Columbia Scholastic Press Association

Meet our speakers that will be at this year's conference:

Cary Conover is a freelance editorial photographer in New York City, where he shoots regularly for The New York Times and the Village Voice. In his spare time he is editor of visualdiaries.com, a website that a catalogues his black and white street photography. A native of Wichita, Kansas, his first book “Black Book: A Visual Diary” was published in 2000.

Alena Cybart-Persenaire teaches English and journalism at Kennedy High School in Waterbury, Conn. where she chairs the English department plus advises The Eagle Flyer newspaper, winner of 35 NESPA, SPF and Hartford Courant awards including two 2009 New England Scholastic Press Association awards. A former staff writer for the Bristol Press, Hartford Courant and Columbia Spectator, Alena was named the University of Connecticut’s 2006 Graduate of the Last Decade. She was editor in chief of UConn’s The Daily Campus, winning 1996 second place U.S. Newspaper of the Year from the Associated Collegiate Press. Her last big story: she was just married this summer at Tavern on the Green!

Jenny Dial is a sports writer and online reporter for the Houston Chronicle. Dial worked for the Gold Crown-winning Oklahoma Daily for four years and held internships with the United States Olympic Committee and Sports Illustrated on Campus. Dial has covered the Olympics, the NBA finals, the NCAA Final Four, the BCS Orange Bowl, College World Series and the NFL and NBA drafts. She has taught at the CSPA Summer Journalism Workshop. She attended East Central High School in San Antonio, where two yearbooks she edited received CSPA Crown Awards.

Mary Kay Downes has advised the award-winning Odyssey yearbook for the past 18 years at Chantilly (VA) High School where she serves as English department chair. Odyssey has routinely received NSPA Pacemaker and CSPA Crown Awards. A recipient of the CSPA Gold Key, the NSPA Pioneer Award and the VAJTA Douglas Freeman and Thomas Jefferson Awards, Downes was also named as 2007 JEA Yearbook Adviser of the Year. She has had articles published in the SPR Student Press Review, Quill and Scroll, Journalism Today and C-Jet. She currently serves as the president of the Columbia Scholastic Press Advisers Association.

Paul Ender, who retired in 2000, was adviser to the American yearbook at Independence High School in San Jose, CA, for more than 25 years. Personal honors include JEA Yearbook Adviser of the Year, Northern California Yearbook Adviser of the Year, CSPA Gold Key, NSPA Pioneer Award and OIPA National Scholastic Journalism Hall of Fame. His students’ books earned many state and national awards.

Erica Miriam Fabri is a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and received her MFA in poetry from The New School. She is the author of the chapbook, High Heel Magazine (winner of the 2006 Belle Letter Press Chapbook Contest on the theme of “WORD AND WOMAN”) and her work has appeared in The Texas Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, The New York Quarterly, Good Foot Magazine and Paper Street. She has performed in a wide range of venues and facilitated poetry workshops for a variety of organizations such as The Brooklyn Public Library, Poet’s House, Urban Word NYC, The Fortune Society, The Robin Hood Foundation, and the PEN Prison Writing Program. She currently teaches creative writing at The School of Visual Arts and for the City University of  New York (CUNY). www. ericafabri.com

Liz Funk has written for USA Today, Newsday, the Crhistian Science Monitor, CosmoGIRL! ` Girls’ Life, among other publications. Her first book, “Supergirls Speak Out: Inside the Secret Crisis of Overachieving Girls,” about the pressure on young women to be perfect, will be published by Simon and Schuster in March. She writes a blog for the Times Union (Albany, NY) and also blogs at her web site, lizfunk.com.

Adam Goldstein is Attorney Advocate for the Student Press Law Center who is licensed to practice in New York. Beyond media law, his Internet work has included representing domain name complainants in arbitration and authoring several legal articles on online copyright and trademark issues. Before entering legal practice, Goldstein spent three years as a freelance producer and editor for FoxNews.com, handling day-to-day and breaking news coverage. Goldstein graduated from Fordham University School of Law in 2002; during his studies, he served as the Technology Editor of the Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal. Goldstein received his undergraduate degree in Internet Journalism from Fordham College at Lincoln Center, where he was the Editor-in-Chief of the FCLC Observer. He is a member of the New York State Bar Association and the ABA.

Robert Greenman taught high school and college English and journalism, and advised school publications, for more than 30 years. Currently, he is a newspaper-in-education consultant for The New York Times, a member of JEA’s Multicultural Commission, and the high school liaison for the Society of Professional Journalists’ New York City chapter, the Deadline Club. Greenman is the author of The Adviser’s Companion, a guide for high school newspaper advisers (currently out of print), and vocabulary enrichment books based on words and passages from The New York Times and the Altantic Monthly: Words That Make A Difference and More Words That Make A Difference (co-authored by his wife, Carol). He writes regularly for the Visual Thesaurus language Web site, visualthesaurus.com.

