Finding the hook

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Sometimes a news hook is part of the pitch. Sometimes it’s inserted by an assigning editor. Other times it happens to present itself organically in a seemingly evergreen story. In this piece, it was the latter. Having a news hook will certainly boost your chances of landing a pitch, but it’s important to try not to force the newsiness of a story. 

Psychology Program Expands to Include Neuropsychology

The troubling long-term effects from concussions and head injuries to athletes have been a subject of national debate for more than a year, and the tragic suicide of Robin Williams this summer prompted a discussion about the challenges those with depression face.

Across the country, matters of the brain and behavior are playing a larger role in health care, education and public policy. At the University of New Hampshire at Manchester, interest in studying these subjects has increased. The Psychology program is one of the fastest growing programs on campus.

UNH Manchester recently added to its faculty and expanded course offerings to provide students with classes in these growing areas of study. The university has four full-time faculty professors who are focused in a wide variety of fields of expertise, including developmental psychology, experimental sensory psychology, personality psychology and neuroscience.

Although psychology isn’t the first major a student might think of when looking for a “hands-on” college experience, the UNH Manchester Psychology program has been designed to do just that, whether in the lab or in the field. This fall, students had even more opportunities to get that important hands-on experience.

The university’s most recent hire is Daniel Seichepine, lecturer of psychology, who has done extensive research on the impact of concussions and was a co-author of the first published article on the impacts of brain injuries on behavior among NFL players. Seichepine said he hopes to continue studying concussions and how they affect mood behaviors and plans to expand UNH Manchester’s course offering in neuropsychology.

“Neuropsychology is a growing field,” said Seichepine. “It kind of grew in big cities first but now the Elliot Hospital in Manchester has hired two new neuroscientists.”

You can read the full article on UNH Manchester Campus News here.

What the kids are up to

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When I was an undergrad, I took some digital media classes. This was before Web 2.0 and the term “social media” when blogs were confessional, not a means to making money. Hopefully this intro, and this story’s lead, don’t make me sound 100 years old. I just wanted to note that this was a fun assignment, seeing how colleges are beefing up their digital curricula in the arts.

Communication Arts Goes High-Tech with Two New Options

Whether it’s creating their own website or recording a short video for class on their smartphones, today’s students are looking for ways to integrate technology into their studies. University of New Hampshire at Manchester faculty members have seen the increased use of digital technology in a wide range of fields and are responding by adding digital elements to their classes.

Communications Arts is one such program. With two new options focused on getting technology into students’ hands, as well as a new and expanded audio and video studio in the 88 Commercial Street building, UNH Manchester students now have more access than ever to the technology being used in the media and communications industries today.

Beginning this year, Communication Arts students can enroll in two new “options,” allowing them to take five classes specifically focused on the digital, film and audio side of communications. The options also show up on students transcripts and better describe to graduate schools and future employers the student’s expertise, said Associate Professor of Communications Jeffrey Klenotic.

“Alumni already describe what they did at UNH Manchester,” Klenotic said. “They got a major in Communication Arts, but on LinkedIn, they’re talking about studying digital media.”

Read the rest of the story on UNH Manchester Campus News here.

It’s a small state

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If you stay in the media business long enough in New Hampshire, you’re going to know everyone — reporters, photographers, TV newscasters, columnists, PR flacks, company spokespeople, campaign bloggers — you get the idea. While I’m far from knowing everyone, I’ve been around long enough to see connections overlap more and more often.

I first connected with Kate as a blogger for Stay Work Play New Hampshire. It was a fun way to write about weekend trips and job hunting tips as I got my career on track after having my daughter. The amount of content this site produces regularly is impressive, as is the amount of work Kate does to keep the organization going. I got the chance to speak with her again for an alumna interview for UNH Manchester “Campus News.” You can read the first part of the story below, or go to the UNH Manchester site for the whole piece.

Alumna Helps Young People Find Ways to Stay, Work and Play in NH

When Kate Luczko talks to students about her role as Executive Director of Stay Work Play New Hampshire, they often ask her what she does in a typical day. There is no typical day, Luczko said.

