Many of you will recognize faculty and staff continuing to turn out award-winning publications and moving young journalists in the right direction despite the gloom and doom of the newspaper industry. The word today is convergence.
Chair Marianne Odom has moved out of the classroom to head up the new Media Communications Department. Odom, a whiz at writing and editing and an Associated Press Stylebook guru, still works with students on The Ranger, The Ranger Online and The Fourth Write. But her time has been spent recently in bringing together three programs to form a dynamic department, attending chairs' and academic council meetings and other stuff chairs do. 
Instructor Irene Abrego — second from left in the photo of a recent staff's visit to San Antonio Press on the night the last Ranger is put to bed — herself a former editor of The Ranger and The Fourth Write, brings her professional and academic expertise to the table to work with students in Reporting 1, Reporting 2, Editing of Copy and an online Introduction to Mass Communications course. She also directs the Urban Journalism Workshop at San Antonio College, in its 25th year. The workshop annually attracts students from throughout the region to spend two weeks in an intensive "Boot Camp." It is sponsored by the San Antonio Express-News, The Newspaper Fund of The Wall Street Journal and a number of other newspapers and groups.
Mac technician and lecturer in the Journalism program Tricia Buchhorn, who recently earned a master's degree, continues to work with photographers and entertain and excite middle school and high school students who visit the department. She also teaches a Photoshop class at the college and an evening class at Texas State-San Marcos.
Professor Jerry Townsend(right) continues to work with students in four Introduction to Mass Communications classes even though he retired from full-time faculty. Faculty and staff present sessions at a high school workshop for Northside ISD publications students each year, and the program holds a one-day workshop at San Antonio College for high school journalists as well as the Urban Journalism Workshop at San Antonio College, in its 25th year.Busy folks.