The Crest
The Crest is the student-run news outlet for the university. It is a national leader in all-digital college journalism and winner of a National Online Pacemaker Award.
Agents for change
Department of Emerging Media
Evolving with Technology
The Department of Emerging Media at the University of St. Thomas prepares students to respond to a rapidly changing media environment. The department places an emphasis on good writing and storytelling, while recognizing that technology continuously impacts how we interact in the workplace and in our daily lives.
Today it is increasingly important that we keep learning as technology evolves. Whether producing an interactive story, developing a social media marketing campaign, or creating audio-visual content, you will learn from instructors who are well-versed in the latest industry trends and techniques. While contemporary storytelling often relies on technology, it is equally important to understand the theoretical and ethical considerations of digital media arts, journalism and strategic communication.
Emerging Media Degrees Prepare You for a Changing Future
Through technique, inspiration, and maker initiative, the Digital Media Arts program offers classes in audio, visual, and interactive media. The Journalism program emphasizes responsible story-telling in a wide range of media. The Strategic Communication program is designed for professional training in advertising, public relations and digital communication under an integrated approach.
Related Programs
Our majors and minors pair well with a number of others at the university.
Department Highlights
Visit The Crest website
Pulitzer Prize Winners
We have two alumni who have won the Pulitzer Prize in the last five years: Jeremy Olson '94 and Art Cullen '79.
Scholarships
We award scholarships for incoming first-year students, as well as current students with a declared major in either journalism, digital media arts or strategic communication.
Application deadline for incoming students: March 5, 2026
ThreeSixty Journalism
ThreeSixty Journalism uses the principles of writing and reporting to empower diverse high school students to share and amplify their stories, to help create a more inclusive worldview for all.
A Loudspeaker for Underheard Voices
ThreeSixty Journalism is leading the way in developing multicultural storytellers in the media arts industry. Our program is a loudspeaker for underheard voices, where highly motivated students discovered the power of voice and develop their own within ThreeSixty's immersive college success programming. Each year, ThreeSixty Journalism awards one of its students a four-year, full-tuition scholarship to study emerging media at St. Thomas.
Ayo Olagbaju, ThreeSixty Alumna
"I will never forget the way the ThreeSixty Journalism program helped me find and refine my voice as a young Black woman and a developing writer."
Zekriah Chaudhry, 2018 ThreeSixty Scholar
Zekriah Chaudhry spent a full semester studying abroad in the Rome Empower Program and traveling in Europe. He has interned at Pioneer Press and Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal, and reported for TommieMedia.
Lujain Al-Khawi, ThreeSixty Alumna
"ThreeSixty was a big part of why I obtained my past and current jobs. My ThreeSixty experience continues to open so many doors for me."
Faculty
Our faculty are active scholars that are eager to engage with you inside and outside of the classroom. Here is what a few have been up to lately.
Dr. Peter Gregg
Dr. Gregg is an award-winning researcher and media producer. His scholarship focuses on the formation of attitudes and beliefs via media consumption, including prejudice and stereotyping, media literacy and appeals to tradition in baseball.
Dr. April Eichmeier
Dr. Eichmeier blends practical communication experience, earned while working in marketing communications for more than a decade, with theoretical perspectives from science communication, political communication and quantitative methods.
Greg Vandegrift
Greg Vandegrift loves teaching journalism. He joined St. Thomas in 2008, bringing 25 years of award-winning reporting to the classroom, and he still freelances to keep curriculum current. Greg teaches the multimedia reporting classes and is an adviser for the student-run media organization, The Crest.
