Lyons’ journalism professors remember him as a “confident and talented go-getter who was always up for a challenge and never turned down a story,” says NSCM Director Robert Littlefield.

“Dylan’s passing is a major loss for our entire community, and the media industry and our School are mourning,” Littlefield says.

Lyons joined the crew of Spectrum News 13 as a multimedia journalist in July 2022. He was reporting Wednesday in Pine Hills on an earlier fatal shooting in the neighborhood when shots were fired at him and another photojournalist identified by Spectrum as Jesse Walden. Walden remains in critical condition, Spectrum said.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Office named Keith Kelvin Moses, 19, as a suspect in the shooting of Lyons and Walden. Following their shooting, police said, Moses walked into a nearby home and shot a woman and her 9-year-old daughter; the girl died. Moses was arrested Wednesday in connection with the initial shooting and will be charged later for the other shootings, Orange County Sheriff John Mina said.

Lyons gained experience as a journalist first at UCF, where he majored in journalism and political science. Journalism Senior Instructor Rick Brunson worked closely with him for years, equipping him with skills and tools to match his passion.

“His brain was on fire with curiosity,” Brunson says. “He was always working on the next story.”

Lyons’ zeal for news reporting led him to three local news internships before graduation. He arrived for election night at WFTV in 2018 dressed in a suit, even though he would spend the evening crunching numbers at a desk not on camera.

“He showed up ready to play, looking sharp and acting sharp,” Brunson says.

Those internships steered Lyons toward community news as his preferred beat. What he discovered was that he loved lifting up a mirror to the community and saying, “This is you, the good, the bad and the ugly,” Brunson says. Covering a story like Wednesday’s shooting from the perspective of the neighborhood was exactly where he exceled, Brunson says.

He reported and anchored at student-led UCF Knightly News. His first job after graduation was Gainesville’s ABC affiliate WCJB, where he was awarded best Politics/Elections Series by the Florida Association of Broadcast Journalists. He was a finalist for best Investigative Reporting in 2021.

In a Spectrum News 13 , reporter and friend Josh Miller said: “He took his job very seriously. … He loved the community (and) telling the stories of people.”

Littlefield, the NSCM director, says faculty work hard to share their expertise and knowledge with students so they have the tools they need for their careers. Lyons “excelled and used those tools to do what he loved,” Littlefield says.

“Dylan will be remembered for his professionalism that shined through from the start and led him to accomplish great things,” Littlefield says.

Bianca Fortis ’10, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in journalism from UCF’s Nicholson School of Communication and Media, was part of the daily data journalism team that created the �վ������’ award-winning COVID-19 database. The system comprehensively tracks and maps coronavirus cases, deaths and other impacts around the country during a pandemic that has killed about 600,000 people in the United States.

In honoring the newspaper with the Pulitzer, the award committee stated that the Times “filled a data vacuum that helped local governments, healthcare providers, businesses and individuals to be better prepared and protected.’’

Fortis joined the team in May 2020, right after graduating from Columbia ����ֱ�� with a master’s degree in journalism with a specialization in investigative reporting. The 33-year-old worked on the Times data project through September.

After she was hired, her first task was to help create around the country.

“There was no federal tracking system, so the Times was basically trying to fill that gap,’’ Fortis said recently in an interview with journalism instructor Rick Brunson ’84. “Data is so crucial to making public health decisions, and there was just no data, or some gatekeepers made it very difficult to get it.’’

Initially, the big challenge was collecting disparate data from all 50 states that each had its own way of tracking cases and other statistics. Early in the pandemic, some states, such as Alaska, released no data. Other states released them in different formats such as on PDFs or in complicated charts, which made it challenging to organize and present the data in a uniform, coherent, searchable database for all 50 states, Fortis says.

The team pulled data from individual state websites and input it into a massive Google spreadsheet.

“At first it was a lot of data entry, and that was challenging because each state tracked its own data differently,’’ Fortis says. “So we had to develop methodologies for how to count cases and how to count deaths, etcetera. Florida was particularly difficult to work with.’’

Another challenge was that some coronavirus data — such as cases at day care centers or churches — was not tracked at all by some states. Fortis and the team combed through news reports about such cases and crosschecked them against state data, or sometimes called these institutions directly by phone to verify case count information.

