Faculty
Anna Boone
Anna Boone is a journalist for The Minnesota Star Tribune, where she works as a digital designer. Her job sits right where design intersects with code and development (although she has moonlighted a couple times designing for the print paper, too). Her work has led to many accolades, including being named as a finalist for World’s Best Designer by the Society for News Design. She is a proud alumna of the Indiana Daily Student, where she worked pretty much any role they had available — but she enjoyed her times as Weekend Editor and Creative Director the most.
Anna is also an adjunct professor for the University of St. Thomas, where she teaches in the Department of Emerging Media. Outside of work, she can be found trying to keep up with her border collie mix on runs, reading on the porch or drooling over typographic families she can’t afford to buy.
Anna is leading the Design track.
Ashley Caudill
Ashley Caudill, the programming & marketing manager at flytedesk, is a Kent State Student Media alum with over five years of experience in student media advertising sales. She is dedicated to supporting college media organizations, helping them build strong, lasting businesses by providing the necessary resources and tools.
Ashley is leading the Business/Advertising track.
Chuck Clark
Chuck Clark is the director of WKU Student Publications, the media group that includes four student-run areas – the College Heights Herald newsroom, Talisman life and culture magazine, Student Publications Advertising media sales team and Cherry Creative branded content studio. Chuck leads a staff of five professionals advising students and managing business operations.
WKU Student Publications is a recognized leader in student media nationwide. Our flagships along with our business units have earned 49 national Pacemaker Awards from Associated Collegiate Press. Both the Herald and the Talisman are in the ACP Hall of Fame, and are among The Pacemaker 100, the 100 most successful student-run media outlets at the college level, with the Herald coming in at No. 6. Chuck was named a College Media Association Distinguished Adviser in 2024. Before joining WKU in 2012, he spent 29 years reporting and editing in newsrooms, including at The Birmingham News as managing editor, the Orlando Sentinel, The Indianapolis Star, The Courier-Journal, The Charlotte Observer, The Tennessean and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Chuck is a graduate of Western Kentucky University.
Chuck is leading the Leadership track.
Amy DeVault
Amy DeVault is a faculty member in the Elliott School of Communication, at Wichita State University (Kansas), and is the faculty adviser to The Sunflower newspaper.
She teaches classes in journalism and visual communication, and she is co-founder and instructor of the popular Flint Hills Media Project — an immersive, multi-media storytelling project class.
DeVault began advising The Sunflower in 2016, but she has taught at state and national student media workshops for nearly 20 years. She has been recognized by both Kansas Scholastic Press Association and Journalism Education Association as a Friend of Scholastic Journalism. DeVault serves as an officer for the Kansas Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and joined the NSPA/ACP board of directors in 2019.
Before joining the faculty at Wichita State in 2007, Amy worked at The Wichita Eagle as a news designer. She earned an Award of Excellence from the Society for News Design for her work on the paper’s coverage of the serial killer BTK.
DeVault began her career as a high school journalism teacher and publications adviser at El Dorado High School (Kansas). She earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Fort Hays State University (Kansas) and a master’s degree in journalism from Kansas State University, and she worked for the college newspapers at both universities.
Anna Fetter
Anna Fetter is a publisher development manager at flytedesk, previously serving as the business manager at University of North Carolina’s The Daily Tar Heel. With her background in advertising operations and web development, she is passionate about equipping student media organizations with both the business foundation and technical tools to thrive.
Anna is leading the Business/Advertising track.
Joe Gisondi
Joe Gisondi is the author of “The Field Guide To Covering Sports,” which is used in classes across the country. He worked as a sports journalist in Florida for 20 years and is currently publisher/editor for ColesCountySports.com. Gisondi has also taught sports and news journalism for more than 25 years at both Eastern Illinois University and Valencia College, advising publications that have won state and national sports awards. He’s a staunch believer in the DH, the 3-point shot, that no sport is better to watch in person than professional hockey, and that no sport is more fun to play than pickleball.
Joe is leading the Sports Reporting track.
Rick Green
Rick Green is the president and publisher of the Iowa Group for Adams MultiMedia.
He’s an Ohio native who’s been in journalism since age 15. Rick has been a senior editor, executive editor and president/publisher in seven newsrooms and loves building high-performing teams and inspiring those who desire to pursue a journalism career. He’s led teams that have won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news and a Peabody Award for a joint investigative project with ABC News. His staffs have been a Pulitzer finalist on three other occasions.
Rick completed his journalism studies at Ohio University’s Scripps College of Communication.
Rick is leading the Reporting Across Platforms track.
Gary Metzker
Gary Metzker has been a fulltime lecturer at Long Beach State since 2008 and is design adviser for Long Beach State’s Pacemaker and Pinnacle Award-winning Long Beach Current and Dig Magazine.
