Annual Conference for Media Relations Professionals

Faculty

Message from your Chair

With the relentless and rapid changes taking place in the media business, 2010 is the most challenging and exciting time ever to be a media relations professional. In the midst of a still-contracting newspaper market, the continual transformations of broadcast and cable news, and the rising interdependence of mainline and social media, we're called upon get our messages out and advance institutional objectives-often in an environment of flat or shrinking resources.

This conference features leading experts to help make sense of the shifting media relations field. The program will blend professional and person interaction among the diverse conference participants and deliver practical advice to improve your ability to "get the word out" on your institution

Elaine Justice, Conference Chair
Associate Director, Media Relations
Emory University

Elaine Justice has been a media relations professional in higher education for more than two decades. As associate director of media relations at Emory University, she works with the central university and a broad range of faculty and professional schools to promote Emory's reputation and initiatives to the national media.

A graduate of the College of William and Mary in Virginia with an undergraduate degree in English, Justice did graduate work in journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After brief stints reporting for the Daily Press in Newport News, Va., and the Greensboro News-Record and Raleigh News & Observer in North Carolina, Justice landed at her alma mater, William and Mary, serving as the director the college's news office for more than a decade.

Justice is a member of the Religion Communicators Council and the winner of numerous CASE awards, including the Gold Medal Circle of Excellence Award for Specific News and Information Programs.

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Faculty

Menachem Wecker
Editor, George Washington Today
George Washington University

Menachem Wecker is a writer and editor at George Washington Today, The George Washington University's official online news source. He is a co-founder of the Association for Social Media and Higher Education at GW, and is an active Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook user and blogger.

Wecker was formerly involved in media relations and publications at GW's Elliott School of International Affairs. He created the school's Twitter handle, which was called one of the top 100 handles in international affairs by Foreign Policy Magazine. He continues to assist faculty members from the school with their blogs, including an anthropology blog by Barbara Miller, an associate dean, and an Africa blog by David Shinn, former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia and Burkina Faso.

Prior to coming to GW, Wecker, who holds a master's in art history from GW and a bachelor's degree in literature from Yeshiva University, was an editor at a national magazine based in Washington. He writes freelance articles and columns for several print and online publications, mostly on religion and the arts, a topic on which he blogs at http://iconia.canonist.com.

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Millree Williams
Senior Director of Public Affairs Strategy
University of Maryland

Millree Williams, a veteran communications and public relations strategist, joined the University of Maryland as director of university communications, in 2006.

Williams' career in public relations spans more than 30 years in the Baltimore-Washington area, including 10 years managing public relations operations at two Maryland public colleges - Bowie State University and Montgomery College - as well as work at a private university. He brings a strong background in issues management, image development and results oriented communications strategies. Beyond higher education, Williams has also directed communications activities for several national healthcare and public health education programs. He has worked with the National Institutes of Health's National Clearinghouse for Alcohol Information, headed the national communications program for Emergency Medical Services for Children National Resource Center (a program of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Children's National Medical Center) and directed media relations at D.C. General Hospital.

Williams is a graduate of Bowie State University and the Harvard University Management Development Program.

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Guest Speakers

Adam Conner
Washington DC Associate Manager for Privacy and Global Public Policy
Facebook

Adam Conner is the Washington DC associate manager for privacy and global public policy at Facebook, where he focuses on government and political outreach and directed the company's 2008 election efforts.

In 2009 Politics Magazine named him one of their "Rising Stars," an award that goes to people 35 or under who have already made a significant mark in political consulting or advocacy. Prior to opening Facebook's Washington DC office, Conner was the director of online communications for Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, Chairwoman of the Rules Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives. He previously served as the deputy director of online communications for Forward Together, the presidential exploratory committee for former Virginia Governor Mark Warner.

He holds a bachelor's degree in political communication from The George Washington University.

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Julie Barko Germany
Vice President of Digital Strategy
DCI Group

Julie Barko Germany is the vice president of digital strategy at DCI Group. She previously served as the director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet and as director of marketing and communications for The George Washington University's Graduate School of Political Management.

Germany is the principal author and editor of several publications, including Constituent Relationship Management for State Legislators; Best Practices for Political Advertising Online; Constituent Relationship Management: The New Little Black Book of Politics; and Person-to-Person-to-Person: Harnessing the Political Power of Online Social Networks and User-Generated Content; The Politics-to-Go-Handbook: A Guide to Using Mobile Technology in Politics; and The Political Consultants' Online Fundraising Primer. She co-authored Putting Online Influentials to Work for Your Campaign, and she has authored chapters in The Routledge Handbook of Political Management; Campaigning for President 2008: Strategy and Tactics, New Voices and New Techniques; Voting in America; and Rebooting America. She has appeared in national and international newspapers, magazines and media, including MSNBC, C-SPAN, Fox News, CBS and NBC. In 2008 she was honored as a Rising Star by Campaigns and Elections' Politics Magazine.

Germany worked as a writer, editor and program manager for international initiatives in Korea, Ukraine, Haiti and the United States. She is a founding board member of Young Champions, a nonprofit that addresses youth health issues, and a founder of Mobile Monday DC, the local chapter of an international community of mobile technology experts and enthusiasts.

As an undergraduate, she studied literature, philosophy and classics at Messiah College. Germany also studied at Keble College, Oxford University. She was a Pew Younger Scholar of Literature at the University of Notre Dame. She received an master's degree from The George Washington University, where she was a University Fellow.

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Jeffrey Katz
Deputy Managing Editor, Digital News
NPR

Jeffrey L. Katz is the deputy managing editor of digital news, where he takes a leading role in coordinating and developing NPR's news presence at NPR.org. Katz sets the Web site's daily and long-term news assignments and priorities, serves as an advocate for online coverage with the network's news desks and programs and helps oversee coverage of breaking news events.

