Author: Paige Short

Paige brings her passion for issues of diversity and inclusion to her role, focusing on streamlining operations and communications, connecting stakeholders with change makers, and helping find places where process needs a bit of a nudge in the right direction. As a social justice change agent, Paige is a firm advocate for listening first and being willing to admit things need changing. She believes higher education should be for everyone who wants it and diversity work should be shared work. A proud Michigan Tech alumna, Paige earned her bachelor of science degree in scientific and technical communication, along with minors in media production and psychology. She resides in Houghton with her partner and animals. A proud nerd for life, most weekends she can be found gaming with friends, playing roller derby, or, occasionally, hiking the beautiful Keweenaw.

Distinguished Lecture Series Presents Nicholas Mirzoeff

Event poster for Nicholas Mirzoeff Lecture The Humanities department will be hosting Professor Nicholas Mirzoeff (NYU). He’ll be giving a public lecture entitled “Ungovernable Aesthetics” in the MUB Ballroom on Friday, April 135-6.30 p.m.
He will also lead a seminar Saturday morning, April 14, in the Cherry Room of Wadsworth Hall, beginning at 9.30am. If anyone would like to join us for this seminar (faculty and graduate students) and would like to do the reading, please contact Dana Van Kooy (drvankoo@mtu.edu).

Upcoming RTC Colloquium Announced

RTC colloquium event posterThe Department of Humanities is pleased to announce a Rhetoric, Theory and Culture Colloquium to be held on Friday, March 23. RTC student Federico Correa will first present his talk “The Ambivalence of Learning: Between the Feeling of Being at Home and the Challenges of Leaving It” followed by RTC student Laura Vidal Chiesa presenting “Women and Embodiment: Expressing through Our Bodies.” Oren Abeles will be providing commentary to the presenters.

Please join us 5 p.m. Friday, March 23 in Walker 134.

 

Matthew Cavender, Summer Intern for the Grand Rapids Football Club

Grand Rapids Football Club posing for a photo on the field at night.This summer, I had the pleasure of going back to my hometown of Grand Rapids, MI to intern with my hometown soccer team the Grand Rapids Football Club. It all started with a Facebook post by the team. They threw out a post on their facebook page that they were looking for interns, I submitted my resume and before I knew it, I was hired by Matt Roberts, the President of the team.

The actual work of being an intern for GRFC was fairly laid-back, but I still found it to be very worthwhile and relevant to the sort of work I’m hoping to do post-graduation. During game days, I would assist fan relations in a number of ways including putting up on-field advertisements, assisting in a guest hospitality booth, ticket sales, and my personal favorite, halftime promotions. Trust me, throwing tee shirts into crowds is every bit as fun as it looks. Usually at half time, the bulk of our work is done and the interns got to watch the second half of the game before going home.

Throughout the summer, I also did several community outreach events. One in particular that I remember was during a 5k run downtown near the Van Andel Arena area. Before and after the event, I had the opportunity to talk with many runners and community members about the team, show them our schedule, and share some upcoming promotions that the soccer team announced, including a game at Fifth Third Ballpark against Detroit City FC. The interpersonal communication aspect of CCM has always been my favorite, so I thoroughly enjoyed this part of the job.

GRFC has had a men’s team for a few years now competing at the semi-pro level, but this year the club added a women’s team. While the men’s team didn’t see much success, the women’s team only lost one game all season and won the United Women’s Soccer league in their inaugural season! For my time spent with the club, I was able to hold the trophy many times throughout the night.

Being a CCM major, I’m always comforted by how open-ended the degree program was; you can do almost anything you can imagine with it. When I’m not studying, I’m the President of the Michigan Tech hockey student section, Mitch’s Misfits. Being the leader of the Misfits has been the honor of my life, so I figured why not get professionally involved in the sports world?

Kendall Belopavlovich, Marketing Intern at the Keweenaw Co-op

Belapavlovich outside the Keweenaw Co-opMichigan Tech’s Communication, Culture, and Media program has prepared me to be a #crazysmart thinker and worker. During my junior year of college I was accepted into Keweenaw Co-op’s Marketing Internship program with one other student. It has been almost a year since I’ve began my life-changing journey at The Co-op, and I am so grateful for the skills and experience I have gained while working there.

The Marketing Department is small, housing a manager and two interns, but does a huge amount of work for the store. From event planning and execution, customer service, in-store branding and promotion, social media marketing and interactivity, to graphic design, video editing, and newsletter production, this marketing internship has given me more key-word skills than could be put into a resume. Speaking of- during my internship class and with the help of my manager, I was able to create an elegantly designed resume from scratch via Adobe InDesign that showcases my most sterling qualities as well as my ability to design.

Beyond the academic and skill-centric aspects of my internship, I have had the pleasure of working with a diverse group of people of different racial, religious, ethnic, and national backgrounds. The intersection of such diversity in one store, combined with the intersection of products and companies with ethical, sustainable goals has changed my world view. Words such as fair-trade, ethical, locally-sourced, and organic have taken on new and heavy meanings. My professional, academic, and personal tool-kit has become richer from this experience.

