Dr. Mia Moody-Ramirez has accepted the position of new department chair for the department of journalism, public relations and new media. She is starting her new position this summer after Dr. Sara Stone retires on May 31.

It is a special joy for me to look back at the accomplishments of our faculty and students this semester because it will be the last time I do so. I am retiring on May 31 after 36 years of being at Baylor.

This semester marks the end of a 36-year era at Baylor University for Dr. Sara Stone, who will retire at the end of the semester, and a scholarship has been established in her honor.

The relationship between a student and teacher is unlike any other, particularly in a collegiate environment due to the transformative four years that turn a teenager into a young adult ready to take on the professional world. College professors have a rare front row seat to countless students’ lives as they embark on their first steps toward independence during a vital chapter in their lives. Such an environment provides great potential for students and their professors to have a lifelong relationship, and in several instances in the department that’s proven to be true.

After the retirement of Dr. Sara Stone, Dr. Mia Moody-Ramirez will be the new department chair and she appointed Dr. Neill as the new graduate program director.

Dr. Neill said she hopes to continue to keep the excellent record that the graduate students have doing quality research and presenting their findings in conferences and publishing work in journals.

Baylor Student Media continues to be recognized for excellence as the Baylor Lariat, Roundup Yearbook and Focus Magazine racked up numerous awards throughout the 2018 to 2019 school year.

JOU 3376 has gotten a facelift. Dr. Brad Owens, senior lecturer and political science expert, revived the course History of American Journalism and added an innovative twist on the curriculum for the spring semester.

April 23, 2019
Baylor researchers Cassy Burleson, Ph.D., and Mia Moody-Ramirez, Ph.D., reflect on the scheduled execution of one of the three men responsible for the 1998 murder of a black man, who was chained to the back of a pickup and dragged to his death in the small town of Jasper, Texas. Over the past 20 years, the researchers have conducted more than 30 in-depth interviews with those directly affected by the murder, publishing numerous articles as they worked with Baylor’s Institute for Oral History and the American studies program. Burleson is a senior lecturer of journalism, PR and new media in the College of Arts & Sciences, while Moody-Ramirez is a JPRNM professor and graduate program director.

March 17, 2018
AUDIO: Marlene Neill, Ph.D., assistant professor of journalism, public relations and new media in Baylor’s College of Arts & Sciences, discusses top ethics issues facing PR professionals, ethic skills PR professionals are lacking and how other PR professionals can help. (Podcast link at the end of the transcript.)

Professor Macarena Hernández – our Fred Hartman Distinguished Professor of Journalism – interviewed the talented Kenya Barris, creator of Black-ish and overall Hollywood trailblaizer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s 2019 Sharing Knowledge to Build a Culture of Health Conference taking place in Houston, Texas.

Baylor senior lecturer in the department of journalism, public relations and new media Maxey Parrish received a huge honor on Monday as he was inducted into the College Sports Information Directors of America’s (CoSIDA) Hall of Fame. Parrish is one of six new inductees.

The public relations world is among the many fields that have drastically changed over the last decade. Social media has empowered the everyday person, giving them the tools to call out an organization on its bad judgment, morals and ethics — which means it’s also changed how PR professionals must react. Since 2006, Dr. Marlene …

Dec. 27, 2018
Phallan Davis, B.A. (Journalism) ’05, has joined the Bastrop Economic Development Corp. as its first marketing and communications manager to help develop and lead an integrated internal and external communications strategy to advance the corporation’s image and brand. Davis has 13 years of experience in brand management, media relations and digital communications. She has designed and executed communication strategies for Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits and political officeholders.

Focus Magazine, a student-run publication at Baylor University regarded for its innovative pieces, has recently released its fall 2018 issue featuring fearless individuals and their inspirational stories.

Publishing their first issue in spring of 2011, Focus began as a way for students to gather creative insight into the community in which they would be a part of during their college years. 2011 Editors Jenna DeWitt and Lincoln Faulkner described the vision of the publication as that of bringing light to positive attributes of the Waco community in a way that fosters awareness.

Becoming an entrepreneur, photographer, pastor and mom of three before age 30 was never in the plan for Rachel Whyte. But a degree from the Baylor journalism department, a love for Waco and lots of faith enables Whyte to make balancing a diverse career and a young family seem easy.

Graduating in 2011 with a major in journalism and a minor in music, Whyte quickly began product photography work for Magnolia’s new show “Fixer Upper” and then for the HGTV Network. After deciding to start a family, Whyte left the corporate photography industry and began investing heavily in her own wedding and family photography business and blog, Rachel Whyte. Whyte’s photography uses natural light and a documentary style approach.