“Every day is different, which is one of the things I love the most,” she said. Stay Work Play New Hampshire’s website features work and life advice for people in the early stages of their career, as well as links and blog posts about fun things to do in New Hampshire. The organization also runs a series of programs, including the Talent & Internship Summit, NH Internships, the Challenge Grant student loan repayment program, and the annual Rising Stars Awards.

The non-profit, which aims to encourage young people to start their careers and make home in the Granite State, has recently hired a part-time staff person. But before this person came on, Luczko said her role at Stay Work Play New Hampshire was like being “a jack of all trades.”

“Among other things, I’m responsible for the website, social media, outreach, organizing events and public relations. We have almost 20 volunteer bloggers, so I’m managing them too,” she said. “It’s a wide variety of things.”

To read more go to UNH Manchester’s blog here.

Summer projects

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Sometimes a story evolves between assignment and deadline. That was the case with this piece, written for UNH Manchester’s Campus News. I originally highlighted the long-running small mammal research project headed by Professor Steve Pugh and the unique experience it provided students over the summer, but after first review the story became something bigger.

Beyond the Books and into the Field for Summer Animal Tracking

Each day, Joshua Linnane walks a portion of an 800-acre plot of undeveloped land on the outskirts of Manchester. The senior biology major at the University of New Hampshire at Manchester eyes the ground and trees for hair, scat and rub marks on trees. He’s looking for signs of wild mammals in this urban forest.

Linnane has three motion detection cameras set up in the woods, located in the area known as Hackett Hill. He leaves each camera for up to two weeks to eliminate his human scent from the area and later retrieves the card to see what animals crossed its path.

Linanne is one of UNH Manchester’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship grant recipients. Linnane is conducting a 10-week study and after will compare his findings to data collected 12 years ago by then-student Christine Andrews, UNH professional tutor and lab instructor.

“I’ve found coyotes, raccoon, something that looked like a bobcat, porcupines, opossums, chipmunks and a couple of non-mammal species, like turkeys, blue herons and turkey vultures,” said Linnane. On one of his morning walks, Linnane said he wandered upon a moose and her calf. “It’s really only five minutes out of the city and the diversity in this area is huge.”

To read more, go to UNH Manchester Campus News.

Science Teacher Shortage Lands in Two Publications

This piece was originally published on UNH Manchester’s Campus News site, but was later picked up by New Hampshire Business Review. Please click through to either one of the links for the full story.

UNHM program addresses science teacher shortage

Derek Burkhardt always wanted to be a teacher. He attended to the University of New Hampshire at Manchester to explore his teaching options in the arts, but ultimately decided to become a biology major and seek a career as an environmental consultant.

This summer, Burkhardt is finishing up his bachelor’s degree in biology, but he’s come back around again on the teaching career.

“I realized I always wanted to be a teacher and just because I didn’t want to be an art teacher didn’t mean I couldn’t be a science teacher,” said Burkhardt.

Burkhardt is entering an area of teaching where certified professionals are in short supply. Across the country, and in New Hampshire, science teachers are considered a “critical shortage area,” specifically in middle school and some high school science classes.

Read more either here or here.

Big Data in a Small City

I had no idea what the term “Big Data” meant until I was assigned this story. When I called my first source, I felt a little sheepish about being so clueless about it, but that’s often the case with journalism. One of the best tips I got as a fledgling reporter was that I should never be afraid to admit I didn’t know something. So I asked, what is Big Data. I was told the name is really just a silly tech term, like Web 2.0, and the actual substance of Big Data, well, it’s big. You’ll see when you read the story.

 

Photo by Mike Ross, UNH Photo Services

Photo by Mike Ross, UNH Photo Services

Preparing Students for Big Data at UNH Manchester

The amount of stuff we compile on digital devices has exploded in the past five years. Everything from the selfies we take on our iPhones to the medical data gathered every day at hospitals across the country, the amount of digital data now being created is massive. Coming up with better ways to store, access and process this information is a fast growing segment of the computing technology field, called “big data,” and it’s an area where University of New Hampshire at Manchester students will be able to learn more with the launch of a new class in 2015.

