About

Susan Kirkman Zake is an assistant professor on the tenure track in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Kent State University.

The courses she teaches include: Photography, an introductory course for freshmen photojournalism majors; Teaching Multimedia, a graduate-level, online course she designed to train high school journalism advisers in basic multimedia storytelling skills; Web Programming for Multimedia Journalism, a course co-developed with Assistant Professor Jacqueline Marino and Professor Paul Wang as part of a Summer Teaching Development Award; and Multimedia Storytelling, a course she designed to teach student journalists the multimedia skills they need in the workplace.

She is currently developing a data reporting class to teach in the fall of 2014 — students in the class will work with editors from WKYC.com, the website for the Gannett-affiliated television station in Cleveland.

She will also teach a revamped Reporting Public Affairs class in the fall that emphasizes digital reporting, data and multimedia skills.

She is the former student media newsroom adviser and worked with KentWired.com, the award-winning, independent student media website for the Daily Kent Stater and TV2, and the Daily Kent Stater, the independent, award-winning student newspaper. She continues to work closely with student media journalists, particularly in the areas of technology support and investigative reporting techniques using public records requests.

She was the adviser to the Summer Kent Stater for five years. Zake is particularly committed to preparing students for journalism careers in today’s changing newsroom environment.

Zake attended the Honors College at Ohio University, and earned a Bachelor of Science in Journalism from the School of Visual Communication. She was awarded a Master of Arts in Communication at Kent State in December 2011.

Before joining the faculty at Kent State, Susan was the managing editor for multimedia and special projects at the Akron Beacon Journal, where she began work as a staff photographer in 1986. Over a 20-year career, she worked as an assignment editor, picture editor, graphics editor, assistant metro editor and assistant managing editor.

The recipient of numerous awards for her photojournalist images, the photography, graphics and design staffs under her supervision were recognized locally, nationally and internationally for the quality of their work.

She shares in three Pulitzer Prize team awards; for coverage of the attempted takeover of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.; for A Question of Color, which examined local attitudes toward race; and for coverage of Hurricane Katrina as part of a Knight Ridder editing team working for the Biloxi Sun Herald.