Instructor
Joe Akers is the adviser for Noblesville High School's Mill Stream newspaper and NHS News broadcasting program. He earned a B.A. in Telecommunications/Broadcast Journalism, a B.A. in Education and an M.A. in Journalism from Indiana University. He was recently named the 2024 Indiana High School Press Association's Indiana Student Media Adviser of the Year. He is teaching Intro to Photography for HSJI this year. You can view his photography work at joeakers.net.
Instructor
Alan Bates teaches AP English, Debate, and Public Speaking at Princeton High School in Cincinnati, Ohio. He also currently serves as the Director of Speech and Debate at Princeton and was inducted into the Ohio Speech and Debate Association's Coaches Hall of Fame. He earned his B.A. in Diplomacy and Foreign Affairs from Miami University, Ohio, before getting M.A.s in Broadcast Journalism and English education from The Ohio State University. Alan worked for the ABC affiliate WSYX in Columbus, Ohio as well as serving as the Broadcast Journalism Instructor at Noblesville and Princeton High Schools. Alan has been an instructor at HSJI for over twenty years, and this year will be a co instructor for 360 Journalism.
Instructor
Claire Burke, MJE, advises the Pinnacle yearbook at Carmel High School, where she also teaches journalism and English. Burke has served as a JEA State Director as well as a critique judge for NSPA and various state organizations. Her students have received recognition from NSPA, JEA and IHSPA. She loves seeing students create yearbook amazingness every year!
Instructor
Chad Carrothers is a veteran communications professional and award-winning journalist with authentic experience at the intersection of citizen journalism and public relations. Chad graduated from the IU School of Journalism in 1999 and immediately went to work for WFHB, Indiana’s first community-owned and community-operated public radio station, as the station’s first full-time News Director. There he built a full-service news operation from the ground up, managing the collective efforts of hundreds of citizen journalists (including IU students) to create and sustain various groundbreaking programming initiatives including Bloomington’s only daily live radio newscast and Indiana’s only LGBTIQ public affairs program. Under his leadership WFHB was consistently Indiana’s most award-winning radio news department according to the state chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. In 2012 Indy SPJ presented Chad with the “Slaymaker” lifetime achievement award, about a year after he retired from his role as News Director in order to become the General Manager of WFHB. Today Carrothers manages community relations for CareSource, a nonprofit healthcare organization improving the quality of life for Hoosiers on subsidized care. He continues to volunteer at WFHB and teaches journalism and podcasting at The Media School at Indiana University and the High School Journalism Institute.
Instructor
Christina Faulkner is a journalism teacher and adviser at New Albany High School where she advises both the newspaper and yearbook staffs. She is a 2004 graduate of Indiana University’s School of Journalism and has a Masters Degree in Educational Technology from Indiana State University. She has been teaching/advising for 20 years.
Instructor
Denise Green has advised yearbook, newspaper, web page, magazine and broadcast staffs for the past 34 years. She taught at IUPUI School of Journalism for several years and has taught at HSJI for 23 years. Her forte has been launching and revitalizing scholastic journalism programs, including overcoming an inherited debt of $24,000 at Greenwood High School, where she has taught for the past 29 years. Her students have earned Indiana Student Journalist of the Year and runner-up recognition, Hoosier Stars, Harvey Awards, Pacemakers and national convention Best of Show awards. Meanwhile, she has earned her Master Journalism Educator from the Journalism Education Association and her master’s degree in educational leadership through IU. Although a licensed principal, this 2000 Indiana Journalism Teacher of the Year has opted to stay in the classroom doing what she loves: teaching.
Instructor
Sam Hanley is the English department chair and yearbook adviser at Southport High School in Indianapolis, where he has advised The Anchor for 21 years. He is a 2002 graduate of Indiana University, where he earned a B.S. in journalism and education. Hanley also holds a Master Degree in school leadership from the University of Indianapolis. The Anchor staff is the recipient of state and national awards, including IHSPA Hoosier Stars and NSPA Pacemaker finalists. Hanley is currently serving his second term as president of the Indiana High School Press Association board of directors and served on the local committee for the 2016 NSPA/JEA convention in Indianapolis. He has presented on yearbook design, theme development and sales at state and local conventions He was a featured speaker at Ball State’s 2024 J-Day+ conference.
