This semester, IUP Comm Media faculty member Mark Piwinsky has been working with different student teams on various projects in the Indiana community.
First are various projects with the Swoop Production Team, a seven-member student team.
- Rural Health Podcast – This is a podcast hosted by James Kinneer, the human resource manager at Indiana Regional Medical Center. The podcast covers the topic of rural health care, focusing on issues and stories impacting the health of the region.
- Weavers Perfect Memory – For this project, the team has been working with IUP's B.A. Harrington from the Department of Art and Design Wood Center to create a special version of the Weaver's Perfect Memory device. The goal is to give this to donors as part of the 2025 IUP 150th-anniversary fundraising initiative. The students are tasked with developing advertising content and materials for the effort.
- Citizens Ambulance – This a project with BJ Pino and Reba Johnson from Citizens Ambulance that grew out of the Rural Health Pulse podcast recording session. The project is focused on recruiting employees (especially from the IUP student population) and fundraising.
- Coalport Coal Museum – This is a project to create a promotional video for the museum and to make other historical videos.
- Blairsville Underground Railroad History Center – The team has done several large projects with the Center over the years. This includes the overview video on their home page, a set of 90 videos on conductors of the railroad (one of the exhibits at the museum), and the promo video for the exhibit.
The second set of projects consists of students from the Comm 715 class who developed communications research and made marketing recommendations for the following companies:
- Kencove Farm Fencing – Headquartered in Blairsville, the company is looking to update its branding, marketing research, and social media marketing. Eric Barker, a graduate of our MS Strategic Communication program, is the initial point of contact at the company.
- Game Day Tek – A software startup in Clarion looking for advice on branding and social media marketing. Lacey Fulton, a graduate of our PhD program and a faculty member at PennWest–Clarion, is the initial point of contact.