Portfolio

Mul­ti­me­dia

Stu­dents march, demand for action from UConn Pres­i­dent Susan Herbst

by Daniela Don­cel | Decem­ber 4, 2017 | WHUS Radio, News Reporter

Over 100 Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut stu­dents and fac­ul­ty marched Fri­day to protest the event “It’s Okay to Be White” host­ed by UConn’s Col­lege Repub­li­cans and to state their list of demands for the university.

With speak­ers of dif­fer­ent back­grounds to share their sto­ries and to voice their con­cerns, the pro­test­ers had one main mes­sage: the Uni­ver­si­ty should be held account­able for allow­ing right-wing blog­ger Lucian Win­trich, who made nation­al news for his arrest on cam­pus, to speak at UConn.

“A sim­ple Google search could’ve shown that Lucifer, what­ev­er his name was, was an awful per­son,” a speak­er at the event said. Lis­ten to the full sto­ry here.

Omar Taweh deliv­ers a speech as pro­tes­tors hold up signs at the husky stat­ue next to the Gam­pel Pavil­ion. Pho­to: LJ Karam

Sui­cide pre­ven­tion week encour­ages human con­nec­tion with keynote speaker

by Daniela Don­cel | Sep­tem­ber 27, 2017 | WHUS Radio, News Reporter

Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Week Keynote Speak­er and founder of world­wide cam­paign To Write Love on Her Arms, Jamie Tworkows­ki said sui­cide has a glob­al impact, with 800,000 peo­ple who die of sui­cide around the world every year. In oth­er words, he said, one per­son dies of sui­cide every 40 seconds.

In an event held at Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut’s Jor­gensen Cen­ter for the Per­form­ing Arts, Tworkos­ki said the goal of his cam­paign is to encour­age peo­ple to have more open and hon­est con­ver­sa­tions about their lives. Lis­ten to the full sto­ry here.

“The dream is two peo­ple being hon­est about their lives and as a result, both peo­ple get to feel less alone,” Jamie Tworkows­ki said. Pho­to: Daniela Doncel

UConn Col­lege Democ­rats host alter­na­tive event to con­ser­v­a­tive Ben Shapiro

by Daniela Don­cel | Jan­u­ary 29, 2018 | WHUS Radio, News Direc­tor and Reporter

In an alter­na­tive event to the antic­i­pat­ed speech of Ben Shapiro host­ed by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut Col­lege Democ­rats Wednes­day night, Nathan J. Robin­son called for an hon­est con­ver­sa­tion rather than a sup­pres­sion of con­ser­v­a­tive views after describ­ing Shapiro’s work as “rid­dled with incon­sis­ten­cy and intel­lec­tu­al dishonesty.”

Edi­tor in chief of the mag­a­zine “Cur­rent Affairs” and cur­rent Ph.D. stu­dent at Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty, Nathan J. Robin­son said it is far more ben­e­fi­cial to spend the time explain­ing counter-argu­ments rather than silenc­ing a speech, because sup­press­ing  cer­tain val­ues will not solve the prob­lem. Lis­ten to the full sto­ry here.

Nathan J. Robin­son gave his speech “Ben Shapiro is Not as Insight­ful as He Thinks He Is” at the Konover Audi­to­ri­um in the Dodd Research Cen­ter. Pho­to: Daniela Doncel

Broad­cast

MTV’s Decod­ed Franch­esca Ram­sey chats with us on WHUS airwaves
by Daniela Don­cel | March 7, 2019 | WHUS Radio, News Direc­tor and Reporter

On Mon­day, March 4, actress and video blog­ger Franch­esca Ram­sey took the stage in the Stu­dent Union The­atre to dis­cuss her career online and her activism. Before the event, Don­cel got the chance to speak with Ram­sey on the air. The inter­view was broad­cast live on March 4 around 4:00 p.m. Lis­ten to the full inter­view here.

Pho­to: WHUS Mul­ti­me­dia Department

Husky Nation News
by Daniela Don­cel | 2018 — 2019 | WHUS Radio, News Direc­tor and Reporter

Husky Nation News is a stu­dent-run radio news broad­cast that fea­tures rel­e­vant news for the UConn com­mu­ni­ty, stu­dent-pro­duced news pack­ages and a long-form inter­view seg­ment. After over a year of a FM broad­cast lack­ing any con­tent from the news depart­ment, I cre­at­ed and pro­duced this show, so lis­ten­ers can get their week­ly news and stu­dents can get hands on prac­tice with radio news broad­cast­ing. Read more about how the show came to life and lis­ten to some episodes of the show here.