John Hampson is an English teacher at Wantagh High School and a co-adviser to Escapades, the WHS literary magazine.  In addition to teaching, he is the writer and singer of the 2000 Billboard # 1 hit song, “Absolutely (Story of a Girl)” and has released seven albums since 1996 with his band, ninedays.  He is the recipient of ASCAP’s (American Society of Composers and Publishers) Top 5 songs of the Year in 2000, and his songs have been published worldwide by Warner Chappel Music.  He continues to write and perform his music.

Michele Hoos is a multimedia journalist based in New York City. She’s interested in health and lifestyle reporting, with a focus on women’s issues. Her work has appeared in The Times of Trenton, New York Press, The San Diego Union-Tribune, and Health.com. Before starting journalism school at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she was an English teacher and yearbook adviser at the Peddie School in Hightstown, New Jersey. This year she is serving as a Digital Media Fellow at the Graduate School of Journalism.

Dave Johnson is the author of Marble Shoot, (Hummingbird Press 1996) and the plays, Sister, Cousin, Aunt and Baptized To The Bone. He is the editor for Movin’ (Orchard Books 2000). Johnson  is a Visiting Faculty member of the MFA Creative Writing Program at The New School University and an Instructor at The Cooper Union School of the Art. He has taught at Yale and Columbia Universities. His work has recently appeared in Washington Square and is currently appearing in The Texas Review.

Dean Kostos’s collection Last Supper of the Senses was released this past September; he is also the author of the collection The Sentence that Ends with a Comma (which was taught at Duke University) and the chapbook Celestial Rust. He co-edited the anthology Mama’s Boy. His poems have appeared in Barrow Street, Boulevard, Chelsea, Cimarron Review, Oprah Winfrey’s web site Oxygen, The Paris Review (forthcoming), Rattapallax, Southwest Review, Western Humanities Review, and elsewhere; his translations from the Modern Greek have appeared in Talisman and Barrow Street. His reviews have appeared in American Book Review, Bay Windows, and elsewhere. “Box-Triptych,” his choreo-poem, was staged at La Mama. He has taught poetry writing at Pratt University, Gotham Writers’ Workshop, Teachers &Writers’ Workshop, Teachers &Writers Collaborative, and the Great Lakes Colleges Association. A member of PEN, American Center, he was also the recipient of a Yaddo fellowship.

Gary Lundgren served as director of student publications and director of the Arkansas Scholastic Press Association during his nine years on the faculty of the University of Arkansas. During that time, his staffs received several Gold Crown and Pacemaker Awards and he received the CSPA Gold Key, NSPA Pioneer Award, JEA Medal of Merit and was inducted into the Scholastic Journalism Hall of Fame. He also published Yearbook Points & Picas magazine for 11 years. Lundgren, currently is a senior marketing manager for Jostens, manages the company’s educational offerings for yearbook staffs. His recent projects include directing Jostens Adviser University as well as editing the Jostens Get the Picture photography curriculum, the Gotcha Covered Look Book and Jostens Adviser & Staff magazine. The Jostens 1,2,3  Yearbook Journalism Curriculum he edited received a Distinguished Merit Award from the Association of Educational Publishers. Lundgren has taught yearbook and design workshops in 43 states.

Christian McEwen is working on a book about poetry and slowness entitled “World Enough and Time.” She teaches Poetry at Lesley University. Her most recent project was the DVD, “Tomboys! Feisty Girls and Spirited Women” which is distributed by Women Make Movies. She is currently working on a book on slowness and creativity, entitled, “World Enough & Time.”

Melissa McLaney works in Career Services at The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She is in constant communication with media organizations from around the world, organizes the largest journalism career expo in the country, and maintains internship and job databases and the web presence for her department. Prior to working at Columbia, she taught high school English and journalism in North Carolina. She also advised The Ridge Review, a high school newspaper publication that received numerous grants and accolades. She has a BA in English and an MA in teaching from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She was also a North Carolina Teaching Fellow.

Alan Murray is Executive Director of Uncharted. He has been an editor, photographer, and reporter, specializing in multimedia and long-term documentary reporting and has won a variety of awards including recognition in public service for his coverage of organ donation issues. Murray is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese and has lived and traveled extensively throughout South and Central America.

