Davis commissioned Hothouse to create two videos for her Institute’s “Guess Who?” series. The series works to bring attention to and challenge kids’ assumptions about gender stereotypes. During a recent visit to Boston, Davis had lunch with Hothouse students who worked on the series.

Hothouse productions is a Film and TV class operating as a student-run, client-driven production company. Projects include PSA’s for local TV stations, videos for non-profits, an occasional music video and documentary shorts. Prior clients include Harvard University’s McLean Hospital, Massachusetts Advocacy Council and Boston Children’s Hospital.

The following is an excerpt from the Globe‘s interview with Davis.

Q. What part is your BU connection playing?

A. [Film & Television department professor] Garland Waller’s class helped create the video series. In one, the “The Baker and the Mathematician,” kids are asked what a mathematician would look like. Their answers are all “he.” “He would wear a blue suit.” What would a baker look like? “He has a big moustache.” Each is then asked, “What if you were told the baker and mathematician were the same person — and she’s a woman?” They’re like, “No way. Is that possible?” That might make sense if this were a 1950s film. These days, it’s shocking.

Read the full interview here.

Davis previously visited in November to meet with the Hothouse team.

New England Associated Press Student Awards

Best Election Coverage: BUTV10′s “Decision 2012″

Producer: Sandra Hooper (’12); Director: Andrew Fewsmith (’14)

Best Public Affairs Coverage: BUTV10′s Inside Boston, “Death With Dignity & Medical Marijuana”

Producers: Sandra Hooper (’12), Victoria Price (’13), Deedee Sun (’13)

Best News Hard Feature: “Aftermath of Superstorm Sandy”

Tiana Bohner (’13)

National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
New England Emmy Award Winners

College/University – General Assignment – Serious News: “Gun Control”

Reporter: Chris Costa (’13)

College/University – Public Affairs/Community Service: BUTV10′s Inside Boston “Question 3: Medical Marijuana”

Producers: Sandra Hooper (’12), Victoria Price (’13), Deedee Sun (’13)

The Blue Chip Award, the most prestigious student honor conferred by the College of Communication, recognizes graduating seniors for their achievements across several categories including academic excellence, leadership in college and university organizations, involvement in professional activities and demonstrated talent in their fields of study. This year, 12 students representing each of COM’s three departments were given the award.

Blue Chip recipients from the Department of Film & Television are Cody Brotter (Dobbs Ferry, NY); Justin Wiemer (Fox Point, WI); William Politis (Billerica, MA); and Gaby Grossman (Los Angeles, CA).

Recipients from the Department of Journalism are Mike Neff (Braintree, MA); Victoria Price (Valley Center, CA); and Chelsea Feinstein (Jarrettsville, MD).

Finally, the recipients from the Department of Mass Communication, Advertising and Public Relations are Clarisse Bidad (Washingtonville, NY); Megan Happ (Royersford, PA); Joana Costa Marques (Biscayne, FL); Michael DeFilippis (Cortlandt Manor, NY); and Tiffany Feng (Orange, CA).

“These extraordinary young women and men embody all that is excellent in the College of Communication’s graduating class of 2013; they’re the best of our best,” said Tom Fiedler, Dean of COM. “I can speak for the faculty in saying that, while we’ll miss having them in our classrooms, we’re thrilled knowing that very soon we’ll be able to bask in the glow of their many successes.”

The Blue Chip Awards ceremony is the capstone event to senior week at COM which was followed by Boston University’s 140th Commencement on Sunday, May 19.

• Best Election Coverage: “Decision 2012”
• Best Public Affairs Coverage: Inside Boston, “Death With Dignity & Medical Marijuana”
• Best News Hard Feature: “Aftermath of Superstorm Sandy”

“Accepting these AP awards is an incredible honor, but it only further recognizes that BUTV10 is an amazing outlet for students to create professional level programming,” said Sandy Hooper, a December 2012 graduate of the College of Communication. Sandy was a producer for “Decision 2012” and one of three executive producers for “Inside Boston” and is currently an editor and producer in the video department at USA Today Sports.com. “The students involved in ‘Decision 2012’ and ‘Inside Boston’ dedicated long hours on top of rigorous class schedules to produce an evening of election programming that, I believe, went unmatched by other colleges and universities.”

