Fab five: A look at Auburn’s Student Media leaders

Auburn University is home to more than 450 student-led organizations, including Student Involvement’s highly touted group Student Media, a quintet of creative outlets led by five talented and dedicated Tigers.

Student Media — which consists of the award-winning Eagle Eye TV, The Glomerata yearbook, WEGL 91.1 FM radio station, The Auburn Plainsman newspaper and The Circle literary magazine — is in good hands, thanks to a group of hardworking and passionate Auburn students. These leaders spend many hours in the Student Media suite every day contributing to their specific organization. All five have established close relationships and support each other when problems, questions or concerns arise.

Each student has a different story and path to their chosen media group, as well as different responsibilities, favorite aspects of their roles and goals for the semester. Those leaders — Cole Anderson from The Circle, Sydney Babb from Eagle Eye TV, The Auburn Plainsman’s Sami Grace Donnelly, Rae Nawrocki from WEGL 91.1 FM and The Glomerata’s Kendall Wilkes — are dynamic individuals who are dedicated to keeping their peers informed about everything Auburn on campus and beyond.

Here is a capsule look at each student leader.

Cole Anderson, The Circle literary magazine

Anderson, a senior majoring in English literature and creative writing from Jackson, Mississippi, serves as editor-in-chief for The Circle literary magazine. He joined The Circle during his first semester at Auburn after a friend encouraged him to apply. Since joining, Anderson has served as a prose general staff member, assistant editor and editor.

The community at The Circle and the process of making the magazine are what led Anderson to apply for the editor-in-chief position.

“I really fell in love with The Circle itself,” Anderson said. “I love the message. I love the purpose and the mission that we serve, as well as the process of making the magazine. I just fell in love with it.”

Anderson’s goal for this semester’s magazine is to make it a good complement to this past fall’s edition. The organization is trying something new this year by making the themes of the magazines two halves of the same whole.

“I really hope people read the writing, but at the very least, we tell people to just look through it, that it looks very pretty,” Anderson said about motivating students to read the magazine. “All the art is gorgeous. I hope people will see that artists are everywhere and will learn to support the fine arts department, the creative writing department and all the design departments as well.”

Sydney Babb, Eagle Eye TV

Babb, a Cullman, Alabama, native who is a senior in journalism, serves as the station manager for Eagle Eye TV. Babb joined Eagle Eye at the beginning of her first year. She was interested in television, so she decided to attend the first meeting of the semester after finding out about it on AUinvolve. Since joining, Babb has served as an anchor, reporter, news producer and executive producer.

One of the main responsibilities of serving as the student leader of Eagle Eye and a reason Babb applied to be station manager is the teaching and guidance of those within the organization.

“I felt like I learned and grew so much from this experience, this organization and the people older than me, and I’ve got to give that back,” Babb said. “I’ve got to do that for the younger ones who are coming in. Also, they’re all just the sweetest students I’ve ever met, and they all work so hard, so getting to help guide them has been the best experience I’ve ever had.”

By helping members, Babb wants to make sure those not graduating this year feel they have a strong foundation to add more opportunities in the coming year. This will help Babb achieve her goal for this semester of leaving the organization better than she found it.

Sami Grace Donnelly, The Auburn Plainsman newspaper

Donnelly, a senior majoring in English literature from Nashville, Tennessee, serves as editor-in-chief for The Auburn Plainsman newspaper. She joined the Plainsman at the beginning of her first year after attending the Student Media Open House, as she knew she wanted to be involved with a newspaper. Since joining, Donnelly has served as opinion columnist, opinion editor and managing editor.

Donnelly said she applied for the paper’s top spot because she has seen the impact this position has had on people in recent years. She wanted to be able to be that person for others and care for the organization.

“Seeing the ways that everyone’s minds work differently and then come together into this great organization could probably bring me to tears if I think about it so much, because it’s just such an honor to be the person who gets to facilitate that,” Donnelly said.

Her goal is to help everyone excel so the organization can use everyone’s talents to produce award-winning content.

“I want us to really be at the top of our game producing daily content,” Donnelly said. “I want us to really hone in and set a goal of producing award-winning content for when we do the Media Awards or do work that’s good enough to get nominated, because that hasn’t happened in a few years.”

Rae Nawrocki, WEGL 91.1 FM

Nawrocki, a junior majoring in graphic design from Auburn, Alabama, serves as station manager for WEGL 91.1 FM. Nawrocki joined WEGL at the beginning of her first year after a high school teacher encouraged her to try it. Since joining, she has served as a DJ and a production director and has hosted multiple talk shows.

One of Nawrocki’s responsibilities as station manager is setting up the organizational meetings all members have to attend. A goal of Nawrocki’s is to continue to work toward making the organizational meetings more useful.

“Last semester, I tried three different things for the meetings,” Nawrocki said. “I did radio trivia games, a guest speaker coming in and then an Adobe workshop. For the first 10 minutes, we talked about the normal things we have to talk about, and then we had these things at the end. People loved it.”

Along with improving the meetings, Nawrocki enjoys encouraging new members and watching them become more comfortable with their DJ shows or talk shows.

“I can think of specific people I’ve seen break out of their shell, and that’s something I wouldn’t trade the feeling of,” Nawrocki said. “It’s just a really cool experience to be able to initiate that process for someone. That’s my favorite thing: the people.”

Kendall Wilkes, The Glomerata, the official yearbook of Auburn University

Wilkes, a senior majoring in public relations from Marietta, Georgia, serves as editor-in-chief for The Glomerata, the official yearbook of Auburn University. Wilkes joined The Glomerata at the beginning of her first year after helping with her high school yearbook. Since then, Wilkes has served as the publication’s campus life writer and director of marketing.

Last year, she worked extensively alongside the editor-in-chief, who helped encourage her to think about applying for the position.

One responsibility of the editor-in-chief is to plan the yearbook’s distribution. Wilkes has been heavily involved in this process for the past two years and is excited to help with it again this April.

Her goal for the organization is to distribute the yearbooks as fast as possible, as her staff members are planning to distribute a record number of copies.

“The demand is higher every year, so I’m determined to give them out as fast as possible, because there’s truly nothing as special to me as seeing a student pick up a book and flip through it and see themselves and their college memories, and to see their face light up when they see it,” Wilkes said. “It’s just an unbeatable feeling as someone who works really hard to approve every single page that comes into our website from my staff members.”