The work accomplished at Wieden+Kennedy, one of the nation’s premiere advertising agencies, can simply be described as game-changing. Wieden+Kennedy is renowned for their campaigns that consistently begin conversations, with this year’s most buzzworthy being Nike’s ad campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick. The campaign was born at the Portland-based agency where Baylor University Department of Journalism and Public Relations alumna Becca Ramos has launched her post-graduate career.

It is always a joy to look back at the accomplishments of our faculty and students each semester and to share those with our alumni. This semester is especially significant for me as it represents my final semester of teaching at Baylor. After 36 years at Baylor University, I am preparing to retire in May.

I want to thank Alyssa Gonzalez, one of our graduate students, for writing a feature story that looks back on my career at Baylor University and the outstanding students I’ve had a chance to teach and mentor.

I am humbled to announce that my Baylor colleagues are setting up a scholarship in my honor. We will need to raise a minimum of $50,000 for the scholarship to be fully endowed. (For now, gifts can be designated to the Journalism Endowed Excellence Fund and then given in tribute to Sara Stone).

“Dr. Stone's eyes sparkle and dance when you talk with her,” said Tracey Whelan, a Baylor graduate and former student of Dr. Sara Stone, “She has a gift of making you feel like you are the most important person in the world in that moment.” This is exceptionally rare, Whelan added, “It's truly a gift.”

After 36 years of teaching at Baylor University, Dr. Stone plans to retire in May. In the midst of teaching her final semester, Stone says she adores the students she has this semester. “They are bright, they are engaged, and we have great class discussions.”

Encouraging a lecture hall full of Baylor University students, Alfredo Corchado shared his story of a collision of cultures between the United States, Mexico, and the border, and how it shaped him to be the writer he is today.

Corchado, the award-winning journalist and Mexico City bureau chief at the Dallas Morning News met with students on Oct. 11 to discuss the new release of his book, “Homelands: Four Friends, Two Countries & the Fate of the Great Mexican-American Migration.”

Grace Valentine is a 22-year old author, who started her journey to publication when she was only a sophomore. She is from New Orleans, Louisiana, and graduated from the Baylor University Journalism and Public Relations department in May 2018. While releasing her book was a big step in her career, she continues to touch people’s lives through public speaking.

Since her graduation, Valentine’s first book “Am I Enough?” was published and now she is traveling around the U.S. doing book signings, public speaking and interviews, telling her story to many people through different organizations and colleges.

Nov. 16, 2018
AUDIO: On this week’s episode of Baylor Connections, host Derek Smith interviews Mia Moody-Ramirez, Ph.D., a leading researcher on social media and politics, stereotypes found on social media and media framing of women and people of color. Moody-Ramirez examines various angles of modern communication, including how social media has changed the way people consume and disseminate information. Baylor Connections is a weekly radio program/podcast that introduces the people behind Baylor’s teaching, research and distinct role in higher education.

“A feeling in China among the people running China was that there was something fundamentally flawed in the Chinese tradition,” said Ian Johnson, a Pulitzer Prize winning writer. “The way of organizing Chinese society had to change fundamentally.”

After traveling all the way from Beijing, China, Johnson delivered a speech to Baylor University students on Oct. 3 about his book “The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao.” His book dives into a study of religious practices in China after years of oppression.

“When I realized that the things I did in media meant more to others than myself, I was hooked,” said Andrew B. Church, a Master of Arts in journalism student at Baylor University. “Multimedia gave me the language to communicate what I felt in my heart.”

Church capitalized on his multimedia skills, introducing his Tiny Texas Docs project. These mini-documentaries feature people and communities in small-town Texas, shining a light on residents and their stories. He started these documentaries due to his interest in small towns and renewing journalism at the “grassroots level,” believing everyone deserves to be heard. Tiny Texas Docs officially went online in June 2018 with “Episode 1: Chicken Farmer.”

Occasionally when we get together for lunch, some of us who once worked at The Waco News-Tribune and Times-Herald marvel at the wonderful experience we had and about the people we worked with.

I was about to let 2018 go by when I began to tell myself I should write something about those times. Why 2018? Well, this has been exactly 50 years since 1968 – a year I remember as being one of the highlights of our experience.

Oct. 31, 2018
Professor Mia Moody-Ramirez, Ph.D., a nationally known expert on mass media representations of minorities, women and other underrepresented groups, is quoted in this article about colleges educating students on inappropriate and offensive Halloween costumes. “Cultural appropriation is distinct from equal cultural exchange because of the presence of power inequities that are a consequence of oppression,” she said. (Eric Eckert, assistant director of Media and Public Relations, pitched Dr. Moody-Ramirez as an expert on this topic.)