Columbia Scholastic Press Association

These are the speakers scheduled to speak at this year's CSPA Fall Conference

Matthew Chayes is a staff reporter for Newsday in New York, where he covers crime. Before joining the newspaper's staff in 2007, he worked in The Chicago Tribune's Washington bureau, then as a freelance reporter in New York City. He's been a guest on the BBC and the Fox News Channel. In high school and college, he edited the campus newspapers.

Alena Cybart-Persenaire teaches English and journalism at Kennedy High School in Waterbury, Conn. where she chairs the English department plus advises The Eagle Flyer newspaper, winner of 44 journalism awards including three 2011 New England Scholastic Press Association awards and the 2011 Connecticut Daily News Photography Award. A former staff writer for the Bristol Press, Hartford Courant and Columbia Spectator, Alena was named the University of Connecticut’s 2006 Graduate of the Last Decade. She was editor in chief of UConn’s The Daily Campus, winning 1996 second place U.S. Newspaper of the Year from the Associated Collegiate Press.

Jenny Dial is a sports writer and online reporter for the Houston Chronicle. Dial worked for the Gold Crown-winning Oklahoma Daily for four years and held internships with the United States Olympic Committee and Sports Illustrated on Campus. Dial has covered the Olympics, the NBA finals, the NCAA Final Four, the BCS Orange Bowl, College World Series and the NFL and NBA drafts. She has taught at the CSPA Summer Journalism Workshop. She attended East Central High School in San Antonio, where two yearbooks she edited received CSPA Crown Awards.

Mary Kay Downes has advised the award-winning Odyssey yearbook for the past 19 years at Chantilly (VA) High School where she serves as English department chair. Odyssey has routinely received NSPA Pacemaker and CSPA Crown Awards. A recipient of the CSPA Gold Key, the NSPA Pioneer Award and the VAJTA Douglas Freeman and Thomas Jefferson Awards, Downes was also named as 2007 JEA Yearbook Adviser of the Year. She has had articles published in the SPR Student Press Review, Quill and Scroll, Journalism Today and C-Jet. She currently serves as the immediate past president of the Columbia Scholastic Press Advisers Association.

Paul Ender, who retired in 2000, was adviser to the American yearbook at Independence High School in San Jose, CA, for more than 25 years. Personal honors include JEA Yearbook Adviser of the Year, Northern California Yearbook Adviser of the Year, CSPA Gold Key, NSPA Pioneer Award and OIPA National Scholastic Journalism Hall of Fame. His students’ books earned many state and national awards.

Adam Goldstein is Attorney Advocate for the Student Press Law Center who is licensed to practice in New York. Beyond media law, his Internet work has included representing domain name complainants in arbitration and authoring several legal articles on online copyright and trademark issues. Before entering legal practice, Goldstein spent three years as a freelance producer and editor for FoxNews.com, handling day-to-day and breaking news coverage. Goldstein graduated from Fordham University School of Law in 2002; during his studies, he served as the Technology Editor of the Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal. Goldstein received his undergraduate degree in Internet Journalism from Fordham College at Lincoln Center, where he was the Editor-in-Chief of the FCLC Observer. He is a member of the New York State Bar Association and the ABA.

Robert Greenman taught high school and college English and journalism, and advised school publications, for more than 30 years. He is a newspaper in education consultant for The New York Times and the high school liaison for the Society of Professional Journalists’ New York City chapter, the Deadline Club. Greenman is the author of The Adviser’s Companion, a guide for high school newspaper advisers, and vocabulary enrichment books based on words and passages from The New York Times and the Atlantic Monthly: Words That Make A Difference and More Words That Make A Difference (co-authored by his wife, Carol). He writes regularly for the Visual Thesaurus language Web site, visualthesaurus.com. Visit his Web site at www.robertgreenman.com

John Hampson is an English teacher at Wantagh High School and a co-adviser to Escapades, the WHS literary magazine.  In addition to teaching, he is the writer and singer of the 2000 Billboard # 1 hit song, “Absolutely (Story of a Girl)” and has released seven albums since 1996 with his band, ninedays.  He is the recipient of ASCAP’s (American Society of Composers and Publishers) Top 5 songs of the Year in 2000, and his songs have been published worldwide by Warner Chappel Music.  He continues to write and perform his music.

Sean Kelly is an illustrator whose work appears in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone and Businessweek, among other publications. His visual commentaries are frequently seen on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times. Kelly’s corporate clients include American Express, Viacom, IBM and The Smithsonian Institution. His work has been exhibited by The Society of Illustrators and featured on the CBS News program Face The Nation. The National Cartoonists Society named him Best Newspaper Illustrator in 2007. Kelly graduated from Brown University and studied at Rhode Island School of Design.