Working remotely was another challenge. Right as Fortis joined the Times data team in spring 2020, New York City became the hotbed and epicenter of the pandemic in the U.S., averaging more than 900 deaths a day. The city, including The New York Times building, shut down and the staff had to work from home.

Fortis left her Brooklyn apartment and returned to her hometown of Spring Hill, Florida. The data team used a Slack channel to do their work.

In August, Fortis helped develop the �վ������’ coronavirus case tracker for colleges and universities.

“As the summer was ending, Times reporters had this hypothesis that it seemed very likely that there are going to be a lot of cases on campuses as schools start to open for the fall semester,’’ Fortis says. “At the time, very few universities were publishing their case data online. UCF was actually one of the first, so I was proud of that fact. We got a lot of push back from universities that did not want to share their data with us. … But as we started publishing it got easier because schools started understanding what we were trying to do and more of them started being more transparent about their data.’’

Fortis says contributing to the Times data project was gratifying and deepened her journalism experience. She learned a lot about making public records requests and about what’s possible with data, especially making it visual in interactive maps and graphics. She adds that what differentiated the �վ������’ database from others was its searchability and ease of use, as well as how granular and detailed it was in presenting clusters of cases in local communities and venues anywhere in the country.

“[For] the Times to take the initiative to accumulate all of that data and create comprehensive, easy-to-use databases I think was really powerful at a time when the country needed it.’’ — Bianca Fortis ’10

“There was no national tracking system, and it’s difficult, if not impossible, for public health officials to make choices and decisions when there is no data available,’’ Fortis says. “[For] the Times to take the initiative to accumulate all of that data and create comprehensive, easy-to-use databases I think was really powerful at a time when the country needed it. We frequently got letters from readers telling us how useful they found it. There was a staffer at the Times who would compile those notes and send them out to us, and it was good reminder that we were doing work that was important — especially on the days when the work was tedious and boring.’’

While her work on the project ended in September, Fortis has continued her development as an investigative journalist, being named a reporting fellow at Columbia Journalism Investigations where she produced a story about timber trafficking in the Amazon. Most recently, she received a two-year investigative journalism fellowship with the nonprofit news organization ProPublica.

The Pulitzer marks Fortis’ latest achievement in an 11-year journalism career that has included writing for the Gotham Gazette and AM New York Metro newspapers. She was also associate editor at MediaShift.org, a website that tracks new media trends, and was an investigative intern for the CNBC business channel.

Her success surprises none of the Nicholson School faculty who taught and worked with her when she was an undergraduate.

“Bianca is the kind of student you remember,’’ says Kim Voss, professor of journalism. “I have enjoyed watching the important journalism she has done in the years since graduation, and I was so excited for her when I learned she was part of the New York Times Pulitzer Prize team. It’s an impressive and deserved accomplishment, and I really believe this is just the beginning of a significant career.”

Fortis says data journalism is a fast-growing specialty within the field and she plans to continue developing her data skills.

“Reporting is so much more in depth when you have the numbers behind it,’’ she says. “The data adds credibility to your story. You can talk to this person or that person and they can give you different information. You can argue with anecdotes, but you can’t argue with numbers.’’

, a project featuring audio, visual and written content, was produced by students in the Nicholson School of Communication and Media to carry on the legacy of the couple.

The Moores were educators and activists in Mims, and he established the first NAACP chapter in the county. On Christmas night 1951 their house was bombed by white supremacists while they slept, causing their deaths. A replica of their home was built on their street, Freedom Avenue, and several markers, a museum and many local residents still carry their message.

Their legacy is something that can be preserved through storytelling projects like this, says Phil Hoffman, WUCF’s executive director.

Rick Brunson, senior instructor of journalism, said the project started with a Facebook post. Moved to action after reading about the racism and domestic terrorism that gripped Central Florida in the 1940s and ‘50s, Brunson visited the Harry T. & Harriette V. Moore Cultural Complex in Mims to learn more and pay his respects. When he shared his experience on social media, Hoffman contacted him and suggested the student project.

“WUCF would not be fulfilling its role as Central Florida’s Storytellers without partnering with community producers to tell even the most difficult stories,” Hoffman says. “During this time of racial reckoning in our country, it is important to tell these stories of people who worked for justice to help educate and engage our audience in this meaningful conversation.”

