Rowan students, faculty to receive prestigious BEA Awards

Rowan Today, March 9, 2022

A dozen Rowan University students and faculty members will be honored during the international BEA Festival of Media Arts, one of the most prestigious awards programs for higher education communicators, next month in Las Vegas.

Senior Josh Ticcino, a Radio, Television & Film and Sports Communication and Media double major from Washington Township, will receive a first-place award for “Student On-Air Personality.” Ticcino will share that award with his on-air partner, Brandon Searles, for their morning program, “The Early Bird Special with Brandon & Josh,” on Rowan Radio WGLS-FM.

“We started the show in the winter of 2019 and it’s nice to see how all of the hard work we’ve put into it paid off,” said Ticcino, who is also WGLS-FM operations manager and a producer for the Rowan Television Network.

Ticcino said the morning show, which is hosted by different students daily during the coveted 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. drive time slot, has a flexible format that’s built around music. Ticcino and Searles focus on production values and speaking to their target audience when they host the program on Fridays, he said.

“We try to make it entertaining for our main listening segment, typically listeners aged 35 to 60,” he said. “We can do with it what we want but the music is the main focus.”

Ticcino, who seeks a career in sports broadcasting and formerly interned at NFL Films in Mount Laurel, sees the BEA Award as an important step toward reaching his goal.

“It’s my first major award,” he said. “I want to do sports studio shows, sports talk shows, something along the lines of Sports Center (on ESPN).”

Professor Keith Brand, who holds the King Chair in the Department of Radio, Television & Film within the Ric Edelman College of Communication & Creative Arts, is one of this year’s honorees with an Award of Excellence. Brand said opportunities to explore creative ability across a wide spectrum of media -- and to show it off -- is a hallmark of the RTF program.

“I think it’s important for both students and faculty to have venues for submitting creative work,” Brand said. “The BEA Festival of Media Arts invites work from around the world and some of the best media production schools participate. It’s quite an honor to have your work singled out for recognition.”

Rowan has long been a contender for the annual BEA Festival of Media Arts awards program. This year’s Rowan awardees include:

Students:

Brandon Searles & Josh Ticcino, Student On-Air Personality - 1st place, The Early Bird Special with Brandon & Josh

Sam Whalen, Student Educational - 3rd place, Rowan Radio Remembers: The 9/11 Attacks

Gabrielle Connelly, Student Short Form Documentary - 1st place, Mutation on Chromosome 5 

Allison Bruce, Sam Whalen, Nick Earnshaw & Connor Brown, Student Radio Newscast - 3rd place, Rowan Report Election Night 2021

Faculty:

Keith Brand, Award of Excellence - Faculty Audio, Kiyoshi Kuromiya: The wonderful fabulous life of a civil rights zelig

Sarah Ferguson, Kara Ieva & Christopher J. Winkler, Award of Excellence - Faculty Interactive Multimedia, STEM VRCE Module 1: GIS Career - 360/VR Experience

The awards program takes place April 24 and 25.

https://today.rowan.edu/news/2022/03/rowan-students,-faculty-to-receive-prestigious-bea-awards.html