Andrea Negri

“It's worth every hour and every penny. This program has influenced everything to what I teach to where I work. It has given me much more confidence in my ability to help my students..."

Andrea Negri | M.A. Journalism and Mass Communication (Journalism Educators Concentration)

Current job: Journalism teacher, Bellaire High School (Bellaire, TX)

For Kent State graduate student Andrea Negri, her undergraduate coursework prepared her to be a journalist but not an adviser to student journalists. She found the missing pieces she needed to teach journalism in a school setting by pursuing her M.A in Journalism and Mass Communication. The Kent State program has improved her overall knowledge and understanding of student press rights to be a better advocate for students.

“I've learned much more about student press rights than I thought I would, and it's changed how I interact with the scholastic journalism community,” she said. “Initially I thought I'd simply gain information that I would pass on to my students. But through readings, class discussions and learning about advisers' experience made me realize this wasn't an issue I could be passive about. I've become a better advocate for my own students as well as other advisers and their staffs.”

Negri is currently a journalism teacher at Bellaire High School in Texas and uses concepts she learned throughout grad school every day in the classroom. Whether she’s teaching introductory communication courses or advising students in the yearbook program, every day she utilizes knowledge of theory and research, law and ethics, and her extensively practiced writing skills.

M.A. Journalism and Mass Communication - Journalism Educators Concentration CCI Graduate Programs

Many high school journalism teachers are “singletons,” Negri says — the only people on their campuses, even districts, who do their jobs. The journalism education graduate program at Kent State has given her a community of people to reach out to for advice and support.

Advice for future graduate students: “It's worth every hour and every penny. This program has influenced everything to what I teach to where I work. It has given me much more confidence in my ability to help my students as well as help other advisers. And this is coming from someone who was a student journalist and majored in journalism. I still had a lot to learn when I entered the program.”