Civic and Political Engagement Initiatives
The introductory communication course (COM 110) was selected to serve as a part of the Political Engagement Project. PEP is a joint initiative of the American Association of State Colleges and University (AASCU), the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and the New York Times. ISU is one of only eight institutions in the country and COM 110 is the only such course in the nation participating in PEP.
Assistant Professor John P. McHale oversaw the ISU Student Television Workshop’s production of award winning public service announcement for the ISU Innocence Project. The video public service announcement won the National Film Your Issue Contest conducted in collaboration with the American Democracy Project and a national MSNBC contest for best university public service announcement.
Assistant Professor John P. McHale Directed, Wrote, and Produced, Picture This: A Fight to Save Joe Amrine, a full-length documentary narrated by Danny Glover. The documentary Screened at Amnesty International Film Festival in 2005 and the United Nations Human Rights Commission on April 20, 2005, in Geneva, Switzerland.
The School of Communication was awarded the inaugural Walter Cronkite Civic Engagement Leadership Award in a ceremony at the United Nations in New York on June 19, 2006. Illinois State won the award for its student civic engagement initiatives over the past year, including its participation in the American Democracy Project and the Film Your Issue program.
The School of Communication received the campus FOCUS Award in 2007 for excellence in civic and political engagement.
The WGLT newsroom is a consistently leader among its peers winning numerous Associated Press Awards and Charlie Schlenker has been recognized nationally two years in as a recipient of the Edward R. Murrow Award, the highest in radio broadcast journalism.
COMM was selected as the National Communication Association's Club of the Year in 2006.
The ISU Chapter (Theta Eta) of the national communication honors student organization. Lambda Pi Eta is an award-winning organization, winning the national Chapter of the Year award (from among 300 chapters) in 2002, and the University's Small Student Organization of the Year in 2003. In 2004, the Oxford Style Debate (on the legality and ethics of free downloading of files from the Internet) won the University's Outstanding Education/Academic Program of the Year.
The Forensics union, the oldest student group at Illinois State, won 1st place in the American Forensics Association Tournament and 3rd place at National Forensics Association Tournament in 2005.
