Edelman CCCA celebrates student achievement during year end Showcase program

Just a week ahead of Commencement, in which graduates will celebrate their Rowan University years and their exciting next steps, students in the Ric Edelman College of Communication & Creative Arts showed their mettle in a college-wide demonstration.

One of nearly 80 students taking part in the annual Edelman CCCA Showcase & Recognition Day, senior Candace Wright showed off not just her mettle but her metal.

Wright, a studio art major, displayed a bronze casting of a favorite hair comb and an accompanying piece, a cast aluminum hair braid.

“There aren’t a lot of products that are long lasting for ethnic hair textures and this comb is,” Wright said. “I wanted to make it permanent somehow.”

As for the cast aluminum braid, Wright said her work speaks directly to the human condition.

“I wanted to show how individual the experience of human hair is,” she said. “I want people to relate to it, and maybe some will see something else.”

Formerly the Student Showcase & Awards Ceremony, 2022 is the ten-year anniversary since the program began.

“This show is the culmination of what students learned all year,” said Edelman CCCA Dean Dr. Sanford Tweedie.

Noting that, as dean, he views just a fraction of the work under development during the fall and spring semesters, Tweedie said much of what he was seeing was for the first time.

“It’s great for me to speak with students and find out what went into their work,” he said.

Tweedie noted that the college, which includes such popular programs as advertising, art, biomedical art & visualization, communication studies, health & science communication, journalism, public relations, radio-television-film, sports communication & media (Sports CaM) and writing arts is continually evolving. The college this fall starts a new Master of Arts in Television Studies and it is expanding a cross-disciplinary program, Applied Professional Communications, to Rowan College of South Jersey, one of the University’s community college partners,.

In addition, the college this fall welcomes more than 40 Edelman Scholars, high-achieving students who qualify for a $2,500 renewable scholarship.

Briana Mac Kay, a junior Sports CaM and journalism double major, was one of several students showing digitized clips of work she and others completed during the year. One included an interview she conducted with Kate Scott, the play-by-play announcer for the Philadelphia 76ers.

“We’re showing different aspects of what you can do in Sports CaM,” Mac Kay said.

Inspired by Scott, one of the few women who hold such prominent positions in sports broadcasting, Mac Kay, the sports editor for The Whit student newspaper, is elated about her prospects.

“I want to be a sportswriter for a major newspaper,” she said. “Covering sports is definitely fun.”