Jeremiah Johnson, a lecturer in mathematics at UNH Manchester, is currently developing the new course, “Statistics in Computing and Engineering,” which will be offered in the spring semester next year. Aimed at students in the Computer Science and Entrepreneurship program, the class will discuss methods for analyzing large amounts of data and breaking the information into functional pieces, essentially laying the groundwork for the skills needed to work in “big data.”

“Students coming out of college with a computer science degree will need to know how to work on big data,” said Johnson. “The big growth area in Silicon Valley is data-driven technology.”

Read more at UNH Manchester Campus News.

Tech Girls

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Girls Technology Day looks like it was a blast. It was certainly a blast writing about it.

High School Students Explore Computing and Engineering at Girls Technology Day

The computer tech boom of the past decade has created many new and exciting careers for young people, but what troubles people like Mihaela Sabin, associate professor and coordinator of the Computing Technology Program in the Division of Science and Technology at UNH Manchester, is that too few young women are entering the tech field.

“One stereotype that prevents girls from being interested in computing is about how technology professionals are perceived,” said Sabin. “Girls in middle school and high school imagine a lonely programmer working on a laptop, she said, with little collaboration or communication with co-workers and team mates. Unfortunately, many girls see working in technology as kind of geeky and lacking meaningful social interactions.”

Read more here:

Manchester Love

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The longer I work in Manchester, the more I come to realize it’s my second home. Although I’m not in the city as often as I was during my Union Leader days, I have more professional connections in the Queen City than I do in my hometown. I’ve gotten to know the place from a unique perspective — as one who works but has never lived there — which inspired me to do a quick post about it.

There’s plenty to complain about when it comes to Manchester, like traffic. Seriously, how is it that traffic is so bad here. Perhaps the 1 million lights? Or the worst drivers north of Boston? Crime is another factor, which is relatively low compared to some other cities the size of Manchester, but people in New Hampshire are outraged by a dog fouling epidemic. Hearing about a rash of break-ins or a drug ring bust is cause for panic.

Manchester is one of those funny places that has a small town feel, but big city problems. I think the big city aspects add more to Manchester than diminish, but I hold things like culture, entertainment opportunities and diversity in high regard.  Here’s a sample of the Stay Work Play piece I wrote this week:

5 Reasons to Love Manchester

Manchester has many personas, depending on who you are and where you live. For some it’s where you see Van Halen play on its next tour. For others it’s a place to go bar hopping, and unfortunately for others, they see Manchester as a city where your car might get broken into. I’ve worked in Manchester off and on for a few years now and have found that the city has more to offer than its “Manchvegas” nickname lets on.

1. Manchester is multicultural

For one of the least diverse states in the country, New Hampshire’s Queen City is very diverse. Dozens of languages are spoken by students in Manchester’s public schools and more than 20 percent of the students are non-white. Manchester today is home to Sudanese, Bhutanese and Iraqis. Having different cultures represented in the city means there are stores and restaurants that cater to these cultures. The West Side has the Ali Baba Wholefoods Festival & Treasures, which serves wine, groceries and prepared food like falafel, shawarma and channa masala. Near Gill Stadium is its sister store the Spice Center, a market offering foods mainly from the Middle East and southeast Asia. There are many more small markets throughout the city that have ethnic food sections catering to the neighborhood. Manchester also has an embarrassing amount of good Mexican restaurants and a highly rated Nepali restaurant, Café Momo.

2. Manchester has the Merrimack River

During the Industrial Revolution, Manchester’s riverfront property was taken over by mills and warehouses. Now it has a baseball park, walking trails, and luxury condominiums. The mills are still there, but inside are tech firms, restaurants and the UNH Manchester campus. If you want to get up close to the river, head to Arms Park. Parking is ample and you can walk along the Merrimack just feet from the rushing water below.