Katz previously served as an editor at NPR's Morning Edition, where he edited interviews by hosts and correspondents, reporter-based stories, commentaries and series. He joined the network in 1999 as an editor on NPR's National Desk, where he was responsible for coverage of education, welfare and sports.

Before then, Katz spent two decades in print journalism. He began his journalism career at The Commercial Appeal (Memphis). From 1978 to 1984, he served as an urban affairs reporter and editorial writer in Memphis, and as the newspaper's correspondent in Little Rock, Ark., where he also wrote a weekly column.

In 1984, Katz received a congressional fellowship from The American Political Science Association, during which he served on the staff of Rep. Barbara Kennelly and Sen. Al Gore.

From 1986 to 1989, Katz was The Milwaukee Journal's political reporter, covering campaigns for president, Congress, governor, mayor and county executive. He developed public opinion polls, analyzed local and state public policy issues and occasionally covered Chicago politics. He also wrote a bi-weekly column.

He became a staff writer for Governing Magazine in 1990, writing about state and local public policy issues, and then joined Congressional Quarterly two years later. At CQ Weekly Report, Katz mainly covered social policy issues, including welfare, education, housing, urban affairs, low-income nutrition programs, child welfare and the appropriations process. He later covered the House leadership, impeachment and ethics process.

Katz participated in the first conference of the Journalism Center on Children and Families at the University of Maryland in 1993, then served on its national advisory board for a number of years.

Katz graduated with honors from the University of Illinois, where he received a bachelor's degree in journalism in 1978.

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Doug Lederman
Editor
Inside Higher Ed

Doug Lederman is one of the three founders of Inside Higher Ed. With Scott Jaschik, he leads the site's editorial operations, overseeing news content, opinion pieces, career advice, blogs and other features. He speaks widely about higher education, including on C-Span and National Public Radio and at meetings around the country, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, USA Today, the Nieman Foundation Journal, The Christian Science Monitor, and the Princeton Alumni Weekly.

Lederman was managing editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education from 1999 to 2003. Before that, he had worked at The Chronicle since 1986 in a variety of roles, first as an athletics reporter and editor. His work won two National Awards for Education Reporting from the Education Writers Association. He began his career as a news clerk at The New York Times.

He graduated in 1984 from Princeton University.

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Ed Steinberg
Senior Relationships Manager
LinkedIn

Ed Steinberg is the senior relationship manager with LinkedIn. He works with the east region for LinkedIn responsible for handling all renewals, consistently adding new ways for clients to increase their productivity for finding the best talent on the most professional network. Prior to coming to LinkedIn, he was a vice president for human resources and recruiting and retention.

Steinberg has a degree in psychology and group dynamics from The George Washington University.

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Valerie Strauss
Higher Education Correspondent
The Washington Post

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Brad Wolverton
Senior Editor, Money & Management
The Chronicle of Higher Education

Brad Wolverton is business editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education. Since joining The Chronicle, in 2002, he has covered finance and management, charity fraud, Congress, the IRS, fundraising and college-sports issues. In 2007 he and a colleague examined the increasing influence of booster clubs in college sports. The two-part article found that growth in athletics donations has cut into academic gifts on many campuses. The investigation won the Dick Schaap Excellence in Sports Journalism award.

Before joining The Chronicle, he reported on the energy industry, wrote about sports business for BusinessWeek, and contributed to USA Today, Men's Journal and Tennis magazine.

Wolverton is a graduate of Indiana University at Bloomington, where he studied journalism and Spanish. He has also completed the Wharton Seminars for Business Journalists at the University of Pennsylvania.

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Workshop chair

Teresa Valerio Parrot
Vice President of Higher Education
Widmeyer Communications

Teresa Valerio Parrot is Vice President in Widmeyer Communications' higher education practice. Valerio Parrot brings her expertise in higher education media, crisis communications, marketing and administration to provide data-driven strategy and counsel to Widmeyer's impressive client roster. Valerio Parrot draws on extensive experience designing and implementing strategic media and marketing efforts aimed at enhancing institutions' image, reputation and brand. A seasoned media trainer, she has conducted numerous communications analyses for colleges and universities, developed and launched multi-audience research projects and is experienced in communicating the tactics and techniques that drive effective media and marketing outreach efforts.

Previously, Valerio Parrot was Vice President of Media Relations and Crisis Communications for SimpsonScarborough, a higher education consulting firm. A prolific keynote and conference session presenter, Valerio Parrot has spoken on behalf of Academic Impressions, ACE Fellows, AGB national conference and online speaker series, AIMHO, AMA, AASCU, CAAE, CASE online speaker series and Districts I and IV, CCCU, Higher Education Hero, NAGAP, NAPAHE, NASPA, RMACRAO and United Educators webinar series.

Valerio Parrot counts almost ten years of experience with the University of Colorado System, including an officer-level appointment as Assistant Secretary of the University, in which capacity she assisted the board on policy and media/PR issues over two years filled with athletic and academic controversy that drew national and international headlines. In this highly sensitive role, she coordinated policy support, media/PR assistance, project management and internal and external communications with constituents statewide. In addition, she served the Boulder campus chancellor as director of donor relations during the University's successful $1 billion fundraising campaign and served as special assistant to the System president.

Valerio Parrot earned a bachelor's degree in communications with a minor in environmental biology, and a master's degree in public administration with emphases in state and local government and nonprofit management, both from the University of Colorado. Her interests include anything and everything associated wither her husband (Kevin), daughter (Savannah Leigh) and the family's cross-eyed Labrador retriever (Magenta).