Brunson says he is appreciative the project came to fruition.

“It was so gratifying for the students and such a privilege to honor the Moores’ legacy and the impact their lives continue to have on Central Florida and beyond,” he says.

A new grant-funded website – – was set up by the school’s journalism program to help inform citizens of publicly available data and augment the region’s media, which is becoming increasingly stretched thin by new approaches to covering news. The website includes easy-to-access city commission minutes, voting and financial records, grants, contracts, salaries, public works, campaign contributions, financial-disclosure statements and other items.

News staffs at many organizations have shrunk while reporters’ beats and responsibilities covering government and other topics have been doubled up, says project director Rick Brunson ’84, an associate instructor of journalism.

“Universities are in a position to help fill this gap with creative solutions. We think this is one of them.”�� — Rick Brunson, associate instructor of journalism

“Universities are in a position to help fill this gap with creative solutions. We think this is one of them,” Brunson says. “Our site is a database designed to equip, inform and empower citizens to fully participate and engage in their representative democracy at its most local level. That’s right in line with the mission of journalism and our journalism program.”

Preparation on the project began in May to develop the research-based website of public records and data with a focus on public accountability.

Launching of the site – funded by a two-year, $125,000 grant from Winter Park philanthropist Glen Salow and the Salow Transparency Project – coincided with Sunshine Week in Florida, an annual media initiative to educate the public about Florida’s Government in the Sunshine laws, the importance of open government, and the dangers of excessive and unnecessary secrecy.

In addition to the already-posted information, more data sets will be added over time as the research team collects and curates more records, Brunson says.

Along with Brunson, the project is overseen by Alex Glover, a Winter Park website developer, and Nicholson graduate research assistants Raby Tall ’15 and Lindsay Manganiello.

In addition to the editorial side of this project, Nicholson lecturer Erica Kight will lead the research of the project, which will include surveys with Winter Park residents and users of the site to determine how useful it is to them and how much of an impact the site is having. The site’s analytics also will be used to determine how much it’s being used and in what ways, so that hopefully the results can be published in peer-reviewed communication journals and presented at conferences.

“The Nicholson School holds as the first point of its mission to promote ‘Free inquiry, free speech and the free flow of information and ideas,’” Brunson says. “That’s exactly what this project is about.”

That desire to help others drove her to first become a licensed practical nurse right after high school and later join the Air Force to become a flight nurse — eventually achieving the rank of colonel. Now she is stretching her wings even further at UCF’s College of Nursing to attain additional education so she can help expand a school in Haiti to teach advance nursing techniques.

“Nursing is the richest, most rewarding field that anyone could ever work in,” says Schank. “You connect with people every day.”

Her lifelong commitment to serving others has resulted in an impactful list of selfless deeds — so much so that she has been chronicled by CBS News’ 60 Minutes and Friday was recognized as a “History Maker” by U.S. Rep. Darren Soto in Kissimmee.

Schank earned her bachelor’s degree at LaSalle ����ֱ�� and her master’s at Temple ����ֱ��, both in Philadelphia, where she moved back to after retiring from the military in 2014. She started classes at UCF last fall, while also working as a nurse anesthetist at Osceola Regional Medical Center in Kissimmee.

The daughter of a navy chief petty officer, she served in the Air Force 24 years, often in war zones. During her final five years in the Air Force she was commander of the 514^th Aerospace Medicine Squadron at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey, where she was responsible for the medical support of more than 2,600 personnel. Through the years serving domestically and around the world she gained extensive nursing experience as a clinical nurse specialist in critical care, a certified registered nurse anesthetist, and certified family nurse practitioner.

In addition, she has participated in numerous humanitarian medical missions, providing medical care to earthquake victims in Haiti, American embassy bombing victims in Tanzania, Africa, and underserved communities of Peru, Honduras, Haiti and elsewhere.

Volunteerism has always been a part of her life, she says.

“At the age of 14, I was a Red Cross volunteer working in an emergency room and today I continue to volunteer each year on mission trips,” she says. “My next medical mission is June in Peru.”