Instructor
Jeremy Hogan began working as a freelancer for his hometown newspaper, the Porterville Recorder, in 1987 while still in high school. He covered a lot of high school sports, but also some big stories, such as the funeral of Cesar Chavez in 1993. He later graduated from San Jose State University in 1997 with a journalism degree and shortly afterward began working as a visual journalist at the Herald-Times in Bloomington. While working his way through college, before being hired by the HT, he worked as a photojournalism intern at the Modesto Bee, Indianapolis News, Kansas City Star, Palm Beach Post, and Ann Arbor News. In 2019 the Herald-Times was sold to an investment company, and the photo staff of two was cut down to one. Hogan was laid off. However, what could have been a career-ending situation became an opportunity when he began covering the community for the online news site he founded: The Bloomingtonian. The subscriber and advertising supported local news site, which is digital, had 181k users in the past 90 days, and covers a variety of local breaking news, and sometimes national news and politics. Hogan traveled to Ukraine as an independent photojournalist in 2014 and began contributing video to Getty Images. He took the opportunity as a Getty contributor to build the video archive by covering the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, and political events in between. He has over 7,000 editorial video clips represented in the Getty video archive. Clips have been licensed for use on everything from Comedy Central, and the Bill Maher show to feature films such as, “Don’t Look up.” Hogan believes photojournalism isn’t dead as some predicted, but the old business models no longer work, and the traditional markets for visual journalism have collapsed. But innovative visual journalists will find a way forward as they have already in an ever-changing marketplace.
Instructor
Dean Hume has been teaching high school or college-level journalism classes and advising publications for 36 years. A former reporter and columnist for various daily and weekly papers across the state, Hume currently teaches journalism at Lakota East High School (OH), where he is in his 25th year of advising the Spark, the award-winning news magazine that routinely features a staff of more than 125 students. Spark is a consistent CSPA Gold Crown, Quill and Scroll Gallup, NSPA Pacemaker winner as well as a two-time SPJ student publication of the year. A Dow Jones Newspaper Fund Distinguished Adviser, Hume serves as an adjunct professor of Journalism in the School of Informatics at Northern Kentucky University. He has earned the TAJE Trailblazer Award and was named a 2002 President Scholar Educator by the U.S. Department of Education.
Instructor
Mike Klopfenstein teaches Journalism and English at Southport High School in Indianapolis. He’s the adviser of The Journal, Southport’s award-winning newsmagazine. Prior to his work at Southport, he taught at Carroll High School in Fort Wayne and at Bluffton High School. He coached high school baseball for 24 years. Klopfenstein received his B.A. from Indiana University in 1992 and his master’s degree from the University of Indianapolis in 2009. He’s a past vice president of the Indiana High School Press Association’s board of directors. He was named the IHSPA’s Sengenberger Adviser of the Year in 2018 and Southport High School’s Teacher of the Year in 2014. The Journal has been named an IHSPA Hoosier Star winner several times under Klopfenstein’s guidance. His students have won numerous awards at the state and national level. Two of his students have been named IHSPA Journalist of the Year.
Instructor
Jim Lang joins the HSJI faculty this summer with 31 years of experience as a journalism and photography teacher and publication adviser at both Greencastle (IN) High School (1993-1996) and Floyd Central (IN) High School (1996-2024). Next year he returns to his high school alma mater at Jeffersonville to advise the student newspaper and teach journalism and digital photography. A proud IU grad, Lang is excited to return to the Bloomington campus to advise section editors and work with the fun and awesome faculty at HSJI. He wants to empower student journalists to produce outstanding journalism that matters while serving their school communities well.
Instructor
Steve Layton has taught graphics and design courses at IU School of Journalism/The Media School since 2010. Before teaching, he worked for almost 20 years in newspaper graphics departments, 16 of them at the Chicago Tribune, where he was Graphics Editor and later Senior Artist. Steve has won numerous awards for his graphics and design work, which he keeps in a drawer somewhere, and in 2004 he was a small part of a large project on airline gridlock that was awarded that year’s Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism. During his time at the Tribune, he took part in three major redesigns and witnessed firsthand and on a day-by-day basis the accelerating pace of change that continues to transform the world’s media companies. Professor Layton’s classes in the Media School are skills-based and focused on graphic design, informational graphics and interactive media. Steve is a graduate of the University of Florida.
Instructor
Kathleen Mills received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Indiana University. She advises The Optimist at Bloomington High School South, where her students regularly win writing awards from Quill and Scroll. She is also a freelance writer and former daily newspaper reporter who has been published in The New York Times, Mademoiselle and The Indianapolis Star. Mills has received two Lilly Endowment Teacher Fellowships, won the Columbia Scholastic Press Association Special Recognition Adviser award and was a participant in the New York Times Teaching Project.
Instructor
Sammy Nance is a freelance sports and portrait photographer running her own small business in Southern Indiana. She recently graduated from Indiana University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism specializing in Photojournalism and Public Relations. During her time at IU she worked for the Mark Cuban Center for Sports Media and Technology as a photography intern. As a senior she was the primary photography for IU’s wrestling and field hockey programs and enjoyed traveling with the teams. Sammy was a TA for HSJI in the summer of 2023 and is excited to be coming back!
Instructor
Grace Waltz teaches English Language Development in Baltimore, Maryland. Her goal as an educator is to help students tell their stories through whatever media suits them. She worked as a video producer after receiving her degree from Indiana University’s Media School in 2016. Her experience with documentary-style video production spans from solo, run-and-gun shoots to international, multi-person crew productions.
