Jan. 2024 News Blog
News briefs from the HCC campus and beyond
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Making Headlines
New England Public Media has promoted HCC alum Elizabeth Román '03 
to managing editor of daily and digital news. According to a NEPM, Román's evolving responsibilities now include leading daily news programming on the radio, as well as the NEPM website, and social media channels. "Román will continue to focus on expanding the diversity of sources in news coverage and opportunities to create more Spanish-language news content," the station said. "As the daughter of Puerto Rican parents who migrated to Massachusetts more than 40 years ago, Román has intended throughout her career as a journalist to provide accurate representation of communities of color in western Massachusetts." Román joined NEPM in 2022 after working as a reporter at the Springfield Republican for nearly two decades. She also served as editor of the Republican's Spanish-language weekly, El Pueblo Latino, co-founded Colectivo de Medios Latinos, a pandemic-inspired collection of video interviews with Latinx professionals in Western Massachusetts, and appeared as a panelist on NEPM's The Short List and Connecting Point programs. After HCC, Román, a liberal arts major, went on to study journalism at the University of Massachusetts. She is as member of the HCC Alumni Council and has served as an alumni mentor for Latinx students.
Ready to Rate
For avid sports fans, the Super Bowl is one of the premier events of the year. Millions of others not particularly interested in the game tune in anyway, though, for the spectacle, the parties, the pools, the half-time show – and the commercials. This year, on Feb. 11 – Super Bowl Sunday – students in professor Klara Karol's Principles of Marketing class will be participating in a national project run by USA Today called Ad Meter. Their assignment: Rate the commercials. Make notes about what they like and don't like and select their top 5 and worst 5. Their results will be part of story published by USA Today. HCC is one of just four colleges participating nationwide. "I really want your authentic feelings, and maybe share what others around you thought and how they reacted," Karol said the other day to her class as she reviewed the Ad Meter guidelines. "USA Today really wants the involvement of you, the younger generation, the super consumers of the future. So your engagement is super important, and I'm really hyped up." Above: Professor Klara Karol and her Principles of Marketing class.
On the (Cold) Case
Although HCC alum and criminal justice Professor Lou Barry '73 makes no boasts about his musical talent - "none whatsoever," he says - he did make it into a recent issue of Rolling Stone magazine. Barry, an Agawam native and retired Granby police chief, was interviewed by Rolling Stone investigative journalist Caitlyn Flynn for the story, "Her Daughter Disappeared. That's When the True-Crime Nightmare Began," which was published Dec. 21, 2023. Barry, a cold case investigator and owner of Harris Mountain Investigations LLC, had looked into the disappearance of 21-year-old Sofia Mckenna at the request of her mother, four years after various agencies had failed to solve the mystery. (In 2018, Mckenna and a friend set off in a small rowboat for a late-night excursion to Ledge Light off the Connecticut coast; neither made it back. The friend's body was recovered, but hers was never found, fueling internet speculation that she might have been abducted or the victim of a violent crime.) Spoiler Alert: Barry ultimately concluded that Mckenna probably drowned, as had her friend, her body carried away by currents. "Due to the influence of some on social media and a few exploitive podcasters, the case was under constant bombardment of different theories, none of which had any basis in anything except baseless speculation," Barry said earlier this month. "Once everything was clarified for her (Mckenna's mother), she was able to accept the reality of the situation." Thumbnail: Barry teaches a criminology class at HCC; above: Barry leads an HCC summer youth program on crime scene investigations.
CAFÉ Columnist
Chef Warren Leigh is not only an award-winning culinary arts teacher, but he is now also a culinary arts columnist. After being recognized in June as "Educator of the Year" by the Center for the Advancement of Foodservice Education, a national industry group, Leigh, co-chair of the HCC Culinary Arts program, was asked to write a monthly feature for CAFÉ's website. His first was published on Jan. 2, "Better Teaching Skills: Engaging in the Transfer of Knowledge." Subhead: "It takes practice to be a great athlete," writes Leigh, who is also an avid skiier and ski instructor. "Teaching is the same in that the more you teach the better you become and the better-educated students you graduate." Above: Chef Warren Leigh in one of the teaching kitchens at the HCC MGM Culinary Arts Institute.