Mark Murray is coordinator of technology systems for Arlington Independent School District in Arlington, Texas. He also serves as the executive director of the Association of Texas Photography Instructors and as consultant for the Photo Imaging Education Association. He is a frequent presenter at conferences and workshops around the country, including the CSPA and JEA/NSPA conferences, Carolina Journalism Institute, Dallas County Publication Workshop and Flint Hills Summer Publication workshop. During his tenure as photography instructor at Lamar High School in Arlington, he was one of the advisers to élan, Lamar’s literary/art magazine, a Pacemaker and Silver Crown winner. He received a Gold Key from CSPA in 2004.

Jacob Palenske is the President of NCompass Media, LLC in Dallas, Texas. Palenske is a graduate of Kansas State University and a frequent speaker and instructor at journalism workshops across the country and in Europe. Since 2003, clients of NCompass have been nominated for 26 Interactive Yearbook Pacemaker awards, and have won 13. He is the co-director of the European Exposure photography workshop, and was an instructor in residence for the high school program at The Poynter Institute.

Eric Rowse works with American Graphics Institute’s clients to implement PDF solutions to streamline workflows and capture efficiencies of electronic document distribution. He has led the conversion and training process of large business organizations as they deploy Acrobat across their enterprise, delivering training to hundreds of Acrobat users. Educated as a designer, Rowse received his bachelor’s of fine arts from Pratt Institute, and continues to work with graphic design and multimedia applications.

Tracy Anne Sena is the adviser of the Broadview, the student newspaper at Convent of the Sacred Heart High School in San Francisco, where she is also the chair of the Computer Science department, providing a natural segue way as a trainer in computer applications and a frequent presenter at journalism and technology conferences. She also serves as a judge for several local and national journalism organizations. Ms. Sena is the 2007 California Journalism Educator of the Year, JEA Medal of Merit recipient and Dow Jones Newspaper Fund Distinguished Adviser, and additionally serves on the Advisory Boards of the Columbia Scholastic Press Association Advisers Association, Center for Scholastic Journalism Kent State University and Journalism Education Association Northern California, and is a member of the Journalism Education Association Scholastic Press Rights Commission.

Mike Simons advises the Skjöld at West High School in Painted Post, NY, a three-time “Ideas that Fly” honoree. He teaches digital photography and design and is also a special education teacher and band director. He is on the faculty of The Gettysburg Yearbook Experience, where he teaches advanced digital photography and has presented at many local and regional conferences.

Helen F. Smith is the executive director of the New England Scholastic Press Association and a past president of the Columbia Scholastic Press Advisers Association. From 1973-2009, she taught English and journalism and advised the Newtonite and Mirettes at Newton North High School in Newtonville, Mass. Publications she has edited include Journalist’s Handbook for the New England Press Association, and Springboard to Journalism and its Teacher’s Manual, The Official CSPA Stylebook, Scholastic Newspaper Fundamentals and Scholastic Newspaper Critique for CSPA. Along with teaching in CSPA programs, she has taught high school students and teachers at Boston University, and, through the Soros Foundation, in Kyrgyzstan, the Republic of Georgia, Hungary and Romania. The U.S. State Department’s ACCELS program also sent her to teach in Kyrgyzstan.  At the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, she has been a visiting teacher since 2006. She has edited the Writing Handbook for the American University of Central Asia and the university’s Web Page Style Guide. Since 2007 she has worked with teachers in Lusaka, Zambia through the Communities Without Borders program.

Jerron Smith is a multi-faceted artist and video producer, working in multiple media for American Graphics Institute. He has experience in digital video, television production and post-production work. Jerron is an adjunct instructor in the communication arts department at the New York Institute of Technology, where he instructs courses in computer graphics methodology and technique. He is a contributing author to the Digital Classroom: Flash CS4, and Digital Classroom: Illustrator CS4, both published by Wiley and AGI. Smith completed his undergraduate work at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology and the City University of New York, and then completed his master’s studies in communications arts at the New York Institute of Technology.

Edmund Sullivan serves as executive director of the Columbia Scholastic Press Association and also as executive director for professional prizes in the Graduate School of Journalism. A former high school newspaper editor, he recalls being forced to watch as his school’s principal burned an issue he had edited. He considers that episode as having “seared” the First Amendment into his consciousness. As a result, he has dedicated his working life to the cause of a free student press. Besides his work at Columbia, he served on the Student Press Law Center Board of Directors from 1983 to 2000. His numerous awards include the Laurence B. Johnson Award for Best Editorial Writing from the Educational Press Association of America, Distinguished Service Award from Community College Journalism Association, the Reid Montgomery Service Award from College Media Advisers, the NSPA Pioneer Award and the Gold Key from CSPA. He was inducted into the National Scholastic Journalism Hall of Fame in 1998.

