By Alan Rubin (Comm’74)

The first is that I very much enjoyed my college career at CU. In fact, I remember one chilly, clear January morning my junior year (I was a resident advisor in Williams Village) waiting for the Buff Bus to go to class. I looked toward the snow-covered Flatirons under a brilliant blue sky thinking, “I need to savor every minute of my time here at CU, because I may never have this much fun again.”

As it turned out, I’ve had lots of fun since then, but I remember fondly my four undergraduate years. I am particularly grateful for my professors in the department, especially Wayne Brockriede, Don Darnell and Harold Hill, all of whom inspired me and made me a better critical thinker.

And I can honestly say I’ve used my communication degree every day since I graduated. I have used the understanding I gained in school about how people receive and learn information to great effect in my career in sales and training. I have consistently enjoyed what I do, and I attribute that in part to my studies in communication. Evidently, it had an impact on my daughter, Francesca, who is currently studying communication at CU Boulder.

Finally, I contribute to CMCI because I think now, more than ever, the planet needs more people who can communicate honestly and well. We live in an age of 140-character unidirectional communications, self-publishing and very little editing. This leads to an enormous amount of disingenuousness and confusion, not to mention polarization.

I support the college because I think its graduates can contribute to reducing these problems and make things better as we adapt to this new world of digital conversations.

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Photos by Tom Yulsman

The Ted Scripps Fellowships in Environmental Journalism have equipped more than 100 journalists with the knowledge and skills needed to cover the complex and multidimensional environmental issues of the day.

Scripps fellow Chris Lett examines a carnivorous plant at the CU Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Greenhouse as Tess Additon, greenhouse manager, points out the plant’s unique features. Scripps fellow Elizabeth Royte looks on.

Now, the program’s competitiveness with the nation’s top fellowship programs, and its visibility, will be enhanced even further. This is thanks to a $2.47 million gift from Cindy Scripps, who has funded the program at the University of Colorado Boulder since 1996.

“My father, Ted Scripps, was concerned about the environment before he passed,” Scripps says. “It is a passion I have carried with me throughout my life. I feel that the need for this type of program is more acute than ever before. The environment is imperiled, and journalism is under pressure, so I think it’s critically important that we continue to fight for both.”

For more than two decades, the fellowship program—housed in the College of Media, Communication and Information—has brought working journalists to campus for a full academic year. The new gift will fund the fellowships for five years, starting with the incoming 2018–19 class of fellows. Other enhancements include a pilot program to team students with fellows as research assistants.

Additon, Royte and Scripps fellow Stephen Miller examine one of the many plants at the greenhouse.

“Previous fellows’ work during and after the program has led to the preservation of public lands, government financial commitments, and even an entire investigative news network whose work has led to changes in multiple Colorado laws,” says the center’s director, Tom Yulsman. “With this generous support, we will be able to increase the stipend for fellows by more than 25 percent, helping keep the program competitive with the best such programs in the nation.”

The 2018–19 class of fellows consists of Peter Brannen, Chris Lett, Stephen R. Miller, Hillary Rosner and Elizabeth Royte. They are award-winning journalists who have written books, covered national stories for CNN, and written for national publications such as The Atlantic, National Geographic and The New York Times.

“The fellows need as many resources as possible in order to take full advantage of the opportunity offered by the program,” Scripps says. “I couldn’t imagine a better place for the fellowship program than Boulder. There are just so many resources for students and fellows, great faculty, and a very supportive environmental community.”

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From top left to bottom right: Bill, Willie, Kathy and Shelby Scripps.

Bill and Kathy became supporters of CU News Corps after their son, Willie (Comm’15), fell in love with the CU Boulder campus and enrolled in CMCI. Their daughter, Shelby (Comm’17), attended the college, as well.

“We were introduced to the concept of News Corps in its early stages and liked the idea of students gaining hands-on experience for reporting and news gathering,” Bill says. “We started with a small gift, and increased that as we saw the success of the program.”

After an initial gift of $100,000 in 2012 for equipment, annual support from the Scripps family has been instrumental in the growth of CU News Corps, which operates as a news outlet, providing package-driven, long-form journalism to professional media organizations on issues that impact Colorado.

This year, the program has a new partnership with Colorado Public Television to deliver a one-hour prime-time program of original content for viewers along the Front Range. Additionally, it continues to work with The Denver Post, Public News Service, the Colorado Independent and the Daily Camera.