Her new goal to help expand the school in Haiti led her to move to Orlando and attend UCF, she says, because the university is one of the few places that offers the three programs in one place that she sought: nurse practitioner, nurse educator and doctor of nursing practice.

The Haitian school already offers a bachelor’s in science for nursing, but Schank wants to help expand it by offering a program in master’s-level nursing.

“The goal is to teach advance-practice nurses in Haiti, which is a country in such need of medical care,” Schank says. “This impact would be more than just a mission trip.”

Schank’s outlook on nursing has been chronicled by CBS News correspondent Scott Pelley. She was the subject of one of Pelley’s 60 Minutes stories and the focus of a chapter on “Selflessness’’ in his book, Truths Worth Telling.

After Rick Brunson ’84, an associate instructor in the Nicholson School of Communication and Media, read the book last year, he had a chance encounter with Schank at a birthday party and asked her to speak about her career to his principles of journalism class in October. Through Schank, Brunson sought to also have Pelley address his class via Skype, but the correspondent did one better ­— he visited the class while he was in Orlando for a speaking engagement.

“Paulette saved countless lives of military servicemen and women, as well as civilians, as a field hospital surgical nurse during the Iraq war,” Brunson says. “Pelley’s [60 Minutes] story shows her giving blood from her own arm when the field hospital ran out of units and a soldier blown up by an IED came in and needed blood to survive. Thanks to her, he did.”

Schank said the discussion during class that night evolved into the importance of connecting with others.

To commemorate Women’s History Month, Soto of Florida’s 9^th District read a bio of Schank on the floor of Congress last week, and at 6 p.m. Friday she was honored during a ceremony in his office.

“She has dedicated her life to caring for others, be it in Florida or around the world,” Soto says.

In her personal time, Schank says she likes to kayak and play piano. But never far from her thoughts is her goal for Haiti.

“There’s so many parts of that puzzle, but they’ll all be fixed,” she says. “When you talk about things and share your dreams with others, someone is always there to help with a solution.”

UCF’s Nicholson School of Communication and Media and WUCF-TV partnered with Central Florida’s WMFE 90.7FM to bring the program to Orlando from April 29-May 3. Four of the six students selected to participate in Orlando’s “boot camp” were from UCF: journalism majors Hernández Caraballo and Monica Sealey;��interdisciplinary studies major Rhyan Grant; and��English major Emily Lang. The other two students were from Valencia College and Full Sail ����ֱ��.

NextGenRadio is a week-long “pop-up” digital journalism training experience. It is designed to give competitively selected participants interested in podcasting, audio storytelling, radio reporting and visual journalism the skills and opportunity to find and produce their own multimedia story. Each selected participant is paired with a professional journalist, and together they find, report and produce a non-narrated story as well as use stills and video to fill out their story.

The theme of the week’s stories was immigration, specifically “First Days in America.”

“We are fanning out around Central Florida to locate, capture and tell the stories of immigrants who have arrived here and are making a new life.” —Rick Brunson ’84, associate instructor in the Nicholson School

Rick Brunson ’84, associate instructor in the Nicholson School, represented the university in the partnership and is mentoring one of the students.

“We are fanning out around Central Florida to locate, capture and tell the stories of immigrants who have arrived here and are making a new life,” he says. “The training is highly structured with tutorials in audio reporting, web production, social media production, photography, video and more. Our stories will be richly layered, textured and multimedia in nature.”

Hernández Carabello, a junior, recounts that she had been in a car crash that left her unable to walk during the NextGenRadio application process. When she found out she was a finalist, she had a very short window of time to submit her story proposal.

“The program is intense and I knew the deadline had to be met — these are professionals. I had to step it up.” — Lillian Hernández Carabello, journalism student

“There I was, no car (just got wrecked), no way to walk or hardly move, no way to get up, put the work into it and get my story. But I wanted it,” Hernández Carabello says. “I hired a driver and went in my wheelchair and crutches and hobbled around downtown Orlando for hours until I found my story. I was outside a closed Starbucks leaching on their WiFi on my dying laptop trying to submit my pitch in on time. It was due at 11:59 p.m., I got it in at 11:41. The program is intense and I knew the deadline had to be met — these are professionals. I had to step it up. And, I guess, accident or not, that is the major challenge of the program, as well as its reward. Learning to be professional, timely, and focused enough to fit into the team and produce a story of the caliber of NPR.”

