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Creative Agency with Students

Session Details

  • Date: Monday, June 29
  • Time: 9:00 - 9:45 am
  • Room: 355

The demand for digital storytelling in higher education is constant. Our communication teams are strapped for time and resources to make it happen. Professional ad agencies are often too costly for your average academic unit. We’re attempting to make a solution by harnessing student talent at UAB.

UAB Digital Media, a creative agency where students and full-time professionals work in tandem, is just three years in the making. We’d like to share what we’ve learned so far about what it’s like to be a service center and the ingredients for a successful student work experience.

Speakers

Learning Objectives

  • We'll cover the elements of a good digital internship experience and the pros and cons of being a service center.
  • We'll also present our model for our student programs, the Media Fellowship and Internship, including how we recruit, retain, and reward our students.

Speakers

Anna Lloyd

Digital Media Specialist, UAB Digital Media, The University of Alabama at Birmingham

Anna Lloyd runs the Media Fellows and Media Interns program. She creative directs, manages projects, recruits and interviews students, and develops the growth of our student programs along with the rest of the team.

Anna's work with our students is made more meaningful by her recent experience as a Media and Public Policy graduate at UAB in 2011. The internship and fellowship program grew out of an idea she and Rosie O'Beirne had to do two things - meet demand for quality media work on campus and in our community as well as build better opportunities for talented students to showcase their digital work and build relevant portfolios.

Before coming to UAB Digital Media, Anna worked in the UAB Provost's office as a web communications producer. Her background includes production in website development, video, and content strategy.

Anna is currently continuing her education in online learning environments such as Skillshare and Team Treehouse, taking courses in topics such as Rails Development. Outside work, she enjoys kayaking and spending time with her rescued pit-mix, Riley.

Rosie O'Beirne

Director of Digital Media and Learning, UAB Digital Media, The University of Alabama at Birmingham

Rosie O'Beirne develops and coordinates initiatives that integrate multimedia and digital technologies with student learning and faculty teaching. She also oversees the UAB Digital Media team that produces and shares the stories of the dynamic faculty, staff, and students at UAB.

Through the support of a National Science Foundation fellowship, Rosie earned her Masters in anthropology, with a focus on media, at the University of Alabama. Along with Michele Forman, she co-founded the UAB Media Studies program that began in 2003 and served as co-director until 2012.

A strong proponent of experiential learning, she has spent over a decade teaching classes that use media and digital technologies to explore local history and share community stories. Her students have produced an archive that includes over 150 short films that document local communities and subcultures in the Birmingham area. She has also produced digital oral histories for StoryCorps, Vulcan Museum, and Red Mountain Park.

Laurel Mills

Web Designer, UAB Digital Media, The University of Alabama at Birmingham

Before joining Digital Media, Laurel worked for mental_floss, ReZoom.com and Lipstick magazine. She has taught at the University of Alabama and UAB as well as being part of the Samford After Sundown Program. In addition to winning two Green Eyeshade Awards for her writing, she is the author of the children’s book Night Night Birmingham.

Born in Birmingham, Laurel attended Indian Springs School before earning a B.A. in government from Georgetown University and an M.A. in English from UAB.

When Laurel isn’t working, you’ll usually find her trying to catch up on the latest in celebrity gossip while keeping tabs on her photographer/producer husband, toddler son and two we-were-spoiled-before-the-baby-came-along mutts.