Students from Temple University’s School of Media and Communication are proving that the school's South Africa Study Away program is more than just your average travel study experience.
In addition to having one of its former graduates win a Mid-Atlantic Emmy award for documentary work created in South Africa, the program has just been named a 2013 EPPY Award winner.
The EPPY Awards, hosted by Editor & Publisher journal, is an international contest that honors the best professional, college and university web sites in media.
The South Africa Study Away program won the ‘Best Use of Social Media’ award for its Temple University South Africa page on Tumblr, which students used to streamline content posted on their Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts, and to share journalistic stories, videos, and blog posts from their journeys in the country.
The South Africa Study Away program launched in 2011 and sent 11 students to South Africa in its first year. This year, 17 students and two faculty directors traveled to the Melville neighborhood in the northwestern suburbs of Johannesburg to participate in the program.
Broadcast journalism student Nicholas Cutrona, an alumnus of the 2013 South Africa Study Away group, said he was proud to be a part of the award-winning program.
“I was certainly excited. I contributed some of the videos for the Tumblr page and I also managed the Facebook page. So, it felt really good to be honored for my part in that,” Cutrona said.
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“I think it says something, not only about the program, but about the people who participate in the program. It speaks to their capabilities and points to the work were able to do with the limited resources that we had in South Africa.”
Last year, the program won an EPPY award for Best College University Journalism Website.
Temple’s School of Media and Communication also offers study away programs in London, New York City, Dublin, Barcelona, and Hong Kong.