Jon Jaehnig, Journalist Intern at the Daily Mining Gazette

I think that one of the biggest things about working for the Daily Mining Gazette is that it’s published in such a small town. Most of the time when I went to talk to someone for a story they recognized my last name immediately, even though some of them recognized it from the other Jaehnig working for the paper.

Internships are supposed to be about experience, resume fodder, and networking, and I got all of those writing with the Gazette. I did a lot of journalistic writing and photography experience that I didn’t have from the classroom, I have links to dozens of my articles from the Gazette on my LinkedIn, and I got to meet several local business owners and influential community members. I learned a lot, and like to think that I accomplished a lot, and however long I stay in the area and whether or not I try to get a job with the Gazette after I finish my degree, this was a very valuable experience.

Upcoming RTC Colloquium Announced

RTC Colloquium event posterThe Department of Humanities is pleased to announce a Rhetoric, Theory and Culture Colloquium to be held on Friday, November 10. RTC student Nancy Henaku will first present her talk “Instrumentalizing empowerment: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings’ ‘Feminist’ Rhetoric” followed by RTC students Edzordzi Agbozo & Tolu Odebunmi presenting “Rhetorical ecologies in contemporary West Africa: reconsidering the ‘triglossic structure’.” Patty Sotirin will be providing commentary to the presenters.

Please join us 5 p.m. Friday, November 10 in Walker 134.

RTC Colloquium: Crisis and Communication in Cross-Cultural Contexts

RTC Colloquium event posterThe Department of Humanities is pleased to announce a Rhetoric, Theory and Culture Colloquium to be held on Friday, February 24 titled “Crisis and Communication in Cross-Cultural Contexts.” RTC student Vincent Manzie will first present his talk “Applying the Rhetoric of Renewal Model in a Contemporary African Context: Lessons Learned from the Royal Dutch Shell Oil Crisis in Nigeria” followed by RTC student Tolulope Odebunmi presenting “Whatsapp: A Safe Haven for Gender Transgression?” Ramon Fonkoué will be providing commentary to the presenters.

Please join us 4 p.m. Friday, February 24 in Walker 134.

RTC Colloquium: When Pop Culture Does Science

RTC Colloquium event posterThe Department of Humanities is pleased to announce a Rhetoric, Theory and Culture Colloquium to be held on Friday, January 27 titled “When Pop Culture Does Science.” RTC student Anna Swartz will first present her talk “The CSI Effect: Are Jurors Starstruck by Forensic Science?” followed by RTC student Shelly Galliah presenting “Creatively Intervening on a Manufactured Scientific Controversy: John Oliver’s Statistically Representative Climate Change Debate & the Problems and Promises of Satirical Science Accommodation.” Andrew Fiss will be providing commentary to the presenters.

Please join us 4 p.m. Friday, January 27 in the Great Lakes Research Center room 202.

Ciara Poe, Events Intern at the Battle Creek Area Chamber of Commerce

I would say that a moment from my internship that sticks out particularly to me is when we had our Business Excellence Awards night. It was a night to showcase and award smaller businesses around the community for the outstanding marks that they made on the community. Anyways, I was wearing pants from two years ago that I thought fit me just fine, but they were just a tad tight. At the end of the awards ceremony the Chamber president called all of the Interns for the summer up on stage. When it came my turn to go up on stage, my foot caught the last step and I came tumbling down. As I fell, I heard this huge rip and my worst fear ever came true. I had just totally and completely ripped my pants in front of over a hundred people, and my face went beet red. Needless to say I tried to pull it off like nothing happened but I could hear a few giggles going around. Just goes to show you that you should never wear tight pants!!!

But that event caused me to have a memory that’ll last me a lifetime, and my coworkers could not stop telling me all their embarrassing stories. Since the beginning, I’ve been involved in many events with the Chamber and community. From setting up caterers, to calling members to participate in events, I have learned so many amazing skills. I still have two more months of my internship and I have many more events lined up for the Chamber. I cannot wait to learn more skills and experience more of the “adult” world. The number one thing that I will take away from this internship is that you always need to have a little fun with your coworkers. You need to laugh and get to know your coworkers and build connections. The more you connect with your coworkers, the better everything is.

Kati Hook, Graphic Design Intern for the MTU Creative Suite 155

East entrance of Wadsworth Hall.One of my most exciting moments so far during my internship has been seeing my work outside my workplace, such as being handed out on flyers or most recently, the hanging banners outside of Wads for Summer Youth Programs this summer. It was a really fun and difficult process. I had to create many drafts to present to my boss’s boss, discuss with him what he wanted to see on the pillars, and come up with new design concepts that made everyone happy. I had to create 3 different banners that all had to have similar themes, and do this within a tight deadline. However, it was all worth it when he came in smiling the day they were hung up saying how much he loved the final product. It’s the little moments like that that make me realize this is what I want to do with my career.