Graph­ic cre­at­ed by Isabelle Geller.

UConn Lunar New Year Celebration
by Daniela Don­cel | March 3, 2019| UCTV News

UConn cel­e­brat­ed the Year of the Pig with music, food and a lion dance. The Viet­namese Stu­dent Asso­ci­a­tion and the Chi­nese Under­grad­u­ate Stu­dent Asso­ci­a­tion orga­nized the event which was held in the Rome ball­room on the Storrs cam­pus. The atten­dance num­ber was orig­i­nal­ly esti­mat­ed at 400 at the time of the cre­ation of the pack­age, but event orga­niz­ers lat­er marked it at around 600 atten­dees. View the full sto­ry below.

In-depth Jour­nal­ism

How print mag­a­zines are stay­ing rel­e­vant in dig­i­tal age

by Daniela Don­cel | Decem­ber 11, 2018 | UConn Online Jour­nal­ism Course

The online uni­verse is gain­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty fast and all indus­tries are jump­ing on the train before it is too late, includ­ing the mag­a­zine indus­try. The print pub­li­ca­tion, how­ev­er, will not be left behind.

With the indus­try in a state of flux, the con­ver­sa­tions about what’s great and not so great about both plat­forms are now mim­ic­k­ing that flu­id­i­ty. Take a listen.

 

For an in-depth fea­ture on the top­ic, read more here.

Pho­to: Daniela Doncel

The uncer­tain future of Colum­bus Day with Indige­nous Peo­ples’ Day

by Daniela Don­cel | Novem­ber 27, 2017 | UConn Jour­nal­ism Newswrit­ing Course 

Proud third gen­er­a­tion Ital­ian Amer­i­can Tiffany Pasqua firm­ly believes that the Unit­ed States fed­er­al hol­i­day Colum­bus Day should be abol­ished in favor of Indige­nous Peo­ples’ Day.

Unlike Pasqua, many Ital­ian-Amer­i­cans cel­e­brate Colum­bus Day week­end with a parade, a her­itage din­ner, and a wreath cer­e­mo­ny. How­ev­er, Native Amer­i­cans have been protest­ing the nation­al hol­i­day for over three decades through leg­is­la­tion and some­times even ille­gal action. Read more here.

A Christo­pher Colum­bus stat­ue faces Lit­tle Italy in New Haven as the ris­ing sun casts a shad­ow over it. Pho­to: Daniela Doncel

Writ­ten Content

Grille 86: A new home for sports fans, will open in Storrs

by Daniela Don­cel | Feb­ru­ary 21, 2017 | The Dai­ly Cam­pus, Cam­pus Correspondent

Grille 86, a new Amer­i­can restau­rant, will soon open in Storrs Cen­ter offer­ing a new loca­tion for fresh food and sport­ing event view­ings for the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut com­mu­ni­ty and beyond.

“There has been a huge demand for a larg­er place down­town that will stay open late and host infor­mal gath­er­ings of friends and fam­i­lies who want to watch a tele­vised sport­ing event while enjoy­ing some great food and drink. With the open­ing of Grille 86, that demand will be met,” CEO and Prin­ci­pal of Ley­land Alliance LLC and devel­op­er of Storrs Cen­ter Howard Kauf­man said. Read more here.

Pho­to: Zhelun Lang | The Dai­ly Campus

Video/Photojournalism

Impacts of cli­mate change on plants through­out South Africa

by Daniela Don­cel | Decem­ber 14, 2017 | UConn Jour­nal­ism and Sci­ence Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Course

Tan­isha Williams is a Ph.D. can­di­date in Ecol­o­gy and Evo­lu­tion­ary Biol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut con­duct­ing research in South Africa to find strate­gies with which to help plants in dan­ger due to cli­mate change. How­ev­er, with a severe drought in the area, her work has felt the dam­ag­ing effects of cli­mate change, mak­ing it even more dif­fi­cult to con­duct her research. Watch the short doc­u­men­tary here.

WHUS Radio starts major stu­dios upgrade

by Daniela Don­cel | May 1, 2019 | UConn Jour­nal­ism Course

WHUS Radio stu­dios are get­ting a whole new look. UConn’s col­lege radio sta­tion is look­ing to get a full upgrade on broad­cast­ing equip­ment, and they’re going to Las Vegas, Neva­da to do it.