“Everyone is proud to be recognized for this achievement,” said Assistant Professor Christophor Cavalieri, BUTV10’s faculty advisor. “These awards reflect the foundation of a large multi-platform collaboration at the College. It was a first-of-its-kind initiative and the effort certainly has resonated.”

BUTV10 was established in 2005 as a university-wide resource that presents the work of students, faculty and alumni via campus channel 10, live streaming video and on-demand web content. BUTV10 features 12 programs and boasts over two hundred members. The station is based at the College of Communication at Boston University.

Carolyn Clark, Associate Professor of advertising, was recently named one of the “Top 100 Women We ADmire” by the Boston Ad Club. The Women’s Leadership Forum, an event sponsored by the Ad Club, presented the list at this year’s event on March 21.

The Ad Club invited its community to submit nominations for the “Top 100 Women We ADmire” in Advertising list. They received over 250 nominations and over 30,000 additional “admires.” The Ad Club crowd-sourced the nominations and encouraged people to include descriptions supporting the nominees. Based on submissions, the list was created.

Professor Clark’s recognition was supported by this summary of her nominating comments:

“Carolyn Clark is a wonderful and experienced Boston University professor sending new, accomplished candidates into the ad world who really “get it.” To hear about her experiences in account planning as a successful agency executive and her work rising through the ranks early in her career isn’t just fascinating, but also inspiring and motivating—she’s had two successful careers in the marketing communications industry. Her classes at BU make her students fall in love with advertising and give them direction. Her knowledge, experience, and kind personality make her easy to talk to and a fantastic resource. She has proven that you really can make a difference as a teacher.”

Prior to joining Boston University, Professor Carolyn Clark has had extensive professional experience in the advertising industry. She has held senior management positions in Strategic and Account Planning at Hill Holliday, Ingalls and HBM, which is now part of Arnold Advertising. She has been involved in the brand positioning development and marketing communication programs for national brands in consumer and business-to-business industries, including financial services, technology, retailing, newspapers, sporting goods, athletic footwear, health care, consumer packaged goods and e-commerce.

“I cannot imagine a better way to be recognized than as someone who achieved success in both my professional advertising and academic careers, while placing a priority on helping young people grow and find the right paths for themselves,” said Carolyn Clark. “I have always worked to achieve success in my field, but gained the most satisfaction mentoring and teaching younger people in their careers and at Boston University. I have been grooming younger people over my entire career.”

Like his best-selling Lost in Shangri-La, Mitchell Zuckoff’s new book is a page-turning true story of heroism and survival on a remote front during World War II. Where Shangri-La tells the tale of a plane crash that left a group of U.S. servicemen and members of the Women’s Army Corps fending for themselves in the wilds of New Guinea, Frozen in Time re-creates the events surrounding another, more tragic plane crash—in Greenland in 1942. After the crash, the surviving crew members withstood the arctic cold for 148 days as they huddled in the ripped fuselage, existing on supplies dropped by air onto ice riddled with lethal crevasses. Subtitled An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II, the book chronicles one man’s modern obsession as well as the wartime resilience of others in a nail-biting narrative that reflects Zuckoff’s flair for unsparing historical detail.

Frozen in Time is a contemporary story, too, with alternating chapters told in the first person, a departure for Zuckoff, a College of Communication professor of journalism. He became part of the story when he joined, and partially financed, an arctic expedition last summer hoping to locate the wreckage of the downed Grumman Duck and repatriate the frozen remains of the men who didn’t make it out alive. Inspired by a tenacious American adventurer named Lou Sapienza, the mission was a bit of a fiasco, but the colliding egos and daunting logistics enabled the author to lace the memoir-style chapters with observant, dry humor.

Ahead of Zuckoff’s appearance at Brookline Booksmith on April 30, BU Today interviewed the journalism professor about his experience writing Frozen in Time.

