UW Department of Communication E-news
June 2009  |  Return to issue home

Class Notes

George Sundborg (posthumous)
B.A. 1934
Sundborg was inducted into the 2009 Communication Alumni Hall of Fame.

Harold Zimmerman
B.A. 1947
Zimmerman was inducted into the 2009 Communication Alumni Hall of Fame.

Diane (Williams) Read
B.A. 1956
For over a third of her life, Read has been writing science pieces for research organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area. These pieces include grant applications, newsletters and annual reports. In addition, Read continues her freelance work, but has devoted much of her time to volunteering in poorer neighborhood schools in the San Francisco area, as well as dedicated her time to the San Francisco Symphony. Before living and working in San Francisco, Diane lived in Washington, D.C., and wrote for the Secretary of the Navy, as well as the Washington Post.
         As an undergraduate, Read was campus correspondent and a part-time reporter for The Seattle Times. After graduation, she was a reporter for the Bremerton Sun, then returned to the UW as assistant public information officer for the Division of Health Sciences. While living at Subic Bay, Philippines, she spearheaded a successful effort to establish a Sister City relationship with Bremerton, and wrote a series of articles for The Sun.

Robert W. Merry
B.A. 1968
Merry, president and editor in chief of Congressional Quarterly, has been named one of the Top Innovators in Business Publishing by BtoB Media Business. For six years, Media Business has honored business-to-business media executives who, in a rapidly changing environment, create new products and services to build audiences and generate revenue. Merry was recognized as a Top Innovator in the publishing executive category, small trade division. He is a member of the Department of Communication Alumni Hall of Fame.

Eric Nalder
B.A. 1968
Seattle P-I chief investigative reporter Eric Nalder earned a George Polk Award for Military Reporting in honor of his work "Demoted to Private." Nalder is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and a member of the Department of Communication Alumni Hall of Fame.

H. Stuart Elway
B.A. 1970, M.A. 1975, Ph.D. 1983
Elway was inducted into the 2009 Communication Alumni Hall of Fame.

Jerry Baldasty
B.A. 1972, Ph.D. 1978
Baldasty is the dean and vice provost of the UW Graduate School. He has served on the UW faculty since 1978, and served as chair of the Department of Communication from 2002 to 2008. He had been interim dean of the Graduate school since August 2008.

Rita Brogan
B.A. 1972, M.A. 1975
Rita Brogan was recently appointed to the board of governors at City University in Seattle. Brogan is one of the members responsible for approving and monitoring implementation of the institution's mission in addition to overseeing the establishment of broad institutional policies. Brogan is chief executive officer of PRR, a nationally recognized communications firm based in Seattle. She is a member of the Department of Communication Alumni Hall of Fame.

Bruce Johansen
B.A. 1972, Ph.D. 1979
Johansen was inducted into the 2009 Communication Alumni Hall of Fame.

Joanne Harrell
B.A. 1976, M.B.A. 1979
Harrell was inducted into the 2009 Communication Alumni Hall of Fame.

Betty Houchin Winfield
Ph.D. 1978
Betty Houchin Winfield recently published a new book, Journalism-1908: Birth of a Profession. The book describes how journalism evolved with the establishment of journalism schools and other institutions. Winfield is on the faculty of the University of Missouri, School of Journalism. She has been there since 1990 and is the Curators' Professor for the school. She is also an adjunct professor in the Department of Political Science and an affiliated professor in the Harry S. Truman School of Public Affairs.
         She has had post-doc fellowships at the Freedom Forum, Columbia University (1988-89) and the Shorenstein Center for Press, Politics and Public Policy, Harvard University (1991). Winfield has written three books, three monographs and more than 100 scholarly and reference articles, conference papers, and book chapters. Her interests are in the latest research in communications; mass media; and political communication

Nate Miles
B.A. 1982
Nate Miles attended inaugural events for President Obama in Washington, D.C. He reflects on the Jan. 20 Western States Ball in the Northwest Asian Weekly.

David Boardman
M.C. 1983
David Boardman, executive editor for The Seattle Times, moderated a panel discussion for the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). To celebrate Ethics Week, April 26-May 2, 2009, SPJ hosted 12 town hall-style events around the country. The Western Washington Pro Chapter featured an event focused on Journalism Ethics in a New Media Age at the University of Washington. Boardman also provided an overview of journalism ethics issues that have arisen out of new media.

Maggie Walker
B.A. 1974, B.A. 1987
Walker was inducted into the 2009 Communication Alumni Hall of Fame.

