The student chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists at The King’s College marked the conclusion of its inaugural year with the election of a new president and by capping off the Spring semester with two talks featuring world-class journalists.
The chapter has elected Jillian Cheney as its third president for the 2019-20 school year. Students Ryan Turner and Elizabeth Winn will serve as vice president and secretary, respectively.
Cheney replaces Anne Sraders, who graduated from King’s this month. She will be working at Fortune magazine this summer as part of the Dow Jones News Fund program.
“I am both proud and honored to lead the SPJ chapter at King’s,” Cheney said. “SPJ is a champion of both independent student journalism and the First Amendment. I look forward to working with my fellow student journalists to help others on our campus and city understand the importance and value journalism has to our democracy.”
The chapter’s first president, Anastassia Gliadkovskaya, completed her four-year degree this past December. She will be attending The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism this fall.
In addition to installing new officers, the chapter co-sponsored a series of lectures and events with MPJI this past year.
The Spring semester featured Washington Post business editor David Cho, who spoke to students on March 7. The event also featured current TKC students and NYCJ alumni. Cho talk focused on his career and the unbiased pursuit of facts.
The other major MPJI talk, co-sponsored by SPJ, featured photographer Kieran Dodds on April 29. Dodds’ work has been featured in numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and National Geographic. Dodds showed students images from several of his award-winning projects, including “Hierotopia: The Living Sacred Landscape” that consists of drone photography of why churches planted trees in Ethiopia and how this effort helped save forestry in the African nation.
The chapter also screened the Academy Award-winning film Spotlight — in conjunction with NYCJ’s “Movie Night’ — which looks at The Boston Globe’s 2002 investigation into child sex abuse in the Catholic church. The King’s chapter of SPJ, with support from MPJI, are eager to bring more speakers and events to campus in the coming months.