Florida A&M University

“Ndewoo nmadu n’ile. Aha’m bu Wandoo Makurdi,” means “Hello everyone. My name is Wandoo Makurdi,” in Igbo, my mother’s native tongue. I am a graduate broadcast journalism student from Lagos, Nigeria. I obtained my bachelor’s in communications with minors in journalism and sports studies from Florida State University in 2006. The summer before my graduation, I interned as a copy editor at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution but opted for a career as a sportswriter. I took a six-month internship with the Women’s Sports Foundation in New York, which turned out to be an amazing experience. I never imagined that I’d meet and interview Billie Jean King, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Monica Seles and other female athletes I grew up admiring. I parlayed that internship into a full-time position as the sports editor of the Quantico Sentry, a Marine Corps base newspaper in Virginia, where teaching and mentoring Marines and high school students in news writing was what I enjoyed most about the job. Choosing a career as a sports journalist didn’t happen by chance. I was born into a family of athletes and competed in several sports up to the high school level including soccer, track and field, tennis, basketball, Olympic handball, swimming and table tennis. After relocating to the United States and realizing a collegiate career wasn’t going to happen, I decided to write about athletes.

I love singing, poetry, cooking and traveling, so visiting South Africa for the first time to experience this exciting opportunity would be a dream job.

I am Anamarie Shreeves, a senior magazine production student at Florida A&M University, from Forestville, Md. I will graduate in the fall, and be thrown face first into the journalism industry. I am a staff editor for Journey magazine and an editorial intern at the local newspaper, Tallahassee Democrat. I am the online editor for journeymagonline.com, which is a supplement to the magazine’s print publication.

Traveling is my favorite pastime; a simple trip to Atlanta or an extravagant escapade to Rio de Janeiro would satisfy my adventurous itch. Although I have yet to stride through an international airport, I have had a passport on standby for the first flight out of the States for months! And sure enough, my first international trip will be with the South Africa team! On any given weekend, I can be caught scanning the thrift shops for some goodies or trying a new restaurant/wine bar, where the “cool people” mingle. Often, I check out the city’s yuppie scene to keep me in the social loop. I kind of feel some entitlement to know about the nightlife scene so I try to always be in the know. I am not the best networker, but my curiosity will be my best attribute in a journalism career. I have not been able to hone the networking skill, but I hope this is something I can develop between now and the completion of our South Africa project. My curiosity (being nosy) is my best journalistic proficiency. Even when I’m not trying, my inquiries help strike up conversations and build relationships.

I am über excited about working in South Africa this summer. I’m really eager to see what other opportunities will arise from this.

Aaron is a first-year broadcast journalism student from Bowie, Maryland. Born in Washington, Aaron’s family moved out of the city when he was still very young. Growing up Aaron displayed a keen eagerness for learning and gathering information, gaining entrance into talented and gifted programs and workshops. He attended high school at Western Reserve Academy, an international boarding school in northeast Ohio. While at Reserve, Aaron studied a demanding liberal arts program with some of the brightest minds from around the globe.

Thanks to his interactions with people from every continent, Aaron gained respect for (and interest in) other countries and their cultures. His academic performance garnered praise, particularly writing and language studies. Having begun to study Latin in seventh grade, Aaron took his first AP examination in Latin during his sophomore year, earning a perfect 5. The next year he began to study Mandarin Chinese, completing two years of instruction before graduation. Aaron also expanded upon his international travel during high school. During the summer of 2007 he made his first intercontinental trip, traveling to Nanjing, China, with the Center for Talented Youth program of Johns Hopkins University. A year later he traveled to Italy, touring Rome and Florence. Since coming to Florida A&M he has begun writing for the school newspaper, The Famuan, and hopes to branch out into other forms of media. His interests include writing, filmmaking, anime and manga, music and literature.

Henry Anatole Grunwald, former editor in chief of Time, Inc., so eloquently portrayed the role journalism plays in our society when he said, “Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air.” It is that daring role, to speak the undiluted truth no matter the consequences, that drew me to a career in journalism. My name is Clarece Polke, and I am a sophomore newspaper journalism major. My goal is to have a career in international journalism, with a concentration on peace and conflict in foreign nations.

I am from the small town of Archer, Florida., which is approximately 25 miles outside the more well-known city of Gainesville, which is the home of the University of Florida. Although I have been writing as a hobby for as long as I can remember, this is my first year being introduced to any form of journalistic AP style writing. I am deputy news editor for Florida A&M University’s student newspaper, The Famuan, and have also held the positions of assistant and deputy sports editor in the six months that I have been on staff. I love to read in my spare time, and like to stay athletically active through various activities including dance, running and yoga. This trip to South Africa will be my first time traveling outside the United States.

Kristen Swilley is an 18-year-old sophomore broadcast journalism student from Douglasville, Georgia., and the fourth generation of her family to attend Florida A&M University. Upon entering FAMU, she was awarded a presidential scholarship and a School of Journalism and Graphic Communication scholarship. She has maintained her strong academic record in college, earning a spot on the dean’s list her first semester. Most recently she has been the news editor for The Famuan and previously was deputy Lifestyles editor. She is also a member of the FAMU chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists, a production assistant and online reporter for the campus magazine show, a member of the National Council of Negro Women, and a campus Girl Scout.