Was writing in the first person a challenge?
It went against 30 years of training. As journalists we are told, and I think it’s correct, that the story isn’t about you. I think there is a tremendous narcissism among some writers. When they go and interview someone famous, the first word in their story is “I.” The celebrity interview: “I walked into the Hollywood Hilton and I saw Brad Pitt across the way.” So you’ve got yourself in twice before you’ve got Brad Pitt in there. I’ve always hated that. But here, it finally satisfied my own rules about the first person: that leaving me out would’ve been more misleading and more detrimental to the story than putting me in. So I had no choice.

When you write about experiencing a plane crash or flying a plane, you put the reader right there in the cockpit. What does that process involve?
This is something I’ve been working on for a really long time. I wrote a story about a child with Down syndrome 15 years ago—it became my first book. Even then, I wanted readers to experience her heart surgery as if they were doing it, as though the scalpel was in their hand and they were opening her chest and they were patching this hole in her heart. It’s just layer upon layer in writing and getting closer and closer to the perspective. It’s a lot of rewriting, fixing and then changing your point of view, as a writer and a reader, and saying, I’m in the cockpit, I have the control wheel in my hands, what do I see? Reading it aloud is so key. If you read it aloud you will hear where the flaws are, where it doesn’t make sense.

You engage the other senses too, describing vibrations and the noises and smells the men would have experienced.
I talk to my students a lot about sensory reporting. I love smell. We all know this—there’s a smell that will bring you back to summer camp 50 years ago. It’s such a powerful sense and if you can tap into that as a writer, if there’s a bouquet of solvents inside the cockpit of a new plane, for somebody who knows that smell, I’ve got them right there.

Is that a big part of what you love about stories like these?
It is an endless feast. I was almost happiest when I was writing about the snow caves when they started to smell. Then I felt like I could put people in there. You can say it was really cold 100 times, but now waste is building up, these guys have not showered in four months. They smell. The food smells. Sometimes the cans of food would break when they were dropped from the planes and they would rot inside the cave. And they’re under this wing filled with fuel, so there are fumes. That’s when I know that I’m close enough that I’m really writing.

Read the rest of the interview in BU Today.

Film

Mass Communication

Marathon Bombing

Politics

The National Association of Black Journalists is proud to announce the selection of Michelle Johnson as its 2013 Journalism Educator of the Year.

The NABJ Board of Directors selected Johnson, an associate professor of practice in multimedia journalism at Boston University, to be recognized along with other top honorees this summer at NABJ’s 38th Annual Convention and Career Fair in Orlando, FL, the largest gathering of minority journalists in the world.

“Michelle is an exceptional journalist, a gifted teacher, a natural mentor, and an innovative thinker. All of which make her a valued resource for students and faculty alike,” said NABJ President Gregory Lee, Jr. “We are proud to honor her for her work in the classroom and for her continued work with NABJ Student Projects.”

“I appreciate being recognized for doing work that means so much to me. I’d like to thank NABJ, my home organization, for your support over the years, and in particular my colleagues and the students who rock the student newsroom every year,” Johnson said. “I’m so proud and honored to be a part of such a great team.”

Johnson earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Maryland and a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. She began her professional journalism career as a copy editor with The Evening Press (Binghamton, NY). After that stint, she joined The Boston Globe starting as a copy editor on the night desk, then moved up to layout, assistant political editor to senior assistant night editor and then to copy desk supervisor.

While in this position she was one of 12 journalists chosen for the John S. Knight Fellowship at Stanford University in 1993. This opportunity opened the door to her fascination with personal computers and marrying it with reporting.

Upon returning to the Globe as assistant business editor, Johnson jumped at the opportunity to be on the team to launch boston.com, an award-winning regional website.

Johnson has a legacy of being an effective team member and team leader. During her professional growth, Johnson reached back into the classroom to “teach” as a NABJ Student Project mentor.

“NABJ has been a touchstone for me since I began my first newspaper job about a million years ago. NABJ was there for me as I transitioned from print to digital to freelancer to educator. In fact, I credit my work on the Student Projects with leading me toward a career as a journalism professor,” Johnson said.

And her higher education career remains on the track of embracing technology and online dissemination.