The stories are available to view and hear at��. They will also air daily May 13-17 on WMFE 90.7FM at 6:44 a.m. and 8:44 a.m.

“I’m pleased and proud to be part of it—and more to see our students part of it,” says Brunson.

Others regard the apostrophe, exclamation point and other handy devices as guardrails that keep our words from becoming a jumble of nonsense.

But to Jeff Rubin, founder of on Sept. 24, the symbols are necessities that do more than just separate sentences.

“Punctuation marks tell a reader when to pause, when to stop, when something is possessive, and when emotions are expressed,” he said. “Punctuation marks are guidelines that create sound in the written word. Without them, every sentence would run on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on…”

Rubin, a former journalist who now runs a publishing business in Pinole, California, says he started the holiday in 2004 because he was concerned about the decline of language skills around the nation. The way we write — including the proper usage of punctuation — affects our appearance to others, acceptance at college, grades on papers, promotions and business deals, he says.

That’s why some writing instructors at the ����ֱ�� stress punctuation in their classes, especially around National Punctuation Day.

“We’re going to honor National Punctuation Day by taking an adventure safari through the AP Stylebook’s Punctuation Guide,” said Rick Brunson, an associate instructor in the Nicholson School of Communication and Media. “I call the lecture, ‘Don’t Get Punc’ed By What You Don’t Know.’”

He said punctuation is not merely cosmetic; it’s essential to making meaning of our thoughts.

“Sentences are a train wreck without proper punctuation.”

“Sentences are a train wreck without proper punctuation,” he said. “Using punctuation properly is critical to successful communication of our ideas. If we want to be understood, we have to know what we’re doing with punctuation.”

Beth Young, an associate professor in the Department of English, said she will include a link to National Punctuation Day on her class calendar to help students understand the importance of proper usage.

She said her punctuation lessons focus “on rules that I could see students had not yet mastered, and on rules they had questions about. Usually, this meant lots of time spent on commas.”

National Punctuation Day celebrants at schools and other organizations, as can be seen on the website, celebrate with contests, baked goods, performances and other activities.

Rubin said he plans to observe the day with “a bagel with shmear and coffee for breakfast, a CrossFit workout, and a search for incorrectly punctuated signs.”

The Baker’s Dozen of Punctuation

According to the National Punctuation Day website, there are 13 punctuation marks commonly used in print.

Not necessarily in order of importance, alphabetically they are: apostrophe, brackets, colon, comma, dash, ellipses, exclamation point, hyphen, parentheses, period, question mark, quotation mark and semicolon.

Other commonly seen marks in writing, such as the asterisk, hashtag, slash “and their ilk are symbols that provide no insight into the thoughts of the writer or the meaning of his or her words,” Rubin said.

Likewise, he said the interrobang — the combination of a question mark and exclamation point that is sometimes seen at the end of an exclamatory question—doesn’t qualify as a punctuation mark.

“It’s an illustration,” Rubin chides.

Brunson calls the apostrophe “the hardest-working punctuation symbol in our language. We ask an awful lot of it, and it does an incredible amount of heavy-lifting for us in our language. The apostrophe can form a contraction, indicate missing letters or numbers, show possession or indicate the plural of a singular object — depending on how we use it. Honor the apostrophe by using it properly.”

Young, who also used to direct UCF’s ����ֱ�� Writing Center, says the most common punctuation mistake she sees is an error of omission, when writers forget one comma from a pair of commas around a clause that adds extra or nonessential information to a sentence.

The next most common error, often seen on signs and menus, is the unnecessary use of quotation marks for emphasis that unwittingly cast doubt on something, such as our “delicious” meatloaf, she said.

The Future of Punctuation in the Age of Social Media

Rubin said it sometimes seems that punctuation has been forgotten by writers on social media.

“The errors I see are appalling,” he said. “Just last week I was reprimanded by the administrator of a Facebook group for admonishing someone who posted a single paragraph and misused “it’s” for “its” (he wanted the possessive but instead used a contraction).

“I was told, and I quote, ‘This is social media…’ by the administrator, who removed my post.”

Brunson agrees that the rise of text messaging has created a “punctuation crisis” because of the lack of understanding as to what the symbols mean and convey.