Off campus, Kristen is a freelance columnist for the Douglas County Sentinel, her hometown newspaper, and Visions Newsletter, her church’s quarterly publication. Her ultimate goal is to become a news anchor, but she seeks to be involved in all aspects of media throughout her career. The FAMU-Shantou student journalism project will be her first experience traveling abroad and her first time covering a sporting event. She is incredibly excited about this once in a lifetime opportunity and has several goals for this project. Her goals for her time in South Africa are to capture the spirit of the country, increase her knowledge of the World Cup competition, and gain a greater cultural perspective through her partnership with Shantou University students.

I am Rachel Gadson, a recent Graphic Design graduate from Chicago, IL. The motivation for all of my work stems directly from genuine, natural passion. As an artist I’m allowed the opportunity to create things based on inspiration from my imaginative mind without any limitations. I represent art by living life worry free without putting any limitation on my growth and success in life. As I make my mark through life, there are many places that I want to go, people that I’d like to meet, and messages that I must convey. Fulfilling the goals of inspiring, teaching and relating will complete my role as a graphic designer, and essentially complete the purpose that I know has been set for my life. Similar to the pencil that meets an illustrator’s sketch pad, I always allow myself to be free, yet still being concise and thorough in each mark that I make.

I was born in London, England, and grew up on the Caribbean island of Montserrat. There I learned to play soccer barefoot on asphalt streets.

Soccer and journalism have been the twin passions of my life. Ironically, one gave birth to the other. I discovered journalism after I wrote my first published story — a match report about a soccer game for the weekly newspaper. Before long, I became a regular sports correspondent and a right midfielder for my club team. Later, skill on the field led to my selection on the national youth team for the 1978 Cable & Wireless Caribbean Under-19 football tournament. I dreamed of soccer glory — playing professionally in Europe and playing in the World Cup. Those sports dreams died as I entered Howard University and started a family, but my passion for journalism and the beautiful game burns undimmed.

Thirty years later, I am an assistant professor of journalism at Florida A&M University and adviser to The Famuan student newspaper. My role is to teach and inspire students. Before joining FAMU, I worked as a newspaper columnist, editor and reporter for two decades, most recently with the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times. I also worked at the Rock Hill (South Carolina) Herald, the Asbury Park (New Jersey) Press and Gannett Westchester (New York) Newspapers. At each stop up the ladder, I had one major regret. I never covered the World Cup. That should change this summer in South Africa.

Joe Ritchie holds the Knight Chair in Journalism at Florida A&M University. He earned his bachelor’s degree in German from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1970, where he was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow — and a reserve on the varsity soccer team. He earned separate master’s degrees in German and journalism from the Ohio State University in 1973 and 1975, and also studied at the Ruprecht-Karl Universität in Heidelberg, Germany. He is fluent in German and Dutch. He also reads and understands quite a bit of Afrikaans and French and can read basic Spanish and Italian.

From 1975 through 1986, Ritchie was with The Washington Post, mostly as an assistant foreign editor. In 1982-84 he was a visiting professor of journalism at Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) in Virginia. In 1986, Ritchie joined the Detroit Free Press, where he was named national and foreign editor in 1988. He joined FAMU in 1992.

Ritchie has spent three summers back at the foreign desk of The Washington Post, three each in Paris and Hong Kong with the International Herald Tribune and two summers at The New York Times. He spent most of the 2008-09 academic year at the IHT in Hong Kong, except for three months in the spring of 2009, when he was a visiting professor at the University of Hong Kong. Ritchie also has traveled extensively. He has been to all 50 U.S. states, and in addition to longer stays in Germany, France, Canada and Hong Kong, he has visited South Africa, Suriname, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines and nearly 20 Caribbean islands and approximately 20 other European lands.

Ritchie has lectured widely on international affairs and on journalism issues and is an active member of the National Association of Black Journalists, has served 18 years on the board of directors of the American Council on Germany. The 2010 FIFA World Cup will be the fifth Cup in the fifth different decade that he has had a hand in covering, after the 1974 tournament in Germany, 1982 in Spain, 1994 in the United States and the 2006 tournament in Germany, during which he edited World Cup copy on the New York Times sports copy desk. He lives in Tallahassee with his wife, Dr. Louise Reid Ritchie. They have two sons: Jabari, 26, who lives in Portland, Ore., and Akin, 22, who will be a senior theater tech major this fall at Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla.

Shantou University

Chen Chengxiao traveled far and wide as a journalism student and later as assistant to the director of the convergence program of the Shantou University journalism school earning his experience in the field of visual storytelling through real world production works.

He traveled to Malaysia to cover the country’s 12th general election, followed the footsteps of China’s greatest reporter and worked as a video editor for the Long March Retrace Program co-hosted by People’s Daily and the J-school.

