Q: Your name?
A: Brennan Lafferty

Q: At what school do you work?
A: University of Michigan

Q: What is your role?
A: Sales and marketing adviser

Q: How long have you been in student media?
A: Almost three weeks as I type this (after a career in business media)

Q: What are you most excited to work on this year at your student media organization?
A: Monetizing social media … and learning the latest college slang (e.g. I’m “low key” excited about this.)

Q: What’s a fun fact about you?
A: I once covered an Ohio high school field hockey state championship match without knowing any of the rules of high school field hockey.

Q: What’s something in student media you wish you could learn more about?
A: I want/need more insight into our customer. What content do they value? What about our reach interests our advertisers? Perhaps a reader and advertiser study is in our future.

Q: What’s your favorite place you’ve ever visited, and if you could travel anywhere, where would you go?
A: London is amazing. Germany surprised me each time I’ve been there with how lovely it is. But Italy, Ireland and Spain are on the bucket list for my wife and me.

Have a question for Brennan? Reach out at blaff@umich.edu.

Q: Your name?
A: Tyler Sprague

Q: At what school do you work?
A: University of South Carolina

Q: What is your role?
A: Writer, photographer and event coordinator for Garnet Media Group’s Marketing Team

Q: How long have you been in student media?
A: I have been in student media for two years.

Q: What are you most excited to work on this year at your student media organization?
A: I am most excited to plan events at Garnet Media Group. I am excited to try new ideas and themes for our housing fairs and publication launch events.

Q: What’s a fun fact about you?
A: Even though I attend the University of South Carolina, I was born and raised in a small mountain town called Weaverville in Northern California.

Q: What’s something in student media you wish you could learn more about?
A: I hope I can learn more about long-term marketing campaigns for student media publications.

Q: What’s your favorite place you’ve ever visited, and if you could travel anywhere, where would you go?
A: My favorite place I have ever visited was Morocco. I was able to take a May-mester abroad there, and it was absolutely beautiful. If I could visit anywhere, it would be Italy.

Have a question for Tyler? Reach out at tylersprague03@gmail.com.

Q: Your name?
A: Sam Oldenburg

Q: At what school do you work?
A: Western Kentucky University

Q: What is your role?
A: Talisman and Cherry Creative Adviser

Q: How long have you been in student media?
A: Five years as an adviser and four years as a student

Q: What are you most excited to work on this year at your student media organization?
A: Embracing change with student leaders who weren’t even on staff when the pandemic started and working with them to figure out what our media looks like going forward.

Q: What’s a fun fact about you?
A: While I was in high school I worked as a balloon artist performing under the name Zippy the Clown.

Q: What’s something in student media you wish you could learn more about?
A: Any non-traditional events (outside of housing fairs or best of events) student media groups are holding to generate revenue

Q: What’s your favorite place you’ve ever visited, and if you could travel anywhere, where would you go?
A: Whatever national park I last camped in is my favorite place, so right now that’s the Great Smoky Mountains. I would love to travel to France and viside Claude Monet’s gardens.

Have a question for Sam? Reach out at samual.oldenburg@wku.edu.

Q: Your name?
A: Christopher Richert

Q: At what school do you work?
A: Michigan State University

Q: What is your role?
A: General Manager of State News Media Group

Q: How long have you been in student media?
A: 24 years

Q: What are you most excited to work on this year at your student media organization?
A: To work with the students to explore new ways to innovate and grow our audience

Q: What’s a fun fact about you?
A: I was a producer for the Jerry Springer show and was a lead pyrotechnician for the Transformers movies filmed in Chicago.

Q: What’s something in student media you wish you could learn more about?
A: What other media independent groups are doing to continue financial sustainability

Q: What’s your favorite place you’ve ever visited, and if you could travel anywhere, where would you go?
A: Costa Rica was my favorite place so far. I would love to go to Egypt.

Q: Your name?
A: Nathan Laursen

Q: At what school do you work?
A: Utah State University

Q: What is your role?
A: Director of Student Media

Q: How long have you been in student media?
A: 4 years as a student, 4 years as a vendor, 9 years as an adviser

Q: What are you most excited to work on this year at your student media organization?
A: Our media organization is growing and watching the individual departments of radio, news and our creative agency work together on projects is rewarding. We are excited to produce at least one multimedia project each month this year and continue fulfilling our mission statement.

Q: What’s a fun fact about you?
A: I’ve been hit by lightning, but did not receive any superpowers that have manifested.

Q: What’s something in student media you wish you could learn more about?
A: Programmatic advertising and Search Engine Optimization techniques are constantly changing, and I wish I had more time to learn about it and implement those techniques.

Q: What’s your favorite place you’ve ever visited, and if you could travel anywhere, where would you go?
A: Visited: Hiking the Zion Narrow’s (entire 16-mile overnight from Chamberlain’s Ranch); If travel anywhere: Island hopping in the south pacific (Tuvalu, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, etc) or the Moon or Antartica.