Dean Kostos’s collection Last Supper of the Senses was released this past September; he is also the author of the collection The Sentence that Ends with a Comma (which was taught at Duke University) and the chapbook Celestial Rust. He co-edited the anthology Mama’s Boy. His poems have appeared in Barrow Street, Boulevard, Chelsea, Cimarron Review, Oprah Winfrey’s web site Oxygen, The Paris Review (forthcoming), Rattapallax, Southwest Review, Western Humanities Review, and elsewhere; his translations from the Modern Greek have appeared in Talisman and Barrow Street. His reviews have appeared in American Book Review, Bay Windows, and elsewhere. “Box-Triptych,” his choreo-poem, was staged at La Mama. He has taught poetry writing at Pratt University, Gotham Writers’ Workshop, Teachers &Writers’ Workshop, Teachers &Writers Collaborative, and the Great Lakes Colleges Association. A member of PEN, American Center, he was also the recipient of a Yaddo fellowship.

Gary Lundgren, served as director of student publications and director of the Arkansas Scholastic Press Association during his nine years on the faculty of the University of Arkansas. During that time, his staffs received several Gold Crown and Pacemaker Awards and he received the CSPA Gold Key, NSPA Pioneer Award, JEA Medal of Merit and was inducted into the Scholastic Journalism Hall of Fame. He also published Yearbook Points & Picas magazine for 11 years. Lundgren, currently is a senior marketing manager for Jostens, manages the company’s educational offerings for yearbook staffs. His projects include editing the 1,2,3 Yearbook  Journalism Curriculum, the Get the Picture photography curriculum, the Gotcha Covered Look Book,  Jostens Adviser & Staff magazine and directing Jostens Adviser University. The Jostens 1,2,3  Yearbook Journalism Curriculum he edited received a Distinguished Merit Award from the Association of Educational Publishers. Lundgren has taught yearbook and design workshops in 43 states.

Christian McEwen is currently working on a play about women and money, based on interviews with more than forty women. Its title is “Legal Tender: Women & the Secret Life of Money.” Her book on creativity and slowing down comes out in Fall 2011 with New Village Press in CA. Its title is “All the Time in the World: The Ordinary Joy of Slowing Down.”

Scott Menscher is a Communication Arts teacher at Edward R. Murrow High School in Brooklyn, N.Y. He is currently in his 15th year advising the school newspaper, The Murrow Network, a CSPA Gold Medalist Certificate recipient. He has taught as an adjunct journalism professor at New York University and Long Island University. Menscher has also freelanced for USA Today, New York Newsday, New York Daily News and TimeOut NY. In 2005, he was invited to Beijing Normal University in China to speak about American Journalism. Before becoming a teacher, Menscher worked as a sports writer for Gannett Suburban Newspapers and covered the Yankees, Mets, Jets, Giants and New Jersey Nets. Menscher is receiving a 2011 Special Recognition award by the Dow Jones News Fund.

Diana Mitsu Klos, senior project director at ASNE, oversees a youth journalism initiative that includes free teacher training, online hosting of youth news sites and an educational website. Diana worked for newspapers in New Jersey, Connecticut and New York and is a a recipient of CSPA's Gold Key.

Alan Murray is Executive Director of Uncharted, a network of journalists, designers, programmers and other professionals who work together with an online community of explorers to document people, cultures, and places worldwide at www.uncharted.net. Murray has worked as an editor, photographer and reporter for a variety of publications and has won awards for his photojournalism, including public service honors for his work documenting organ donation issues.

Mark Murray is coordinator of technology systems for Arlington Independent School District in Arlington, Texas. He also serves as the executive director of the Association of Texas Photography Instructors and as consultant for the Photo Imaging Education Association. He is a frequent presenter at conferences and workshops around the country, including the CSPA and JEA/NSPA conferences, Carolina Journalism Institute, Dallas County Publication Workshop and Flint Hills Summer Publication workshop. During his tenure as photography instructor at Lamar High School in Arlington, he was one of the advisers to élan, Lamar’s literary/art magazine, a Pacemaker and Silver Crown winner. He received a Gold Key from CSPA in 2004.

Jacob Palenske is the President of NCompass Media, LLC in Dallas, Texas. Palenske is a graduate of Kansas State University and a frequent speaker and instructor at journalism workshops across the country and in Europe. Since 2003, clients of NCompass have been nominated for 26 Interactive Yearbook Pacemaker awards, and have won 13. He is the co-director of the European Exposure photography workshop, and was an instructor in residence for the high school program at The Poynter Institute.