Emerging Media News
A Letter from the Chair – May 2026
Dear Alum, The end of the academic year serves as an opportunity for reflection and celebration. We say good-bye to the students who we’ve come to know and love, and we say hurrah as they complete their journey, degree in hand. But we hope they take more than their degrees. We hope they have a better sense of their place in an ever-changing world, one that demands navigating critical terrains wisely, ethically and purposefully. We hope they carry memories from inside the classroom and out: happy accidents, cool projects and wonderful friendships. We hope they realize the importance of their presence to the welfare of others: their friends, families, communities. We hope they see how knowledge gained here can carry them far. I hope as you read through this newsletter, you can celebrate all our students do and see how, as a department, we continue to help students become thoughtful, creative and ethical media makers. In many ways, their work continues the story that you helped shape during your own time here. The projects, friendships, questions and discoveries may look different from year to year, but the heart of the work remains familiar: learning how to use media to better […]
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Major Garrett Brings Real-World Journalism Insights to St. Thomas Students at Media Ethics Summit
CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent Major Garrett visited the University of St. Thomas this spring, connecting with students in the Emerging Media department and participating in campus-wide discussions on journalism. During his visit, Garrett, who is host of the streaming show “The Takeout with Major Garrett,” spent time with Emerging Media students in the studio, where he was interviewed about his career and experience covering national politics. The “Deep Focus” interview was hosted by Emerging Media student Adam Mueller ‘26, who asked questions about journalism’s business model and the field’s future in a shifting digital climate. Other Emerging Media students posed questions about the realities of covering the White House in a heavily polarized environment. “Polarization is an external reality that ought not to influence what you’re doing,” Garrett said. The session gave students a behind-the-scenes look at how national stories are developed and verified before being distributed to the public. Later in the day, Garrett joined a panel of media professionals that included Tommies alum Mark Ginther (news director, WDBJ in Virginia) and Kathleen Hennessy (executive director, Minnesota Star Tribune). The panel was moderated by former Emerging Media department chair Mark Neuzil and brought together Media Literacy students and […]
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From St. Thomas to Team USA: Oyuna Uranchimeg Finishes Her Second Paralympic Games
When Emerging Media’s Oyuna Uranchimeg competed as part of Team USA’s wheelchair curling team this March, she wasn’t competing alone. She had a team of four dedicated Paralympians on the ice with her in Milan, and back in Minnesota, she had a spirited group of Tommies cheering her on. On March 12, about 20 students and faculty rooted for Oyuna during a Wheelchair Curling Watch Party during Team USA’s final against Canada. “It felt great to have that kind of support and cheer from my colleagues and UST students,” she said. NBC captured footage of the group cheering for Oyuna as she concentrated early in the match. Oyuna, an administrator for the Emerging Media department, balances her professional role with the intense demands of an elite international competition. Her selection to Team USA’s Paralympic Wheelchair Curling roster is a notable achievement, placing her among the top athletes in the sport. “It’s an incredible honor and a privilege that not every athlete gets to experience,” she said. “I felt lucky and proud all at once that ‘I made it.’” Oyuna’s journey to the Paralympic stage began when she was introduced to wheelchair curling in 2016, when she visited the Four Seasons […]
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Students Made “One Button” Games for TommieJam Spring 2026
Emerging media design students joined students across campus to participate in a weeklong game jam, an event where students have one week to make a digital game based on a surprise theme. This semester’s theme, announced on the first day of the game jam on March 9, was “One Button.” Student teams submitted twelve wildly different games, ranging from games controlled by a single button input to games that took a more metaphorical approach to the theme. An awards jury chose the game Blorbos, made by Cat Soup (Kitty Marsh and Elijah Parkos), to receive the Jury Award Prize, a $1,000 cash prize sponsored by the Schulze School of Entrepreneurship. The Schulze School also sponsored an Audience Choice Award, given to the game YOU’VE BEEN HACKED by Third Persona Games. Slidungeon by Team Ryan won the Design Award, chosen by Dr. Sky LaRell Anderson who teaches game design in the department of Emerging Media. Play all of the games on itch.io.
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High Impact Projects: Applying Knowledge
High-impact practices (HIPs) are educational projects that are known to help students apply what they learn. We value these high-impact practices because they give students the chance to apply what they are learning in real production settings, work with campus and community partners, build professional habits, and create portfolio-ready work that reaches audiences in and beyond the classroom. The year has seen students working on several HIP projects outside our standard curriculum. “Beyond the Buzzer” is a co-production between the College of Arts and Sciences, the department, and Athletics is led by students Eli Bieker and Alexis Randolph, with help from Sylvia Guertin. The series features four student-athletes and explores how they manage school, sports, and life in a Division I program. Read all about the first season and see the videos. The second season is in post-production. Scene Setters [[link forthcoming]] features stories about the “hidden” places around campus to document the Hidden Stories audio project from idea generation through performance. Students Sydney Baxter, Eli Bieker, Scott Leslie, and Devin Nguyen have been following the Scene Setters group and Wonderlust Productions as they gather stories from members of the St. Thomas community. The students turn those stories into dramatic […]
Contact us
Have questions about our programs? We'd love to hear from you.
Tel: (651)-962-5250
Email: emedia@stthomas.edu
Mailing Address
Department of Emerging Media
SCC 209
2115 Summit Ave
St. Paul, MN 55105
Campus Location
The department of Emerging Media is located on the second floor of the Schoenecker Center (SCC), room 209.