazine students introduce the public to the basics of magazine production. A huge draw at Explore UT each year is an event that offers

magazine publishing company prior to teaching at UT, says it is also an opportunity to show community members the range of backgrounds of faculty members. “It shows the public there are people teaching here with professional experience in the fields they teach in.”

The University of Texas at Austin College of Communication

Filmmakers Reel karen kocher

andrew shea

ellen spiro

Austin Past and Present

artists who create films that document, intrigue, inspire and entertain.

richard lewis

Portrait of Wally

ed radtke

Mars

nancy schiesari

Tattooed Under Fire

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Chimp Rescue

The Speed of Life

Body of War

geoff marslett

radio-television-film production faculty arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just teachers, theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re working

anne lewis

pj raval

Morristown: In the Air and Sun

Trinidad

paul stekler

Last Man Standing

The University of Texas at Austin College of Communication

FROM Across THE globe A Look at the Seasoned Professionals Teaching the Next Generation at UTâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s School of Journalism

Alan Berg WFAA-TV

Mark Dewey

Rusty Todd

CNN

Asia Wall Street Journal

Michael Whitney

CBS Evening News

Renita Coleman

Orlando Sentinel

Wanda Garner Cash Mark Morrison

Baytown Sun

BusinessWeek

Melanie Hauser Houston Post

Dave McNeely

Austin American-Statesman

Tracy Dahlby Newsweek

Mercedes de Uriarte Los Angeles Times

Rosental Alves Jornal do Brasil

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Gene Burd

Kansas City Star

The University of Texas at Austin College of Communication

onward,upward,

Outreach

With collaborative outreach programs, the College of Communication is engaging, educating and serving the youth of Texas By Nick Hundley

ut elementary & communication sciences and disorders

speak up! speak out!

Speak Up! Speak Out! is a civic

learning program in which high school students identify community problems and work together to develop solutions to present to state leaders, community members and the media as part of a state-wide civics fair. Created by the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Participation in 2003, Speak Up! Speak Out! partners with teachers in classrooms across Texas to encourage students to become life-long, active participants in their communities. Speak Up! Speak Out! has worked with schools in Austin, San Antonio, El Paso, San Marcos and Del Valle to tackle issues ranging from homelessness, the environment, traffic, dropout rates and urban sprawl.

UT Elementary and Communication Sciences and Disorders faculty members

and students have provided free hearing screenings, speech and language evaluations and therapy sessions for students at UT Elementary since 2003. The school is a public charter school that serves students in the East Austin community. Overseen by training supervisor Melissa White, the program was founded by clinical faculty member Ann Brown and UT Elementary Principal Melissa Chavez and provides UT Elementary students access to cuttingedge speech and language services, and UT students with hands-on learning opportunities. University of Texas undergraduate and graduate students provide services in both Spanish and English and offer individual and group therapy sessions to help children attending UT Elementary.

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cinemakids Cinemakids is an annual weekend

event at UT designed to honor young filmmakers and motivate young people to undertake media production. Founded and organized in 2000 by Mary Celeste Kearney, assistant professor in the Radio-Television-Film Department, the two-day Cinemakids event features screenings of films made by young people, followed by free workshops in basic film production. Up to 50 kids ages 6-13 years old work with volunteers to learn filmmaking equipment and techniques.

The University of Texas at Austin College of Communication

ideas@Work College of Communication The University of Texas at Austin 1 University Station, A0900 Austin, TX 78712 communication.utexas.edu