Merrill Perlman is a consultant who works with news organizations, private companies and journalism organizations, specializing in editing and the English language. She spent 25 years at The New York Times in jobs ranging from copy editor to director of copy desks, in charge of all 150-plus copy editors at The Times. Before going to The Times, she was a copy editor and assistant business editor at The Des Moines Register. Previous to that, she was a reporter and copy editor at The Southern Illinoisan newspaper. She has a bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Missouri and a master of arts in mass communication from Drake University.

Laura Schaub is a national creative design and media consultant for student publications throughout the country. Previously, she served as executive director of the Oklahoma Interscholastic Press Association at the University of Oklahoma where she also taught courses in typography, design, desktop publishing and photography. Prior to working at OU, she taught journalism courses and advised student publications at Charles Page High School in Sand Springs, OK, for 22 years. She also worked as a national creative accounts manager for Jostens for six years and as director of education and training for Balfour. Schaub is a CSPA Gold Key recipient, past Oklahoma Journalism Teacher of the Year and former DJNF Distinguished Adviser. She was inducted into the National Scholastic Journalism Hall of Fame in 1991 and served as president of the CSPAA for two terms. In 1997, she was University of Oklahoma Journalism Professor of the Year. She received the NSPA Pioneer Award in 2000. She has directed and taught student publications workshops throughout the United States and recently served as contributing author to Journalism Today, a journalism text and workbook series published by the National Textbook Company. She also co-authored and edited Scholastic Yearbook Fundamentals, a monograph published by the CSPA. She served as images editor and contributing writer for CSPA’s most recent monograph, Magazine Fundamentals. She chaired the CSPA Judging Standards and Practices Committee for over ten years. In March 2001, she received the Joseph M. Murphy Award for Service from CSPA and The New York Times. In 2002, she received the James F. Paschal Award for service as a state scholastic press association director. She also recently was named one of 75 Legends in Texas Scholastic Journalism. At the 2004 CSPA convention, she received the Charles R. O’Malley Award for Excellence in Teaching Journalism. She is a professor emerita at the University of Oklahoma.

Tracy Anne Sena is the adviser of the Broadview, the student newspaper at Convent of the Sacred Heart High School in San Francisco, where she is also the chair of the Computer Science department, providing a natural segue way as a trainer in computer applications and a frequent presenter at journalism and technology conferences. She also serves as a judge for several local and national journalism organizations. Ms. Sena is the 2007 California Journalism Educator of the Year, JEA Medal of Merit recipient and Dow Jones Newspaper Fund Distinguished Adviser, and additionally serves on the Advisory Boards of the Columbia Scholastic Press Association Advisers Association, Center for Scholastic Journalism Kent State University and Journalism Education Association Northern California, and is a member of the Journalism Education Association Scholastic Press Rights Commission.

Mike Simons advises the Skjöld at West High School in Painted Post, NY, a three-time “Ideas that Fly” honoree. He teaches digital photography and design and is also a special education teacher and band director. He is on the faculty of The Gettysburg Yearbook Experience, where he teaches advanced digital photography and has presented at many local and regional conferences.

Helen F. Smith is the executive director of the New England Scholastic Press Association and a past president of the Columbia Scholastic Press Advisers Association. From 1973-2009, she taught English and journalism and advised the Newtonite and Mirettes at Newton North High School in Newtonville, Mass. Publications she has edited include Journalist’s Handbook for the New England Press Association, and Springboard to Journalism and its Teacher’s Manual, The Official CSPA Stylebook, Scholastic Newspaper Fundamentals and Scholastic Newspaper Critique for CSPA. Along with teaching in CSPA programs, she has taught high school students and teachers at Boston University, and, through the Soros Foundation, in Kyrgyzstan, the Republic of Georgia, Hungary and Romania. The U.S. State Department’s ACCELS program also sent her to teach in Kyrgyzstan.  At the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, she has been a visiting teacher since 2006. She has edited the Writing Handbook for the American University of Central Asia and the university’s Web Page Style Guide. Since 2007 she has worked with teachers in Lusaka, Zambia through the Communities Without Borders program.

C. Randy Stano is professor of practice in visual journalism and journalism in the School of Communications and editorial adviser for the Ibis yearbook at the University of Miami. He is the former director of editorial art and design for The Miami Herald and the Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester, NY. Stano was assistant art director at the Kansas City Times and part of its Pulitzer Prize-winning team in 1982 and the Herald’s in 1993. A former president of the Society of News Design, Stano also chaired the southeast region, contest and quick course committees for SND. While teaching at A.N. McCallum High School in Austin, TX during the 1970’s, Stano was the school’s publications adviser and the DJNF National High School Journalism Teacher of the Year in 1974. Stano has received numerous awards for art/design directing from SND, National Headliners Club, Florida Society of Newspaper Editors, Print and many other design contests. He works as a consultant and judge for numerous art/design competitions. Stano received the CSPA Gold Key in 1980.