“In this rapidly changing media environment, CMCI offers a great opportunity for students to keep pace,” Bill says. “We thought it would be appropriate to endow News Corps so that it will be around for perpetuity.”

The family, who love Ralphie and enjoy attending football and basketball games together, also have been generous supporters of CU Athletics, the Esteemed Scholars program and the Center for Community.

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In 1997, just five years after CU Boulder’s Center for Environmental Journalism was founded, the first class of Ted Scripps Environmental Journalism Fellows arrived on campus.

They were a group of mid-career journalists, eager for a chance to dig deep into environmental issues ranging from hydrology to endangered species to urban sprawl.

The fellowship, funded by the Scripps Howard Foundation, allowed them to do just that. Over the span of nine months, the fellows worked on long-ranging projects, audited courses across campus, and attended field trips to places like the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons facility. They became the first members of an enduring community of journalists, authors, filmmakers, communicators, educators and policymakers all working to bring environmental issues to the forefront of the public’s attention.

“That year provided an unparalleled opportunity for me to join a roving and enduring tribe that the fellowship created: of discerning journalists who know enough to care about the fate of our planet, and also care enough to fight with our words and pictures to sustain it,” says Dan Glick of his time as a fellow from 1999-2000.

As of this year, the community of former fellows is 100 strong. Together, their continued impact on environmental journalism, policy and law is immeasurable.

“The program has equipped 100 journalists with new knowledge and skills that have helped them illuminate myriad issues involving the environment, and others as well,” says the center’s director of 20 years, Tom Yulsman. “Their work during and after the fellowship has yielded numerous impactful stories, more than a dozen books, a Pulitzer prize—and even an entire investigative news network whose work has led to changes in multiple Colorado laws.”

This month, the center celebrates its 25th anniversary, as well as the 20th anniversary of the Ted Scripps Environmental Journalism Fellowship. During a series of public and private events over the weekend of Aug. 25-27, many of the former fellows will return to Boulder to reunite and reflect on their time in the program.

The weekend will also serve to welcome the new class of 2017-18 fellows including: Sadie Babits, who recently served as the news director at Colorado Public Radio; Jeff Burnside, most recently the senior investigative reporter for KOMO TV Seattle; Lindsay Fendt, a freelance reporter who joins the program after spending five years based in San José, Costa Rica where she covered stories throughout Latin America; Jason Plautz, a Washington, D.C. based journalist who has covered energy and environment policy for National Journal and E&E Publishing and Lynette Wilson, who spent the last eight years covering human rights and social justice issues for the Episcopal News Service.

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“As demand for this content continues to grow, so does the need for journalists and multimedia storytellers to conceive and create it,” said Dean Lori Bergen. “With a multitude of media outlets generating and sharing immersive content, we want to ensure that our students are able to bring these skills into the professional working environment after graduation.”

The first project to roll out is an immersive technology lab opening this fall that will establish a dedicated space for the CMCI community.

“The lab will be a resource for both formal instruction and a place for faculty and students to experiment with virtual reality, augmented reality and 360-degree video,” said Bergen. “We’ll also have a few mobile units available for check out for projects in the field and outreach efforts.”

An influx of additional technology will support a number of curricular enhancements, including developing a multi-platform news service as a capstone course for all journalism students and breaking the current introductory news writing and multimedia course into two separate courses.

“In their final semester before graduation, all students will come together under the new model of a single capstone course – a blended, fully-functional, multimedia production lab,” said Elizabeth Skewes, chair of the Department of Journalism. “For introduction to reporting, students will take two courses simultaneously with one focusing on the foundations of good journalism, including generating story ideas, interviewing and writing, and the other immersing students in video and audio projects, as well as social media and web design.”

Additional planned technology infrastructure enhancements include lab upgrades to support innovative teaching and the installation of digital monitors to streamline checkout of equipment. Multimedia displays at high-traffic locations throughout the college will recognize student and alumni success, scholarship winners and faculty research, and will acknowledge the support of CMCI donors and foundation partners.

“We’re creating an environment in which students work with state-of-the-art equipment and software from the day they arrive until the day they graduate,” Bergen said. “This is the direction we’ve been moving in and the support from the Hearst Foundation makes it possible to accelerate the pace of these changes.”

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