Currently, he is responsible for managing the program blogs on the J-school website. Chengxiao’s skill-set in the field of convergence gives him the edge in providing various kinds of support to students working on multimedia production.

Chen Xi (“Sirius”) majors in broadcast & television news at the Cheung Kong School of Journalism and Communication at Shantou University. He joined the TV Department of Cheung Kong Media Online, a student media organization of the school. He spent two years focusing on TV news, feature film, documentary and music video production.

He was also in charge of the live streaming of the Top Ten Singing Competition on campus. For his summer internship, he worked at the Satellite Channel of Southern Television Station (TVS-2) in Guangzhou.

Wang Fan, who likes to be called Christina, is a second-year student of the journalism school of Shantou University.Her strength in the command of English and writing makes her an asset for the South Africa World Cup reporting team. Wang was involved in the China National Environment Project of the journalism school, telling the story of Foshan, a major city in southern China, where she led a reporting team. The efforts will be published in a book about China’s environment. Wang has also hosted shows and other activities on and outside the campus, and she will be a valuable asset in front of the camera. She believes that teamwork is the crucial key to opening the door of a good report and wishes that the team can cooperate with each other very well and have a meaningful time in South Africa together.

Mr. Han Wei earned his Master in Journalism in 2009 from The University of Hong Kong and now teaches Feature Writing and Internet News Gathering at the Cheung Kong School of Journalism and Communication of Shantou University.

Prior to his teaching career, Han Wei reported on the topics of sports and later finance writing for widely read Chinese newspapers Economic Observer, Beijing Times and the financial and business magazine Asian Business Leaders. At Shantou University, he focuses on subjects ranging from traditional journalism to social media and online journalism, which he sees as the future of the (seemingly) dying print industry.

He Long (pronounced as Her Loong) is a junior at the Cheung Kong School of Journalism and Communication of Shantou University and has shown great interest in photography.

He interned for three months as a photojournalist at Sunshine Daily, a news agency based in Shenzhen, in Guangdong Province. He also had his photos published in Want Daily (a Taiwan newspaper), Shantou Daily and other news agencies in Fujian, Jiangxi and Guangdong provinces.

Lavender Tseng (Pinyin: Zheng Sisi) was involved in campus media programs as an anchor. In her sophomore year, she was part of the Dongjiang Environment project and went to Dongjiang Source Village, Jiangxi Province, with environmental protection officers to report on local environmental issues. It was Lavender’s first experience as a journalist; she has benefited a lot from the strenuous efforts of interviewing and writing. Her work was published on the website of Hong Kong’s Friends of the Earth.

Yan Zhao (Pinyin: Zhao Yanxian”) is a junior majoring in journalism at Shantou University, Guangdong, China. She aspired to become a photographer after taking her first lessons in photography at the school. In her past two years, most of her time has focused on photography. Thanks to two years of photographing on the street and communicating with strangers who speak in a totally different language, Yan gained different abilities to cope with different situations.

For her, exploring Shantou, which is a totally strange city, has been the best way to learn. In addition, with experiences from the workshops of Magnum photographer Chang Chienqi and the famous photographer Shahidul Alam, she has broadened her view of photography. Also, Yan runs a photography discussion group in which students can share knowledge with each other.

In June 2010, Yan will go to South Africa to report on the World Cup as a camera woman. As a strong and persistent young woman, Yan will do her best to capture the best pictures and videos for the group.

Yusen Lee (Pinyin: Li Yuncheng) has gained his experience in hands-on journalistic work as an intern at newspapers and fashion magazines. As a junior student majoring in broadcast and television news at the Cheung Kong School of Journalism and Communication at Shantou University, he has completed all the courses in broadcasting and presentation skills. His extracurricular activities included filmmaking, and he has directed some short horror films.

He was a big fan of Brazil and the goalkeeper on his school football (soccer) team in his high school days. Currently he is working hard to play catch up with the world’s football scene.

Mr. Sam Hui (Cantonese pronunciation: Hui Sengkin) started his teaching career at Shantou University about 3 years ago, teaching Web development and multimedia production. He is also the director of Web communications and webmaster of the journalism school, providing technical support for special reporting projects such as this South African trip.

Though he graduated from the University of Technology Malaysia with a degree in engineering and Master in Architectural Science in 1998, he was actively involved in communication and magazine production for student organizations. He co-founded an environmental group called SOS Selangor, and later worked for a human rights NGO, SUARAM, where he was in charge of publication of books and periodicals. Meanwhile, he also helped various NGOs set up their websites. He later joined Cili Padi Magazine, a monthly political commentary magazine in Malaysia.

As a budding filmmaker, his short film titled “2020” won 2nd prize in the first human rights film festival organized by Komas, a Malaysian NGO working on community communication in 2004. He was later awarded a fellowship from Nippon Foundation to study the environmental movements in Japan and Thailand, where he produced a documentary on a dam opposition movement in Thailand called “From dammed to liberation” as a conclusion of the work in 2005.

Prior to his employment at Shantou University, He joined Southeast Asia Center for e-Media, a media NGO, helping various small independent news organizations to go online and build their capacities in video production.