Edmund Sullivan serves as executive director of the Columbia Scholastic Press Association and also as executive director for professional prizes in the Graduate School of Journalism. A former high school newspaper editor, he recalls being forced to watch as his school’s principal burned an issue he had edited. He considers that episode as having “seared” the First Amendment into his consciousness. As a result, he has dedicated his working life to the cause of a free student press. Besides his work at Columbia, he served on the Student Press Law Center Board of Directors from 1983 to 2000. His numerous awards include the Laurence B. Johnson Award for Best Editorial Writing from the Educational Press Association of America, Distinguished Service Award from Community College Journalism Association, the Reid Montgomery Service Award from College Media Advisers, the NSPA Pioneer Award and the Gold Key from CSPA. He was inducted into the National Scholastic Journalism Hall of Fame in 1998.

John Tagliareni advised Bear Facts, the student newspaper of Bergenfield (NJ) High School, for 37 years until his retirement from teaching in 2010. Bear Facts has received the GSSPA’s Garden State Award, the NJPA’s Award for General Excellence, and the CSPA’s Gold Medalist with All-Columbian honors, and Silver Crowns. Bear Facts was featured on the Reading Rainbow program, televised nationally, as well as ABC-TV’s Nightline and on National Public Radio. He is a former president and current officer of the GSSPA, which awarded him its Golden Quill Award for Distinguished Service in 1984. The DJNF selected him as a Distinguished Adviser that same year. Tagliareni has judged student newspapers for the CSPA. He is a recipient of the CSPA Gold Key in 1992 and the OIPA’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2000, the CSPA honored him with the Jubilee Award and The New York Times and CSPA honored him with the Charles R. O’Malley Award for Excellence in Teaching. He also served as CSPAA Recording Secretary from 2002-2004.  The Deadline Club, The New York City Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, honored him with their Teacher Recognition Award in 2007. He serves on the Student Press Rights Commission of the JEA, which awarded its Lifetime Achievement Award to him in 2010.

Violet Turner has taught middle school and high school English in Wantagh, NY schools for 23 years.  She is an adjunct professor for Long Island University, taught creative writing for over a decade, and was the adviser to Escapades, the WHS literary magazine, for seven years. Turner also taught creative writing to inmates at Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, NY.  Her extensive writing background includes copywriting for WLIR radio and Costich and McConnell Advertising, news writing and announcing for WLIM radio, public relations for the Stony Brook Community Fund and the Clinton County Mental Health Association, educational scriptwriting, and freelance writing for publications such as Newsday, Maximum Guitar, Screenwriters Magazine, Expecting Magazine, and the Long Island Voice. She was the 1992 first place recipient of the Phyllis Whitney Writing Award and has had her photography featured in Popular Photography. Turner has received the New York State English Council Educator of Excellence Award (2008) and was a National Endowment for the Humanities recipient. She is presently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing at SUNY Stony Brook Southampton.

Bruce Watterson has been working with scholastic and collegiate publication students for years and started as a student editor in high school and college. He’s worked as an adviser in secondary and collegiate publication circles…all the while he has never met a pica he didn't like...His passion for teaching meshes with his desire to inspire creativity, imaginative approaches and maybe even a little risk taking in publications. Honored most recently with the Joseph Murphy Award for Service to Journalism, Watterson currently chairs the judging team for the Crown Awards at Columbia Scholastic Press Association.

Ray Westbrook is newspaper and yearbook adviser at St. Mark’s School of Texas in Dallas where publications he advises have won Gold Crowns, Pacemakers and Gold Stars.  A frequent speaker at publications workshops during the summer, he serves as president of the CSPA Advisers Association and has received the Gold Key from CSPA, the John Murrell Excellence in Teaching Award from St. Mark’s and the Edith Fox King Award and the Max Haddick Texas Journalism Teacher of the Year award from ILPC.

Kathleen D. Zwiebel was the 1998 Dow Jones Newspaper Fund National High School Journalism Teacher of the Year. She advised five publications at Pottsville Area High School in Pottsville, PA. In the past the publications have received national and state honors from CSPA, NSPA and PSPA. A 1996 CSPA Gold Key recipient, Zwiebel also received the CSPA Diamond Jubilee Award, Charles R. O’Malley Award for Excellence in Teaching, NSPA Pioneer Award, JEA Medal of Merit and PSPA Teacher of the Year. She serves as past president of the Columbia Scholastic Press Advisers Association and chairs its committee on Judging Standards.