Patricia Thompson

Director

Patricia Thompson is the new Director of Student Media and an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and New Media. She’s happy to be back at work on a college campus, helping students meet their professional goals.

Most recently, Thompson was Deputy Managing Editor at the South Florida Sun Sentinel, with responsibility for the Sunday paper, the Washington bureau, the Outlook section and newsroom-wide enterprise planning, as well as coverage of news and enterprise by the business, national/foreign, consumer, medicine/health, features and entertainment departments. Her staffs won a number of major awards. She chaired an inter-divisional strategic planning committee, involving editorial, advertising, broadcast, operations and marketing managers.

Thompson spent most of her career at the San Jose Mercury News in northern California. She started there as a metro editor, then was promoted to Assistant Managing Editor for a variety of areas over the years - Page 1/Nights, features, the Sunday magazine, intern programs, hiring and staff development. The staff won a Pulitzer Prize for public serve, and other national awards. She received the national Knight Ridder Award for Diversity, and was honored with the YWCA Tribute to Women and Industry Award.

Thompson has also worked as a staff writer at The Washington Post, a metro editor at two other California newspapers and as an assistant professor of journalism at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, where she directed the Teaching Newspaper program and co-founded and directed the Academy for Future Journalists.

She is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism, where she was a Curators Scholar and received other scholarships and awards, including induction into Mortar Board national honor society and Kappa Tau Alpha, the college journalism honor society. She was a Presidential Scholar.

Thompson was selected for leadership management programs for Knight Ridder, Tribune and API. She was the first editor in chief of the convention newspaper for the National Association of Black Journalists, and has served as a judge for numerous high school, university and professional contests. For more than a dozen years, she has been active with the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications, including serving for six years on the accreditation committee, and continues to do site team visits.

Traci Mitchell

Associate Director

Traci Mitchell is the assistant director of student media at the University of Mississippi where she is the chief budget officer and adviser to students at The Daily Mississippian, The Ole Miss Yearbook, Rebel Radio, NewsWatch and the DM-online.

Mitchell has worked for the Student Media Center in a variety of positions since 1984. She has witnessed and participated in the Center’s enormous growth and development. During her tenure the Center’s operating budget has grown from less than $200,000 to more than $1 million dollars, of which the majority is generated through advertising sales. Mitchell initiated and was instrumental in the planning and development of one of the nation’s first fully converged, multimedia college newsrooms. Ole Miss’s program is now benchmarked by other colleges and commercial media across the country.

Mitchell is a strong advocate for students. Her most significant professional accomplishments include helping to make students learning experiences in student media about more than just journalism. She believes and is committed to helping students with personal growth and total student development. One can frequently hear a student call her “MeMaw“ for which she is affectionately known.

Mitchell is active in many professional organizations, such as College Media Advisers, Southeast Journalism Conference, College Newspaper Business and Advertising Managers, Mississippi Press Association and Southern University Newspapers. She was awarded the Distinguished Yearbook Adviser award by College Media Advisers in 2005. She serves as chair of the yearbook committee for College Media Advisers and as co-president of the Southeastern Journalism Conference.

Mitchell stays active in many campus and local community organizations. She has served as Staff Council president, chaired the Chancellor's Commission on the Status of Women, former board member of the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation, United Way volunteer, Habitat for Humanity volunteer, and has served on numerous University committees. She is also a graduate of Leadership Mississippi and Leadership Lafayette. She was selected as the overall outstanding staff member at the University in 1999.

Mitchell is proud to call Ole Miss home. She earned her degrees at the University of Mississippi including a bachelor's in journalism with a minor in business and a master's in higher education and student personnel.

Arvinder Singh Kang

Manager of Media Technology

Arvinder Singh Kang is a 26-year-old, media and technology evangelist at S. Gale Denley Student Media Center at University of Mississippi.

Arvinder holds a master’s degree in computer science with a bachelor’s in computer engineering. However after landing his first internship in an information technology and advertising firm, Arvinder has been dabbling with different forms of communication encompassing different forms of media.

Arvinder's past work experiences range (in no particular order) from system administration, working on a farm, system programming, running a multi-level marketing business, bioinformatics research, web designing, writing occasionally for local and international newspapers and magazines, teaching at a university, writing applications for Linux clusters, creating multimedia products and creating web apps.

Arvinder is trying to learn about the amalgamation of news, media and technology and how it is affecting cultures and its impact on the global village.

Stephen Goforth

Broadcast Manager & Asst. Prof. of Journalism

Stephen Goforth joins the Student Media Center after a seven year stint at CNN as anchor, writer and producer. He covered stories like 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He took home a share of the network's Peabody Awards for Hurricane Katrina coverage and the Tsunami Disaster in South Asia. Stephen also occasionally played reporter for CNN, putting together packages from around the region.