“People randomly and carelessly sprinkle punctuation into their writing as if they were adding fake bacon bits to a salad.”

“People randomly and carelessly sprinkle punctuation into their writing as if they were adding fake bacon bits to a salad,” he said.

Punctuation is definitely changing, Young said.

“We may be more likely to use punctuation in creative ways, such as adding a period. after. every. word. for emphasis. These changes are a natural part of language change,” she said. “To some extent, they reflect a longer trend of colloquialization — written language becoming more like speech — that linguists have observed.”

Many punctuation “rules” are not as straightforward as people imagine, Young said. “Writers often have legitimate choices about when to use which mark,” she said. “Just because you would punctuate differently doesn’t necessarily mean that someone else did it wrong.”

Rubin concedes that someday other marks may find their way into mainstream usage.

“Language evolves. Merriam-Webster adds new words every year,” he said. “Style guides, such as those published by the Associated Press and the Chicago Manual of Style, occasionally change usage guidelines. I expect that one day there will be more accepted punctuation marks.”

Meanwhile, properly using the symbols we have now goes a long way to improving communication skills.

“Next to boosting your vocabulary, learning how to properly use punctuation is the one thing anyone can do to single-handedly get people to understand what you’re trying to say and write,” Brunson said. “Punctuation is power.”

Students have returned to campus after the Thanksgiving break, bellies full of turkey and trimmings, heads full of anxiety as big tests loom and grades hang in the balance.

For faculty, there’s a heady rush of knowing the semester is almost over and a much-needed break is just around the corner. There’s also a sense of relief for some: Faculty are not required to hold office hours during finals week.

Ah, office hours. It can be a touchy subject. That designated time during the week when faculty are required to be available to students for advising – usually in their campus offices but sometimes online – is often viewed as a mixture of pleasure and bane.

There’s that great scene in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,’’ when Harrison Ford’s iconic character – an archaeology professor who’d rather be in the field or the library – escapes out of his office window during his office hours to avoid his clamoring, cloying, malcontented students. Every faculty member can relate. At some point, we all wish we had such a window.

The university’s Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning – the heart and hub of faculty assistance at UCF – carefully handles the topic on its website when advising newcomers to UCF’s teaching ranks: “The ����ֱ�� does not have a set policy for minimum number of office hours to hold, though instructors are required to post their office hours. Some colleges and departments do have individual requirements; check with your department chair for guidance.’’

The fact that we want to know the minimum number of hours we have to devote to this duty instead of the maximum suggests how much of a priority office hours are on our very crowded, ever-growing list of responsibilities.

Here’s the thing: What I did not anticipate when I arrived at UCF as a new faculty member – later in life after a 20-year career as a practitioner in my field of journalism – was how gratifying and important the role of advising would play in my job. I am an instructor, which for me means 88 percent of my job is teaching and 12 percent involves service – to my department, college, university, profession and community. I arrived at UCF 11 years ago ready to teach, to stand and deliver knowledge, to spark imagination, to work side-by-side with students in the classroom or lab to achieve their goals and fulfill their dreams.

What I did not anticipate was the magic that would happen in my office during those six hours a week I was required by my department to be there for students. I did not anticipate the laughter, the tears, the connection I would make with young people half my age who show up and seem honestly grateful for just a few minutes of my time. I didn’t anticipate the weekly conversations about “life stuff’’ – balancing school, jobs, relationships – that seem more important to them than talking about the grade they got on the last test. Most fulfilling have been the multiple “aha’’ moments when it all clicks and a student moves from declaring their major to becoming captivated by it.

Here’s a recent example. A young woman from one of my classes, an introductory Principles of Journalism course, showed up to my office hours at 9:15 on a Friday morning. For a student, Friday morning is an ungodly hour to see a teacher. But here she was with something to tell me:

“Mr. Brunson, I’m an introspective person and I process things. This is what I have come to believe. Journalism is about curiosity – but everybody’s curious. It’s more than that. So what is it? Red Huber [an Orlando Sentinel photographer who was a recent guest speaker] turned the key for me in our class. This is all about public service. He uses his camera to tell other people’s stories – people whose stories need to be told. He doesn’t do this for himself. He does it for other people. It’s about service. It’s about something larger than yourself. I want to do that – whether it’s with a camera or a computer. So I’m declaring my major for journalism.”

