When Knight Center alum Debbie Munson Badini worked at the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, she was often frustrated by reports of people dying while enjoying the water or woods, especially when the death could have been prevented with basic safety measures.
“My philosophy is that we need people to engage with nature and the environment if we want them to care about it,” she said. “Empowering citizens to feel confident about their safety while recreating outdoors plays a big part in getting them outside and connected to the world around them.”
Now the 2005 graduate of MSU’s masters in journalism program does just that as the new outreach and education coordinator for the Minnesota DNR’s boating and water safety program in St. Paul.
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Category Archives: Alumni
MSU alum and environmental researcher connects with Knight Center
Knight Center students listen live to a Nature reporter interviewing a scientist at the Electric Power Research Institute over the phone. The encounter was arranged by Clay Perry, EPRI’s senior manager of media relations sitting at the far right. Next to him is Eric Bauman, an MSU alum and EPRI’s environmental technical adviser. Standing is Chris Mahoney, the company’s environmental marketing and communication leader. Image: David Poulson
By Amanda Proscia
MSU geography alum Eric Bauman (BA 1972, MA 1976) recently visited the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism to discuss his career in energy and environmental, health and safety planning.
Bauman is an environmental technical adviser for the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), a nonprofit organization in Palo Alto, California, that researches electric power-related issues.
Spending a large chunk of his childhood in the Michigan outdoors heavily influenced his career path, he said.
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MSU J-School alum covers global fisheries from Alaska
Margie Bauman
By Colleen Otte
When Margie Bauman placed an ad in Editor and Publisher that read “J-grad, female, will go anywhere,” her degree in journalism from Michigan State University landed her 15 job offers.
That was in 1964. Bauman had come to MSU from Newark, New Jersey, where she graduated from Weequahic High School. The school was great academically, she said, but terrible at football – winning just one game in the four years she attended. She chose MSU because it accepted her just two weeks after she applied.
And it had a winning football team.
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Knight Center alums earn new positions at Traverse City paper
Danielle Woodward
Knight Center alum Danielle Woodward is a new business reporter at the Traverse City (Michigan) Record Eagle.
Woodward, a 2015 graduate of Michigan State University’s School of Journalism, is a former reporter for the center’s Great Lakes Echo. She received the Knight Center’s 2015 Service Award and also a National Pulliam Journalism Fellowship.
She served an internship as copy editor at the Arizona Republic during the past summer.
She will be covering businesses in Traverse City and surrounding counties.
Carol Thompson
Among the staff that she joins is Carol Thompson, another Knight Center alum who worked at Great Lakes Echo. Thompson, a 2012 MSU graduate, recently picked up environmental reporting responsibilities at the paper.
During her stint with the Knight Center she was awarded the Edward J. Meeman award for outstanding undergraduate student in 2012. She joined the Record Eagle in 2014 after reporting for two years at the Peninsula Pulse newspaper in Door County, Wis.
The Traverse City Record Eagle is a daily morning newspaper that serves 5 counties in northwest lower Michigan: Grand Traverse, Leelanau, Benzie, Antrim, Kalkaska. It is owned by Community Newspaper Holding, Inc. along with more than 200 community newspapers throughout the United States.