“If you find a job you love, you’ll never work a day in your life”. Those words ring true for Sunny Smith, who has made a career out of finding dream jobs.
Sunny Smith holds a bachelor’s degree in Communications from the College of New Rochelle, an MA in Public Communications from Fordham University, and a doctorate in Urban Higher Education from Jackson State University. She is currently in her 9th year of college and university teaching and is Director of Programs and Internship Coordinator in the Mass Communications Department in the School of Communication at Jackson State University. She serves as Faculty Advisor for JSU 22, the campus closed-circuit channel, and she is manager of the department’s Instructional Television Studio. She is also co-advisor of the student chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ).
Dr. Smith entered academia following a career in commercial and educational television production/programming, and has continued to be active in these areas during her academic career. She currently is a contributing news correspondent for WJSU Radio. She has previously served as a producer and anchor for WLBT-TV3, videographer and reporter for 16 WAPT and news anchor for Southern Urban Network. While in New York City, she worked at CBS Sports, Time Warner, Sports Illustrated and Bronxnet Cable. While she has held positions as producer, videographer, anchor and reporter, Dr. Smith regards teaching as “the ultimate live shot”. She has a passion for educating and inspiring students to achieve their dreams and career goals. She feels blessed to be able to share her knowledge to engage students in learning the creative and technical aspects of journalism. Dr. Smith teaches courses in Radio TV Newswriting, Electronic News Gathering (ENG), Advanced Television Production, Broadcast Documentary and Internship in Mass Communications.
In 2007 Dr. Smith received a $2,000 faculty teaching award to incorporate podcasting into the curriculum. She was a 2007 NATPE Faculty Development Grantee, 2006 ATAS Faculty Delegate, a 2005 RTNDF Fellow, and a 2004 and 2005 IRTS Fellow.
In Fall 2006 she received a $5,000 grant from the National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC) to produce a documentary with students called “Bridging the Gap”. The documentary was in conjunction with the re-release of the Eyes on the Prize series on PBS (www.nbpctv.com). Bridging the Gap also was shown at the 2007 Tupelo Film Festival.
Dr. Smith’s research interests are new media and diversity in the media. She presented her dissertation research on media convergence at the October 2007 Convergence and Society: Media Ownership, Control and Consolidation Conference, sponsored by the University of South Carolina. Dr. Smith is a member of BEA, NATPE, NABJ, JABJ, and AEJMC.