I felt myself crumpling in my chair as she spoke, undone by the sincerity in her voice, despite my repeated warnings about how hard and heartbreaking the news business can be. Decades as a reporter and editor – and now as a college instructor – have installed a well-calibrated bs-detector in my brain. It was not going off. She wasn’t there to negotiate for a few more points on an assignment or to request to take a test early because she ignored the syllabus and Mom got a great deal on plane tickets for the holiday break. She was there because she had an epiphany and wanted to share it with someone she hopes believes in her and can guide and equip her to make it a reality.

For me, it was an almost holy moment.

Sure, office hours can be a pain. And this time of year the student excuses swirl about my office door like so many autumn leaves piling up around a Vermont cabin.

But those six precious hours a week – when I’m not lecturing but listening – have become the most meaningful part of my job.

My journalistic hero, the guy I wanted to be when I grew up, is CBS News reporter Bob Schieffer. His advice to aspiring journalists is also great advice for those who teach those aspiring journalists – as well as those who teach in any discipline: “The most important thing a reporter needs to know is how to listen.’’

Rick Brunson is an associate instructor of journalism in UCF’s Nicholson School of Communication and is a recipient of the national Society of Professional Journalists’ David L. Eshelman Outstanding Campus Adviser Award. He can be reached at richard.brunson@ucf.edu.

The words punch the elevator button in our memory, and trolley up freighted meanings and classroom images from our innocent years in fourth grade.

For the spacious skies of Montana.

Amber waves of grain, swirling and roiling across an ocean of Kansas wheat fields.

Purple mountain majesties reigning over Colorado.

The fruited plain of Napa Valley, seeping into our consciousness like a sepia-toned National Geographic photograph.

From sea to shining sea – sunrises in Kennebunk, Maine, to sunsets in Monterey Bay, Calif.

But you really don’t have to go that far to see America the Beautiful.

I saw it just a short walk from my campus office on the night of Sept. 3.

As daylight yielded to darkness, about 400 UCF students, faculty and staff gathered around the university’s Reflecting Pond, lit candles and refused to let the darkness win.

We were there to pay our respects to Steven Sotloff – a fellow UCF Knight and an American journalist who only days before had been brutally and mercilessly beheaded by the hooded cowards of ISIS.

We were there to not only honor his life and his work, but also the central principle that his life and work stood for.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.’’

To me, the tumbler keyword that has always unlocked the First Amendment’s power and made it work in our favor as a nation is the word “respecting.’’ The respectful way we relate to religion and religious differences��is what makes America truly beautiful. Yes, our history and present are tattered and checkered with moments in which we did not live up to our American creed. But by and large, we are predisposed – culturally and constitutionally – to respect the rights of minorities and those who worship differently. And that beauty was on full display that night at the Reflecting Pond.

God’s grace was shed on us as a Jew and a Muslim respectfully shared the same stage and the same microphone to pay their respects to Sotloff’s life.

Rabbi Chaim Lipskier read from the Torah, the Jewish holy scriptures, and urged his listeners to light their world. “‘The soul of man is the flame of God,’” Lipskier said, quoting Proverbs 20:27. “Every single human being is a candle. Our job is to be that candle and to light our candle. One small candle of truth, of loving kindness, of integrity, of selflessness dispels a lot of darkness.’’

As the rabbi’s words rolled across the Reflecting Pond into the night, carried by a gentle September breeze, Jaber Nyrabeah of the Syrian American Council in Orlando stood near him, listening intently and respectfully. He didn’t fidget. He didn’t scowl. He didn’t visibly bristle – even as a man from another faith read from a holy book different from his own.

When it was his turn, this proud and defiant Muslim lit his own candle and held it up to ISIS’ darkness.

“ISIS, which claims to be an Islamic state has nothing to do with Islam,’’ Nyrabeah said passionately. “In fact, they should be called the UnIslamic State of Iraq and Syria. They are trying with all their power to hijack my religion and my revolution, and they must be stopped.’’

