SNCR Podcast: Excellence in New Communications Award Winner Penn State University’s “The U Report” Podcast

John Dolan of Penn State's U Report Podcast Interviews Lions Ambassador Katie Perugini

The Society for New Communications Research (SNCR) podcast series profiling the winners of its 2011 Excellence in New Communications Awards continues. In this program, we have a three-way conversation with John Dolan, Christina McNeill, and Shannon Ritter, all employees of Penn State University who created an informal, unofficial podcast about the people behind-the-scenes at Penn State, called “The U Report.” Their podcast won an Excellence in New Communications Award for Internal Communications in the Education and Academic category.

You can read more about the winning Penn State entry on the SNCR website. You can hear the U Report podcast series on its Posterous page.

Follow all three of the Penn State podcasters and the official Twitter feed for The U Report by following this Twitter List.

Producers of The U Report

John Dolan is the director of the Office of Digital Media and Pedagogy for Penn State’s College of the Liberal Arts.  In this role, he oversees the strategy for incorporating more technology into teaching, learning and research in the College.  He is also responsible for the management of the robust social media initiative for the College’s undergraduate studies division.  He has made a number of conference presentations on social media and is in the final stages of completing his dissertation on the impact of the use of social media in the workplace.

Christina McNeill is drawn to web communications because of the variety of skills (analytical, strategic thinking, creative, technical) she must use to implement solutions that help people. She currently works as a web developer for the Office of Student Aid where she enjoys the challenge of finding creative solutions  for student aid professionals communicating complicated information to their audience—parents and students. She oversaw the launch of the latest OSA website while implementing Plone CMS for staff.

Christina has also worked at Penn State Outreach, both as a speechwriter for the vice president and as a developer and manager of the organization’s intranet. Christina is a proud veteran of both the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps. She, her husband, son, and two dogs live in Bellefonte, Pa.

Shannon Ritter currently works as the Coordinator of Auditions, Interviews, and Admissions for the Penn State School of Theatre. In addition to working closely with faculty and undergraduate admissions, she also coordinates the use of social media within the School.

Before coming to the School of Theatre, Shannon worked as Social Networks Adviser for Penn State World Campus, and spent five years in Undergraduate Admissions at Penn State. Shannon is also co-founder of the Social Media Constituent group with EDUCAUSE and presents regularly at national conferences on the use of social media in higher education.

The podcasts are being produced by Steve Lubetkin of Lubetkin Global Communications LLC, a Senior Fellow of SNCR and a member of the SNCR Advisory Board.

The podcast series appears weekly on Thursdays over the next several months.

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