John Tagliareni has advised Bear Facts, the student newspaper at Bergenfield (NJ) High School, for the past 37 years. Bear Facts has received the GSSPA’s Garden State Award, the NJPA’s Award for General Excellence and the CSPA’s Gold Medalist with All-Columbian honors, as well as Silver Crowns. Bear Facts was featured on the Reading Rainbow program, televised nationally, as well as ABC-TV’s Nightline and on National Public Radio. Tagliareni has judged student publications for national critique services and contests. He is a former president of the GSSPA, which awarded him its Golden Quill Award for Distinguished Service in 1984, and The DJNF selected him as a Distinguished Adviser in that same year. He is a recipient of the CSPA Gold Key in 1992 and the OIPA’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2000, the CSPA honored him with the Jubilee Award and The New York Times and CSPA honored him with the Charles R. O’Malley Award for Excellence in Teaching. He also served as CSPAA Recording Secretary from 2002-2004. The Deadline Club, The New York City Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, honored him with their Teacher Recognition Award in 2007.

Violet Turner has taught middle school and high school English in Wantagh, NY schools for 22 years.  She is an adjunct professor for Long Island University, teaches creative writing, is the co-adviser to Escapades, the WHS literary magazine, and has taught creative writing to inmates at Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, NY.  Her extensive writing background includes copywriting for WLIR radio and Costich and McConnell Advertising, news writing and announcing for WLIM radio, public relations for the Stony Brook Community Fund and the Clinton County Mental Health Association, educational scriptwriting, and freelance writing for publications such as Newsday, Maximum Guitar, Screenwriters Magazine, Expecting Magazine, and the Long Island Voice. She was the 1992 first place recipient of the Phyllis Whitney Writing Award and has had her photography featured in Popular Photography. Turner has received the New York State English Council Educator of Excellence Award (2008) and National Endowment for the Humanities recipient.

C. Bruce Watterson, chair of CSPAA’s committee on judging standards and practices, former chief communications officer at Darlington School, Rome, GA. currently teaches courses in journalism/communication on the college level and lectures to press groups and publication workshops annually. A past finalist for DJNF Teacher of the Year, he holds the CSPA Gold Key, the NSPA Pioneer Award, the JEA Medal of Merit, the Southern Interscholastic Press Association’s Distinguished Adviser Award and the Kay Phillips Service Award from North Carolina Scholastic Media Association. Watterson has been honored by College Media Advisers for his work with the collegiate press nationally. He has been a regional and national officer for CASE (Council for the Advancement and Support of Education). He has spoken frequently to press groups in 46 states and internationally as part of the Center for Independent Journalism Foundation.

Ray Westbrook is newspaper and yearbook adviser at St. Mark’s School of Texas and serves as first vice president of the CSPAA. Publications he advises have been awarded Gold Crowns, Pacemakers and Gold Stars. A frequent speaker at publications workshops during the summer, he was awarded a Gold Key by CSPA as well as the John Murrell Excellence in Teaching Award by St. Mark’s in 2007.

Joshua Wilwohl is an editor/writer at New Jersey Local News Service, part of the Star-Ledger’s Special Section division. Wilwohl graduated with a BA in art history and journalism from Mercyhurst College in May 2008. After graduation, he worked as a copy editor at The New Jersey Herald. While at Mercyhurst, Wilwohl was editor-in-chief of The Merciad, the college’s newspaper, where he transformed the paper’s format to incorporate emerging technology and took a more investigative journalism approach to the news. The change led the newspaper to take the prize as one of the top 10 tabloid college newspapers in the country. Wilwohl also interned for The Erie Times-News and The Citizen. He’s a recipient of a Keystone Press Award and is a frequent lecturer at CSPA’s spring conference. He’s currently completing his MPA in emergency and disaster management at Metropolitan College of New York.

Kathleen D. Zwiebel was the 1998 Dow Jones Newspaper Fund National High School Journalism Teacher of the Year. She advises five publications at Pottsville Area High School in Pottsville, PA. In the past the publications have received national and state honors from CSPA, NSPA and PSPA. A 1996 CSPA Gold Key recipient, Zwiebel also received the CSPA Diamond Jubilee Award, Charles R. O’Malley Award for Excellence in Teaching, NSPA Pioneer Award, JEA Medal of Merit and PSPA Teacher of the Year. She serves as past president of the Columbia Scholastic Press Advisers Association and chairs its honors committee.