Reunion and Comm School 40th Draw Alumni

Jill Agostino ’86 talks to students.

The weekend of October 11–13 was not only Ithaca College Reunion, but the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the college’s School of Communications as well. There were special events throughout the weekend, not least of which were Ithacan alumni returning to campus to share their knowledge and experience with current students.

On Friday afternoon, Jill Agostino ’86, an editor at the New York Times Washington bureau, met with about 25 students in the Ithacan office to talk about her career and her work at the Times. She discussed the Times’ strategies and procedures in covering recent events like the Navy Yard shootings and the government shutdown, and offered career advice to those hoping to become professional journalists upon graduation. She also conducted an editing workshop for journalism students on Saturday morning.

Vanessa Schneider ’07 explains Google
 mapping tools  Friday workshop.

Jill's Friday session was followed by a workshop on “Storytelling with Google Maps” by Vanessa Schneider ’07. Vanessa, a former Ithacan editor in chief, is now Google’s Geo Media Program manager. She travels the country and world showing media organizations ways that tools like Google Maps, Google Earth and Google Fusion can help journalists tell stories more effectively. She gave her presentation to our students, who started implementing what they learned on the Ithacan website the very next day.

On Saturday morning Vanessa, along with Aaron Edwards ’12 and recently hired journalism professor Anthony Adornato, led a roundtable discussion on “Journalism Reinvented,” exploring the ways in which journalists have adapted technologically and cognitively to master the new media landscape. Professor Adornato, who has 12 years of broadcast experience, is a specialist in new media and social media. Aaron just started a new job as Associate Editor, Breaking News, at NBC News Digital in New York after a stint as a news producer at Digital First Media.

An EIC reunion. From left: Aaron
Edwards ’12, current editor in chief
senior Megan Devlin and Libby Sile ’11.

These weren’t the only Ithacan alumni to pass through that weekend. Former photo editor Connor Gleason ’08, now staff photographer at Curry College in Milton, Mass.; former Accent and news editor Jamie Saine ’08, now a marketing writer at uTest, a software testing company in Framingham, Mass.; and former editor in chief Libby Sile ’11 and now an editorial assistant at Esquire magazine in New York also came by and to check out our new office and talk to students. In addition, there was reportedly a sighting of former design editor Lena Yue ’10 on campus, although I can’t verify this first hand. Lena is currently a digital marketing specialist at the Chronicle for Higher Education.

It was a pleasure to see them all, as always. And it’s equally a pleasure to see the way our alumni, as members of the vast Ithacan family, continue to stay interested and involved with our program and our students.

From left: Aaron Edwards ’12, Professor Anthony Adornato and Vanessa Schneider ’07 lead a roundtable discussion on “Journalism Reinvented.”