Along with her NABJ Student Project dedication, she took on the role of technology manager at the School of Communication at Emerson College, serving as an adjunct professor at Boston University, and guest faculty at Maynard Institute Multimedia Editing Program.

After three years as journalist-in-residence at Emerson, Boston University brought Johnson-and her multimedia and print experience-back to its campus, not as an adjunct, but as an associate professor.

“Because I didn’t get to where I am alone, I strive to honor my mentors by giving back by helping to prepare the next generation of journalists of color to excel and innovate,” Johnson said. “But truthfully, it’s also a lot of fun! It’s tough to get too jaded working around enthusiastic, energetic young people every day.”

Johnson’s commitment extends to journalism organizations such as NABJ, including as past editor of the NABJ Journal; member of Boston Association of Black Journalists; founding national board member of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and co-founder of its New England chapter; and a member of the Online News Association.

An advocacy group established in 1975 in Washington, D.C., NABJ is the largest organization for journalists of color in the nation, and provides career development as well as educational and other support to its members worldwide, visit our website at www.nabj.org.

Film & TV

Media

Miscellaneous

Politics

The Boston University Program on Crisis Response and Reporting brings journalists and global health specialists together to improve mutual understanding and to promote collaborative global health storytelling. The partnership combines the expertise of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting in Washington, D.C., with COM, SPH and BU’s Center for Global Health & Development.

More than 50 students applied for the fellowships and represented five colleges within the university: COM, SPH, the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Social Work and School of Education. The applicants were from 20 different states, plus Washington, D.C. and 10 different countries.

The two recipients of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting fellowships, Lusha Chen (COM ’13) and Kerstin Egenhofer (SPH ’14), will travel to Washington, D.C. this summer to work at the Pulitzer Center’s headquarters for 2-4 weeks. They will also travel internationally with a Pulitzer Center journalist to research and write a narrative feature article or create a multimedia production.

The Pamoja Together: Student Foreign Aid News Network project, which is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will give eight students from Boston University the opportunity to travel to Kenya to work in teams with Kenyan students to create high quality productions, video, photography, audio and text that capture the compelling stories of aid from a local perspective. Those eight students are Jim Dandee (COM ’13), Laura Hanson (SPH ’13), Jeremy Hartman (CAS ’13 COM ’13), Kasha Patel (COM ’13), Elizabeth Daube (SPH ’13), Jessica Wiley (SPH ’14), Miluka Gunaratna (SPH ’14) and Lindsay Hamsik (GRS ’14).

“The Pamoja project is a completely new endeavor for us in that we will be bringing eight of the best students from across the university together and immersing them in global health, foreign aid, and storytelling,” said Jennifer Beard, assistant professor of international health at SPH. “And, most importantly, they will be working in teams with Kenyan students.”

“We are excited about the prospect of pairing BU students with their Kenyan counterparts to produce compelling narratives about the human side of foreign aid,” added COM journalism professor, Elizabeth Mehren.

Students from COM and SPH were eligible for the Pulitzer fellowships, whereas the Pamoja fellowships were open to students university-wide. “Students were chosen from across the university based on their storytelling abilities and familiarity with foreign aid, global health and development and Africa,” said Anne Donohue, associate professor of journalism at COM.

Established in 1947, the Boston University College of Communication (COM) specializes in Film and Television, Journalism, and Mass Communication, Advertising and Public Relations. With more than 2,000 undergraduate and graduate students, COM offers a strong liberal arts core with a heavy focus on preparing students for careers as communication professionals. COM’s faculty is a blend of traditional academicians and widely- experienced professionals.

The Center for Global Health & Development (CGHD) at Boston University is a multidisciplinary research center that engages faculty from across the University to help solve the critical global health and social development challenges of our time. The mission of the center is not only to conduct high-quality applied research, but also to advocate for the use of this research to improve the health of underserved populations around the world. Through its collaborative work with scientists worldwide, the CGHD seeks to strengthen individual and institutional capacity to conduct and utilize research.

Contact:

Kira Jastive
617-358-1240
kjastive@bu.edu