Robert McChesney
M.A. 1986, Ph.D. 1989
The Nation recently published an article by Robert McChesney, with John Nichols, on the crisis on journalism. "The Death and Life of Great American Newspapers" concerns the entirety of journalism. McChesney is Research Professor in the Institute of Communications Research (ICR) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the executive director of the Illinois Initiative for Media Policy Research, and director of Graduate Studies at the ICR. He is also president and co-founder of Free Press, a national media reform organization and hosts the Media Matters weekly radio program every Sunday afternoon on WILL-AM radio.

Angela King
B.A. 1995
Angela King was named one of the "40 to Watch" in the winter edition of Viewpoints magazine. King is a reporter and anchor for KCPQ in Seattle.

Paul Rucker
B.A. 1995, M.A. 2004
Paul Rucker succeeds Chuck Blumenfeld as executive director of the UW Alumni Association and associate vice president of alumni relations. Rucker joined the UW as director of alumni relations for the UWAA and in 2007 was appointed assistant vice president for constituent relations.

Lesa Anderson
B.A. 2000
Lesa Anderson is currently national project director for The Moyer Foundation. She is responsible for the Foundation's growing national network of Camp Erin bereavement camps; managing both the programmatic and community relations sides of all existing locations and new development. Anderson works with each Camp Erin community across the country—building relationships, fundraising, collaborating with Major League Baseball, companies and individuals and spreading awareness through all possible opportunities. Her team analyzes and tracks existing bereavement standards, performance of each camp and national bereavement expectations. She has more than 10 years of experience in development, operations, marketing and public relations, having worked for The Seattle Mariners, MSNBC and The Seattle Times. She also ran Wild Radish, LLC, an award-winning company at the forefront of Seattle's evolving healthy construction and development sector.

Brian Beaky
B.A. 2001
Brian Beaky is editor of Cascade Golfer magazine.

Saadia Van Winkle
B.A. 2003
Saadia Van Winkle recently spoke to UW Communication undergraduate students about journalism as a career.
         Van Winkle joined CTV, a cable station in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, as a news reporter in January 2007 and began anchoring a few months later. Working in the Washington market has allowed her to cover stories from the campaign trail, White House and Capitol Hill. Her passion for journalism started while she was a writer for her high school newspaper in Oregon. She went on to earn her B.A. in both Journalism and Drama at the UW. Her love of travel and discovering new places led her to Florida, where she received a master’s degree in Broadcast Journalism at the University of Miami. As a fellowship recipient, she wrote for the Miami Herald while in grad school and was also granted a scholarship to spend her last semester studying film in Prague.
          At CTV, Van Winkle has made politics her focus—moderating a Congressional debate, covering the 2008 DNC in Denver and the recent presidential election and inauguration. In addition to her work at CTV, she began freelance reporting at ABC 2 in Baltimore in May 2008. She has also been selected a 2009 Scripps-Howard environmental journalism fellow, and will take part in a weeklong intensive program on climate change and the environment in Florida this month. When she’s not asking politicians tough questions, Van Winkle enjoys playing piano, hiking, dancing and spending time with friends. She also loves dogs and baking cupcakes for co-workers’ birthdays—her specialty is strawberry with cream cheese frosting.

Amy Laughter
B.A. 2004
Amy Laughter is currently raising major gifts at United Way of King County. Her work rallies behind the mission that every child should be safe, healthy and ready to succeed when they enter kindergarten and that everyone should have a safe place to call home.

Lie Shia Ong
B.A. 2004
Lie Shia Ong is the morning producer for KIRO-TV in Seattle. She also sits on the UW Department of Communication Alumni Board.

Sheryl Cunningham
Ph. D. 2008
Sheryl Cunningham is an assistant professor in the Communication Department at Wittenberg University.

Ben Crosby
Ph.D. 2009
Ben Crosby accepted a tenure-track position in the English department at Iowa State University. He will start in the fall and he and his wife and two children move to Iowa during the first week of August. Crosby will teach courses in rhetorical criticism and persuasion.

Cullen Heaney
B.A. 2009
Cullen Heaney was accepted into the Master of Science program in Public Relations at Boston University's College of Communication.

Andrea Elizabeth Hickerson
Ph.D. 2009
Andrea Hickerson accepted a tenure-track position at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in New York. She joins the Department of Communication on the Journalism track as an assistant professor. The Journalism program is brand new in 2010.

Julie Homchick
P.h.D. 2009
Julie Homchick took a lecturer position in the Institute for Writing and Rhetoric at Dartmouth. She will teach environmental rhetoric, argumentation and public speaking.

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