Allicia Bolen
Academic Adviser
Allicia Bolen, the College’s 2022–23 Adviser of the Year, was surprised to learn she had garnered such an honor, but innovative accomplishments clearly set her apart in the world of academic advising.
An adviser at UF for six years, Bolen focuses on first- and second-year students and immersion experiences, and works with UF’s Innovation Academy, a spring/summer program developed to equip students with 21st-century skills. She thinks her work with special populations of students and her willingness to step in where needed may have led to the award.
She also works with Promise Scholars, first-generation students and those from underrepresented populations. These students “may not have a parent or sibling who can tell them: Don’t take all these crazy classes at once. I make sure they understand that everyone at the university is an ally,” she said.
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Mariano German Coley
Advertising Lecturer in Creative
When the Advertising Department wanted to improve its creative curriculum, they invited Mariano German Coley in 2020 to be a lecturer. Since then, he’s developed five courses, helped students win four national Addy’s and a One Show Merit Award for the first time in CJC’s history, and is helping create a certificate for the specialty, while mentoring the next generation.
German Coley, a freelance creative director in his free time who has worked for such global companies as Apple, Xfinity and Chick-fil-A, among many other Fortune 500 brands, uses his expertise and experience to elevate students’ creative capabilities. “I might not know how to teach as a professor, but I do know how to help professionals grow, and that’s the knowledge I apply,” he said.
Creativity, he concedes, is difficult to teach. “Each person has a method that works more or less for them. I try to give them tools, first and foremost, to stay calm and overcome the fear of the blank page. I make them realize that it’s impossible not to have ideas.”
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Cynthia Barnett
Environmental Journalist in Residence, Director of Climate and Environment Reporting Initiatives
Cynthia Barnett says many students in her classes see climate change and what’s happening to the planet as the story of their generation. She’s training future environmental journalists to ensure they are prepared to cover it with captivating storytelling, scientific accuracy and an eye toward solutions.
“For too long, environment and climate coverage were considered esoteric. Now, every national outlet has a major desk devoted to [them],” she said. “The demand is finally there from the profession.”
“Today, our students can land full-time environment reporting jobs right out of college, which wasn’t possible even a few years ago,” said Barnett, a CJC alumna who is also the author of four popular books on the environment. “It’s great to see the profession catch up to this generation’s passions and talents — and the world’s great needs.”
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Jieun Shin
Media Production, Management, and Technology Assistant Professor
Jieun Shin, the College’s 2023 Researcher of the Year, hopes her research into how news and misinformation spreads — and how the information architecture influences those who produce both — will empower the public and policymakers to discuss the issue and make a healthy media ecosystem.
A former professional journalist, Shin wanted to understand why content that has low civic value and is untrue spreads well. “Social media companies incentivize this content with retweet buttons, shares, likes. It visibly shows the popularity of the content,” Shin said.
Shin wants to empower consumers by providing them with knowledge and digital media literacy skills. At a higher level, Shin hopes these findings can be discussed with policymakers and the public so they can monitor what’s happening to news and information that “really helps democracy and to inform citizens.”
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Kasey Windels
Advertising Associate Professor
Kasey Windels, the College’s 2023 Teacher of the Year, has spent nearly two decades studying the lack of female creative directors in advertising agency creative departments. She became interested in the topic when she walked into her first meeting as an advertising agency intern and found herself to be the only woman in the room.
Her research includes an examination of award-winning ads in three decades that showed only 3% of the agencies that created those ads had a female creative director. She found that “the idea of creativity is very gendered within the agency, and it’s coded to be masculine, so the women within the agency are thought to be not as creative as the men.”
Windels said she will keep beating the drum to see change. “Right now, we don’t have people pushing for that. We could assume this problem is solved. That’s why I want to continue doing that analysis every 10 years. This is still a problem.”
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Haoran Chris Chu
Public Relations Assistant Professor
Haoran Chris Chu thinks effective health communication can contribute to the well-being of people, and his research is backing that up. With his experiments, he hopes to design health communications messages that are tailored to people’s different needs. Chu has conducted several types of social scientific research, including surveys and experiments, testing the effects of different messages that could be used to promote positive health outcomes. He often administers different messages to people assigned to random groups to determine which ones work the best, he said.
“Health is one particular area in which people are the most important decision-makers, and the process to improve their well-being can be impacted,” Chu said. “There is no one-size-fits-all approach in health communications. People have different concerns.”
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VICTOR EVANS
Online Master's Lecturer
Growing up in a Southern Baptist household in Texas, Victor Evans struggled with his identity and sexuality at a young age. Now, as a professor, documentary producer and children’s book author, he’s trying to help gay Black youth navigate the path forward.
Evans, who teaches mass communications theory as part of CJC’s Online Master’s Program and is an assistant professor at Seattle University in Washington, is an LGBTQ advocate who has spent his life doing research on the topic.
His work history at media outlets includes Development and Talent assistant at MTV Networks and Entertainment News Producer at CNN Headline News, among others. Since 2013 he’s taught at several colleges and universities and now is the director of Summer Programs at Seattle University.