For almost 25 years, he worked at the Los Angeles Times in positions ranging from sports news editor, metro news editor, A1 editor and Senior Editor. During that time, Metzker was a member of four Pulitzer Prize-winning staff awards for breaking and spot news. Metzker is president of the California College Media Association and a member of the Society for News Design Foundation.
In 2024, he was selected as a Distinguished Adviser by the College Media Association. In 2022, he was a part of the inaugural class to receive Associate Collegiate Press’ Pioneer Award. In 2021, Metzker was selected by the Journalism Education Association as its Friend of Scholastic Journalism award winner. In 2019, he was selected as the Champion of Journalism Education Award winner by the California Journalism and Media Affiliates. In 2013, Metzker was selected Journalism Educator of the Year by the California Journalism Education Coalition.
Gary is leading the Design track.
Spencer O'Daniel
Spencer O’Daniel serves as the director of Collegian Media Group and adviser for the K-State Collegian at Kansas State University. O’Daniel has advised high school and collegiate student media for over a decade instructing and coaching students in newspaper, yearbook, magazine, television, podcasting and other content-creation mediums. At Texas A&M the past two years, O’Daniel advised The Battalion newspaper and website, Maroon Life magazine (a new stand-alone publication at Texas A&M) along with The Aggieland yearbook, earning several ACP Pacemaker finalists and over 200 total awards across the whole student media department. O’Daniel is one of the only student media advisers in the country to advise students who earned Pacemaker awards at the high school and collegiate level, in addition to six different publications earning the distinction. O’Daniel is highly involved in local, state and national student press associations such as the Kansas Scholastic Press Association, College Media Business Association Managers, Associated Collegiate Press and the College Media Association.
Spencer is leading the Reporting Across Platforms track.
Carrie Pratt
Carrie Pratt is the multi-platform news adviser for the College Heights Herald at Western Kentucky University. Prior to coming to work at her alma mater, Carrie worked at the Tampa Bay Times for 15 years. While she started out as a photojournalist, her path later led her to get her master’s degree from Ohio University, and later became a picture editor, then a web designer and video editor at the Times. During her time in Florida, Carrie covered many national stories, and both college & professional football. As a video editor, Carrie oversaw Pulitzer finalist projects as well as daily and video pieces for the marketing department.
Carrie loves working in college media and helping student journalists prepare for the real world of working in the media. She loves seeing students evolve as storytellers and to see them use their skill set in whichever profession they ultimately choose.
Carrie is leading the Advanced Multimedia Storytelling track.
Sara Quinn
A media design consultant and researcher, Sara Quinn is a senior fellow at the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Minnesota.
Former president of the Society for News Design, Quinn taught visual journalism at The Poynter Institute for more than a decade. Her eye-tracking research helps journalists determine the best forms for storytelling across all platforms.
Sara teaches workshops around the globe. She has a BA from Wichita State University (Kansas) and a master’s in illustration from Syracuse University (New York).
Sara is leading the Design track.
Lisa Renze-Rhodes
Lisa Renze-Rhodes is the managing editor for partnerships and projects at Free Press Indiana, a new nonprofit news organization based in Indianapolis. She spent the bulk of her career as a journalist at The Indianapolis Star, covering educational legislative issues that impacted the state’s fastest-growing school districts. She also worked at The South Bend Tribune and other newspapers and specialty magazines throughout the Midwest.
Her work has taken her on location throughout North America, Europe and Africa, and she’s earned SPJ, APME, AP, and Hoosier State Press awards. Additionally, she received an Indiana Judges Association Merit Citation for Journalism for fair and balanced reporting. Her latest project is the Emmy-nominated, Fleeing to Flyover Country, a documentary about immigrants and refugees who make their homes in middle America.
Lisa is leading the Advanced Multimedia Storytelling track.
Elizabeth Smith
Elizabeth R. Smith is an assistant professor of communication at Pepperdine University, Malibu, California, and director of Pepperdine Graphic Media.
She has 17 years of experience teaching a variety of journalism and media courses at Pepperdine, as well as advising the Graphic and directing Pepperdine Graphic Media.
She has nearly 20 years of professional experience in the journalism industry, including print, web and broadcast news.
She is an award-winning journalist, and in 2010 won an Emmy for her work on the breaking-news coverage of Michael Jackson’s death.
Smith was named a Kopenhaver Center Fellow for 2017. Smith has partnered with the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on the topics of news literacy and understanding the spread of fake news. Her current research includes news literacy, Communities of Practice in student newsrooms, accuracy in the news, and technology and innovation in newsrooms and journalism programs.
Smith earned her bachelor’s in journalism from Harding University. She earned her master’s and doctoral degrees from Pepperdine University.
Elizabeth is leading the Leadership track.
Cody Winchester
Cody Winchester was a newspaper reporter, data specialist and web developer before joining IRE as a training director in 2017. He became tech lead in 2022.
Cody is leading the Advanced Reporting track.