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Topic: Social Media

Kip Wotkyns

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Kip Wotkyns, MBA, is a professor in the Department of Journalism and Media Production at Metropolitan State University of Denver. He teaches intro to journalism and mass media; and ethical and legal issues in journalism.

Wotkyns has 24 years of experience as a journalist. He worked for Time Inc. for 14 years, was a reporter for FORTUNE magazine and a copy editor for TIME magazine. Wotkyns was also the president of Leman Publications Inc., a magazine publishing company formerly owned by Rodale Press Inc. He joined MSU Denver in 2008 and was promoted to full professor in 2018. He is a member of Southwest Education Council for Journalism and Mass Communication and Society of Professional Journalists, as well as faculty advisor for Colorado Press Association.

His research interests include journalism, convergent journalism, social media and drone journalism. Some of Wotkyns’s more recent published works are “Drone Journalism: A Flight Plan for Curriculum Development” in the 7th Annual International Conference on Journalism & Mass Communications in 2018 and “New, Bold and Tenuous: Ethiopian Journalism Education” in Southwestern Mass Communication Journal. He has given several presentations on journalism around the country and in Singapore.

Wotkyns received his Master of Business Administration in media management and a master’s in journalism from Columbia University in 1979 and a bachelor’s in English magna cum laude from Stanford University in 1976. He is a licensed remote pilot airman.

Randyl (Randi) Smith

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Randyl (Randi) Smith, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Her areas of expertise include professional ethics, service-learning, and human sexuality.

Smith is a licensed psychologist and a licensed clinical social worker. She has been working in the mental health field since 1987, providing services in a variety of settings ranging from inpatient psychiatric hospitalization to school-based counseling to home-based family therapy. Smith has her own private practice where she focuses on adult and adolescent treatment, and on marital/couples therapy. She is the chair of the Psychologist Examiner Board for the State of Colorado. Smith has worked with various community partners since she started teaching, including Colorado High School Charter, New Foundations Nonviolence Center, the Denver Rescue Mission, Urban Peak Denver, the Karis Community and CHARG.

Smith received her doctoral in counseling psychology from the University of Denver in 1999 after completing her doctoral internship at Denver General Hospital (now Denver Health Medical Center). She also received a master’s in social work from the University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor’s in human ecology from Cornell University.

Peggy O’Neill-Jones

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Peggy O’Neill-Jones, Ed.D., began her career as a newspaper photographer and moved to broadcast, corporate, and educational media. As media transitioned to digital, online, and virtual environments, Peggy led the way with innovative interactive media productions such as Wyzt’s Playground, a 4th grade interactive math program, WebDVD Demystified, Physical Chemistry in Practice for Purdue University, and 21st Century Learning Matters, a video that describes the strategies and tools needed to create powerful 21st century learning environments.

Keeping a strong foothold in both the academic and professional realms of emerging media, Peggy developed the Interactive Media concentration in 1995 and the Social and Mobile Media concentration in 2013 at MSU Denver. Peggy presents nationally and internationally about the connection between emerging media and learning. After 26-year career at Metropolitan State University of Denver (MSU Denver), Peggy retired in 2016. She was recently awarded professor emeritus of journalism and technical communication and MSU Denver’s first-ever Extraordinary Service Award.

Peggy directs the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Western Region (TPS) program and the TPS Teachers Network at MSU Denver. TPS provides professional development that assists educators in finding, accessing, and integrating the vast reservoir of sources from the Library of Congress to deepen understanding and enrich instruction. Through Peggy’s leadership, the TPS at MSU Denver program grew from statewide outreach to a regional program that serves 14 western states.

Edgar Maldonado

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Edgar Maldonado is an associate professor in the Department of Computer Information Systems at Metropolitan State University of Denver. He holds a Ph.D. in information sciences and technology from Pennsylvania State University. A native Venezuelan with an extensive professional and academic background in engineering, he has spent several years designing and implementing network solutions and systems internationally.

He has experience as a software support engineer for banking networks, with projects in Venezuela and the Caribbean. Before joining MSU Denver, he worked at an IT consulting firm in Denver.

Maldonado specializes in the socioeconomic aspects of information technology and is well versed on the topics of computer security, cyber terrorism, public policies and information systems technologies, including emergency management.

He is aware of the major issues concerning intellectual property as applicable to technology patents and is an asset to the implementation of multicultural information systems. His scholarly work has been published in several peer-reviewed journals and he was a leader for one of the national level case studies in the “Research of Emergency Capacity Building,” sponsored by the National Science Foundation, as a research assistant at Penn State University.

Laurel Lane

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Laurel Lane, MA, is a lecturer in the Department of Marketing at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Her areas of expertise include digital marketing, social media marketing, selling, building new products and fiscal management. She currently teaches Introduction to Business and Business Communication.

Prior to joining MSU Denver, Lane worked at KMGH-TV Denver7 as a digital marketing strategist. She also worked for The Erie Times and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in strategic advertising and marketing. Lane worked as a consultant and owner of her own digital, mobile and social media consulting company, Digital Span Solutions. She was awarded the 2011 Newspaper Excellence in Cyberspace from Pennsylvania’s Newspaper Association. Lane is a member of the Association of Free Community Newspapers, Girl Scouts of America, Inland Press Association and the Newspaper Association of America.

