Happy Leap Year!

Hello again! I am Eli McDaniel.

My time with mass media started when Emma Wittmer, '21, saw my passion for marketing. She encouraged me to check out Washburn, and I couldn’t be more thankful. One of the most enjoyable projects since joining the department has been the blog I started in Matthew Nyquist's MM 199 course. 

Jami Morain and I are your February newsletter team, leap year edition! 

Together we created stories to inform you on the results of Day of Giving and a morning spent with Rock Creek High School journalism students.

Our team worked diligently to bring you this next installment of the mass media newsletter. We hope these enticing stories inform you, the reader, of what the department has been up to. Thank you for your time, see you next month.

SKO BODS!



Jami Morain and Eli McDaniel

Day of Giving recap

by Eli McDaniel

Day of Giving was a successful culmination of student and alumni contributions to the mass media department. The day was spent networking and spreading awareness of the Mass Media Accelerator Fund.

Mass media alumni, professors and students from classes MM 403 and MM 416 combined efforts in the Shawnee room of the Student Union to promote the Mass Media Accelerator Fund. 

“While it's not what I envisioned, it made the day a lot more fun,” Regina Cassell, director of student media and senior mass media lecturer said.

Alumni from all around Topeka showed up with their support and checkbooks. Keri Renner, '03, Kyle Manthe, '22, Christina Noland, '23, Justin Shepard, '22, Jake Lebahn, '07, Valerie Williams, '07, and Erika McNeil, '11, all made time to visit the workroom and catch up with faculty and students.

“Having seven alumni come to campus for Day of Giving was a huge win," said Cassell. "We have an amazing lineup of alumni, and I want them to continue supporting Day of Giving and working with our department for years to come.”

The Mass Media Accelerator Fund raised a base amount of $4,220, just shy of Cassell’s goal, during the 24 hours that Day of Giving ran.

“On Day of Giving, I believe we can find 500 friends of the mass media department to give $10. That is an achievable goal,” Cassell said. "It is my mission to keep working toward this goal."

With Bill and Malinda Malloy’s generous matching donation, the Mass Media Accelerator Fund reached $8,440. The department's hard work also brought in bonus funds.

Because the mass media department received the second most number of gifts, $1,750 was awarded, which bumped the total amount raised to $10,190. On top of that, Cassell claimed the title of Top Ambassador during the Day of Giving. This accolade comes with the ability to choose where an extra $1,500 prize money will end up.

“Obviously, I am going to choose the mass media department,” Cassell said.

On behalf of the entire mass media student body and department, thank you all for your generous donations. We hope you continue giving to mass media in the future, whether it be your money, time or stories.

Mustangs visit for media day

by Jami Morain

Rock Creek High School’s journalism students visited Washburn Feb. 7 to learn about what the mass media program can offer. Students were given a tour of campus and Henderson, visited KTWU, then had lunch with mass media students. 

“We know we have an excellent mass media program, and we know that not everyone knows about us, so we are excited when we get the opportunity to show off what we do to Kansas high school students,” said senior lecturer Regina Cassell. “The students who come from Rock Creek High School are an outstanding group of kids with an adviser who wants to see them pursue their goals in journalism.”

While in Henderson, students were shown the labs, film editing room and podcast room. The students were broken up into different groups then rotated through stations.

Students visited the podcast room and chatted with a Washburn student. Rock Creek students were able to use this time to ask the students questions about Washburn, journalism, mass media and college in general. 

Jaycie Regnier, junior mass media student, said she would have liked to attend an event like this when she was in high school. She enjoyed seeing so many students being engaged and excited about mass media.



“I never had that, so I think it's really cool that Rock Creek has something like that for their students,” Reginer said. “They were all super, duper sweet. They were engaged; they loved the tests that we did, and they all did fairly well on it.”

Have MM FOMO?

by Eli McDaniel

Some of you might be new to Washburn's mass media community, whether that be the department in general or our newsletters, if so “Hello.” You should also know that we are always up to something.

If you haven’t yet, we suggest checking out the first newsletter of 2024. In it, we introduce the current class in charge of the upcoming newsletters and Messenger and profiled a Washburn international student turned successful filmmaker.

Feb. 22 was the sixth annual Student Press Freedom Day. The day celebrates student journalists exercising their First Amendment rights across the country. The link above provides ways to support student journalists.

While there have been a lot of events that have passed, fear not, there is plenty to look ahead to.

As mentioned before, there is a new team in charge of each of the monthly installments of the newsletters and stories for the spring 2024 Messenger are underway. With copious amount of talent and drive, it's safe to say the upcoming content produced will be of premium quality.