SIU Day Of Giving

The College of Mass Communication and Media Arts focuses on storytelling through a variety of media, looking at how stories are told, how they entertain audiences, how they educate global communities, and how technology helps tell the story, and affects it.  The college instills in students how to be responsible citizens and creative artists in their storytelling—whether it is factual or fictional. We value hands-on learning of media production and study of media history, criticism, and theory, and we cultivate an understanding of the media’s special role for professional creators working across a spectrum of cultures and political systems. The college delivers three degree programs: Cinema and Photography; Journalism; and Radio, Television, & Digital Media.  Students across all these programs can focus on one specialization, while having the ability, through collaborative teaching, to expand their skills by taking courses in any of the programs. 

Your contribution to the funds below constitutes an investment in our students’ success at SIU and in their careers.  Our students, staff, and faculty thank you for your generosity.  Please see our funding priorities below and click Give Now at the top of the page to make your gift. 

Jennifer Modesitt Dillard Memorial Scholarship:  Scholarship for a student in Radio, Television, Digital Media, or a successor program in memory of Jennifer Modessitt Dillard.  

alt.news 26:46:  Our alternative news magazine covers quirky, funny, and poignant human-interest stories, and has won more than 31 regional Emmy Awards and 7 National College Television Awards over its 20+ year history. This fund allows for equipment and software purchases as well as travel for the student-documentarians covering stories across the country. Alt.news airs on WSIU-TV.

Big Muddy Film Festival: This fund supports the annual Big Muddy Film Festival (BMFF) in its presentation of national and international media work to the campus and Southern Illinois communities.  Your contribution will go directly to the BMFF budget and will help to fund students involved in the presentation of the festival, now in its 43^rd year. 

Department of Cinema Development Fund supports faculty by assisting with some costs of research, as well as conference/festival fees and travel.  This fund also supports campus visits of media artists, scholars, and practitioners.   

The Daily Egyptian: This fund helps support the operation of the student newspaper, which has been publishing for over one hundred years.  

Dean’s Excellence Fund supports the mission of the college, and can be awarded to faculty, staff, or students, at the discretion of the dean.

Department of Radio, Television, and Digital Media Activities Fund supports faculty by assisting with some costs of research, as well as conference/festival fees and travel.  This fund also supports campus visits of media artists, scholars, and practitioners.  

River Region Evening Edition: This supports the award-winning student journalists who write, direct, produce, and anchor River Region Evening Edition, the daily live newscast, as well as their monthly round-up of campus sports on Saluki Sports View.  Both programs are aired on WSIU-TV.

MCMA Student Emergency Fund:  Assists students in immediate financial need and helps them to remain in enrolled or to get registered.  This fund can be the bridge over students’ financial pitfalls that may otherwise force them to leave school.

MCMA Student Production and Research Fund helps defray the cost of media production for student short films, as well as to support scholarly research needs.  

MCMA Technology and Equipment Fund  supports new research in media arts and support of that research with the purchase of equipment. This fund is especially important as we move into the renovated Communications Building.

Saluki AdLab:  This fund supports Saluki AdLab, a student-run advertising agency housed in the School of Journalism and supervised by the school’s Advertising professors. AdLab provides full agency services—from branding, social media, print materials and advertising campaigns—for on-campus groups as well as community businesses.  Connected to the AdLab is the student chapter of the American Advertising Federation (AAF) where students compete as a team in regional and national advertising competitions; contributions to this fund will help to underwrite materials and student travel in competition.

MCMA Scholarship Fund assists students’ tuition needs, as well as foster their professional development, including support for travel to competitions, conferences, and award ceremonies.

School of Journalism Development Fund supports faculty by assisting with some costs of research, as well as conference fees and travel.  This fund also supports campus visits of media writers, scholars, and practitioners.