Lane’s research areas include marketing, organizational management, marketing and gender and workplace culture. She has given presentations on topics such as “Mobile for Newspapers” and “Leveraging your Digital Content to Secure your Revenue Future”.

Lane earned her master’s degree in integrated marketing communications from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2000. She earned her bachelor’s degree in English literature from the University of Houston in 1997.

Elizabeth Kleinfeld

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Elizabeth Kleinfeld, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of English and director of the Writing Center at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

She began her teaching career at Red Rocks Community College in 2001 where she worked as a writing center coordinator while also addressing writing curriculum, tutoring and composition.

Kleinfeld conducts research on academic rhetoric, composition pedagogy and theory, digital rhetoric, intellectual property, and multigenre and multimodal composition. She has co-authored two textbooks: “The Bedford Book of Genres: A Rhetoric” and “The Bedford Book of Genres: A Rhetoric and Reader.” Kleinfeld has also written numerous essays, peer-reviewed journal articles and edited handbooks. She has done many presentations at conferences and held work’shops. Kleinfeld is a member of: International Society for Humor Studies, Alliance for Computers and Writing, International Writing Centers Association, Colorado and Wyoming Writing Center Association and eLearning Consortium of Colorado.

Kleinfeld received her doctorate in English studies and master’s in English from Illinois State University and a bachelor’s in history from Bradley University.

Chris Jennings

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Chris Jennings, Ed.D. is chair and professor in the Department of Journalism and Media Production at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

He has over two decades of experience in the media education field. Jennings has held positions as training analyst, instructional designer, director of digital media services, digital media producer, consultant and adjunct teaching faculty. He worked as education program specialist at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. In addition to teaching, Jennings was assistant director for An Adventure of the American Mind Grant at MSU Denver. He is a member of several professional organizations including e-Learning Consortium of Colorado, American Society of Training and Development, International Society of Performance Improvement and Society of Technical Communications. Jennings received the Humanitarian Service Medal, Expeditionary Medal (Panama), Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal and the National Defense Medal for his service in the U.S. Army.

His research interests include interactive realities, virtual realities, streaming media, usability testing and human factors with technology. Jennings has authored and co-authored several books with the most recent one in 2010 titled “Educational Virtual Environment Methodologies: Second Life as an Instructional Tool” a textbook for the University of Wyoming. He has given many presentations around the country and on a few occasions in China about the use of media and technology in education.

Jennings received his Doctor of Education in instructional technology from the University of Wyoming in 2010, a master’s in multimedia technologies from Regis University in 2002 and a bachelor’s in speech communication from MSU Denver in 1996.

Samuel Jay

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Samuel Jay, Ph.D., is a professor of Communication Studies and interim executive director of Online Learning at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

He joined MSU Denver in 2011 as an adjunct professor and went full-time in 2014. Jay opened his own consulting company in 2015 called Jay Communication Solutions helping individuals and small businesses market themselves. He has developed and implemented content marketing campaigns, handled social media accounts of NCAA Division I sports teams and coached and managed projects for varied clients. Jay also produces and co-hosts a weekly sports podcast and radio show, called Sports Nerds, where he examines how sports influence our perception of things like race, class, gender and power. He also co-hosts a weekly podcast, called Unfiltered, where leaders in the craft beverage industry are featured, providing a behind-the-scenes look at what they do.

His research focus areas include how digital communication technologies and their users generate and circulate emotional energy and how that energy adds rhetoric effectiveness to disparate discourses, including politics, sports, and economics.

Jay received his doctorate in communication studies with a focus on rhetoric and a minor in emergent digital practices from University of Denver in 2014, a master’s in radio-television-film from University of North Texas in 2009 and a bachelor’s in cinema and comparative literature from University of Iowa in 2006.

William Huddy

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William Huddy, Ph.D., is a lecturer in the Department of Communications at Metropolitan State University of Denver where he teaches Communication Research and Theory Building, Campus Communication, Communication and Politics and Public Speaking.

Prior to teaching, Huddy worked in the field of radio and television for 20 year and has experience working in the areas of reporting, anchoring, editing, photojournalism, advertising and news directing. His primary research interests include media and celebrities, dependence on mobile phone technology, student engagement in public speaking, dynamic changes in political campaigning (and the importance of internet campaigning with less reliance on television) and new methods in communication as a means of activism and social justice.

Huddy received his Ph.D. in communication studies from the University of Denver in 2012, a master’s in instructional communication from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs in 2003 and a bachelor’s in mass communication and international relations from California State University in 1975.

Katia Campbell

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Katia Campbell, Ph.D., is the chair in the Department of Communication Studies at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

Her scholarship and teaching focuses on rhetoric, free speech, cultural representation, popular media and critical pedagogy. Campbell is also the Faculty Senate President. Outside of MSU Denver, she consults and facilitates workshops on communication and diversity, media literacy, free speech, public speaking, and dialogic ethics. After completing her doctorate, Campbell worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Communication at University of Colorado Denver.

Her research areas of interest include, but are not limited to, citizenship and civic engagement, cultural diversity and communication within a U.S. cultural context and cultural studies with an emphasis on media studies. Campbell has co-authored three publications in the areas of civic engagement and social justice. Her book, “Neo-Pragmatism, Communication, and the Culture of Creative Democracy,” focuses specifically on the malleable conceptions of citizenship and civic responsibility and explicates the possible social ramifications of our modern practice of citizenship.

Campbell earned her doctorate in human communication studies from University of Denver in 2004.

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