While CNN offered the chance for him to roll up his sleeves with a professional group of journalists, the forward-thinking and hands-on learning environment at the Student Media Center lured him to Mississippi.

Stephen first launched his media career at the age of 12 as an AM radio announcer. He later teamed with his father to build two AM radio stations along with a class C FM. Those facilities are still going strong today.

Stephen earned his Masters Degree in Broadcast Journalism from The American University in Washington, DC. While in the nation's capital, he anchored radio network news for Salem Radio Network (airing on more than 100 stations) and worked in a variety of TV positions in the media covering Congress and the federal courts including producer for the America's Voice Network's flagship show.

Teaching and working with college students has always been a passion for him. When Stephen worked as a radio manager he used dozens of student volunteers and in the original stage productions he wrote and directed. These performances drew more than 100,000 people.

Stephen's interest in the media's advance toward the Internet is captured in websites he maintains like DeafNewsToday.com and ChristianNewsReport.com.

Melanie Wadkins

Advertising Manager

Melanie Wadkins has been the Advertising Manager in the Student Media Center since 1989. When asked why she´s remained in the position so long, she quotes advertising legend Jerry Della Femina, who once said, “I honestly believe that advertising is the most fun you can have with your clothes on.” “That,” she says, “and working with college students. They keep me thinking and they keep me laughing. ”

With an undergraduate degree in Communication and English from The American University in Washington, DC, Wadkins has also done extensive graduate work in Journalism at Ole Miss. “Somehow, the Master´s thesis just won´t write itself, though,” she admits.

Her past work experience includes customer service and commercial credit positions with a corporate finance company, assisting international students in an Intensive English Language program at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and customer service in the Student Accounts department at American University. She´s been a free-lance writer and copy editor “since I was in high school.” Wadkins also worked as an overnight news editor for a news-talk radio station in Little Rock, Ark.

Interests: Recycling (last book read: Elizabeth Royte´s Garbage Land), animals and animal welfare, and music “everything from bluegrass to opera.”

Turn offs: Litter, and drivers who don´t use their turn signals.

Dylan Parker

Creative and Technical Supervisor

Dylan Parker is the latest addition to the Student Media staff. He earned a degree in <dti> (that’s design, technology, and industry) from Troy University, in Troy, Alabama. He’s fluent in the latest versions of InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, and several obscure dialects of Wii.

A confirmed devotee of the basic necessities, Dylan is particularly appreciative of excellent food and decent, affordable shelter. He is kind to animals and is noted far and wide for being understanding and delightfully good-natured. His sense of humor runs toward the peculiar and his politics are incomprehensible.

If you’re looking for him outside of work, try a Frisbee Golf course or any local establishment with live music. Dylan has played guitar since he was 6; the mandolin and banjo are fairly recent additions to his repertoire.

He cleans up nice and makes a good impression on parents.

Darrel Jordan

Chief Engineer

Darrel Jordan serves as the Chief Engineer for the Student Media Center where he is responsible for the daily maintenance and operation of both the television and radio broadcast facilities. He also serves as Chief Engineer for the Department of Journalism.

Jordan earned a degree in Electronic Engineering Technology from Northwestern State University in Louisiana. In 1982 he started his career in broadcast as an engineer at a local television station in central Louisiana and served as Chief Engineer his last three years there. He then served as Assistant Chief Engineer at WXEL-TV in West Palm Beach, Florida before moving to Oxford, Mississippi where he has worked as a broadcast engineer for the University of Mississippi since 1991.

Jordan was destined at an early age to pursue a career in engineering. If it could be taken apart, he would take it apart and put it back together. As the years have passed, he has gotten much better at the putting-it-back-together part.

Jordan and his wife Regina are natives of central Louisiana. They have a16-year-old-daughter, Krista, and an 8-year-old son, Joel. Not to be left out is their miniature dachshund, Emma Grace.

Darcy Davis

Administrative Assistant and Yearbook Co-Adviser

Darcy graduated from the University of Mississippi in May 2001 with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism (print) with an emphasis in Public Relations.

She started working as an office assistant in Student Media in Feb. 1999 while attending Ole Miss. She like others, fell in love with Oxford and Student Media and never left, becoming a full time staff member in July 2001.

Darcy hails from Pope, Mississippi and attended South Panola High School (Home of the 5A State Champions) and Northwest Community College before coming to the University of Mississippi.

Darcy is married to Timothy Davis and they have a newborn son, Jefferson, and two very entertaining cats and resides outside Oxford in the Yocona community.