It is these moments that make America beautiful. A Muslim and a Jew and Christians and Hindus and agnostics and others of no faith can light a candle and share at the table of what Lincoln so aptly called “sweet reasonableness.’’ They can realize, as the Catholic priest and television producer James Keller once said, “A candle loses nothing��of its light��by lighting another candle.” That doesn’t happen everywhere – especially the Mideast, the birthplace of both Lipskier’s and Nyrabeah’s Abrahamic religions.

And it’s this “sweet reasonableness’’ – this respect – that is exactly the anathema of terrorists around the world, whether they wear the executioner’s hood for ISIS in Syria or they don the white sheets of the Ku Klux Klan in our country.

Indeed, when the Central Florida Future’s newspaper account of the candlelight vigil for Steven Sotloff was shared on Facebook, an ISIS sympathizer claiming to speak for “the righteous beings from Asia, South Asia and Middle East’’ chimed in to “rejoice” that Sotloff was killed because he was a Jew. The writer boldly prophesied that America would be decimated because of its tolerance of Jews, homosexuals and others deemed undesirable and fit only for “clinical trials on lethal diseases to safeguard humans and worthy life forms.’’

Not in my America the Beautiful. And not as long as we crown our good with brotherhood.

Rick Brunson is an associate instructor of journalism in UCF’s Nicholson School of Communication. He can be reached at richard.brunson@ucf.edu.

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He earned his bachelor’s at the ����ֱ��, where he majored in sociology and minored in journalism, and earned his master’s degree in American history from the ����ֱ�� of South Florida in Tampa.

Brunson began his career as an obituary reporter for The Sanford Herald and went on to work as a reporter or editor at several newspapers in Central Florida, including the Tampa Tribune, Daytona Beach News-Journal, and Orlando Sentinel, where he still works as a production editor. He also serves as the advisor for Centric magazine, a student-produced magazine that publishes an issue each fall and spring semester. The latest issue of Centric debuted this week. For an online edition of the magazine, go to http://centric.cos.ucf.edu/.

What do you enjoy most about teaching at the Nicholson School of Communication?

The opportunity to be in the people-development business. Effective communication really is the key to all kinds of success and fulfillment in life – from your marriage and family to the way you earn a living. I know it sounds corny and probably suspect, but I get to work with young people in the foundational years of their adult lives when they’re in the process of moving into careers and lasting relationships. It’s an amazing privilege to be part of that process and an influential part of their lives during those critical years between 18 and 22.��

What inspired you to leave your career as a full-time copy editor to teach journalism?

Well, journalism is kind of like the mob – you never really do get to leave. I’ve continued to work as a professional journalist on a part-time basis – either at the Orlando Sentinel or WFTV Channel 9 – since I joined the journalism faculty in 2003. But I’ve got to say the opportunity to return to UCF to teach the craft I love where I learned the craft was just too good to pass up. How many people in any field get that chance? How cool is that? I feel like the luckiest guy in town.

How do you keep the content of your courses current and cutting edge in the ever-changing world of journalism?

It helps that I’ve been fortunate to continue working in a newsroom on a weekly basis where I’m observing and participating in the revolutionary changes in this field. When my students see my own reporting on the Sentinel’s website – a story I’ve written or a video package I’ve shot with my iPhone – they go, “Oh, the old guy really does know what he’s talking about.” It gives me a level of trust and credibility that is invaluable as a teacher. I’m in the trenches of a changing industry, getting my hands dirty, then walking into class and teaching them what I know they’re going to need to know — now and five years from now.

What can we see in Centric magazine this semester?

Expect to be surprised. That’s what we always hope to deliver to our readers. We like to say there are 60,000 stories on this campus – and we’re going to bring you a few you didn’t know about that just may inspire you and make you feel good about going to school here.

What do you feel is a common misconception of print journalists?

That what print journalists do is “dead.” It’s simply not true. How people get their news has changed – we’re all reading the news on smartphones and tablets and sharing it with friends on social media. But you can trace the origin of almost any news story that’s of any value or significance to a newspaper reporter who knocked on a door, dug through some public records or asked a tough question. Nothing will ever replace the act of original reporting by trained, ethical, smart, curious and thoughtful journalists. That’s why I’m still here.

What is something that few people know about you?

My media career had an inauspicious beginning – I was a contestant on WFTV’s “Bozo the Clown’’ show when I was 10 years old. I’ve been clowning around ever since.