Corporate communication students, professor recognized in statewide competition

DUNMORE, Pa. — Three Penn State Scranton students and a corporate communication faculty member recently captured several awards and accolades in the annual Pennsylvania Press Club’s Communications Contest, including three first-place awards.

All first-place winners will compete nationally in the National Federation of Press Women's contest, with the winners being announced at a ceremony in Maryland in September. The Pennsylvania Press Club is affiliated with the National Federation of Press Women, which was formed in 1937 to promote communication among female writers to advance the interests and standards of women in the press.

Assistant Professor of Corporate Communication Stephanie Longo won a first-place professional award as part of a group project (Category 46C), Communication Programs and Campaigns — Integrated Communications. Other team members were: Kay Stephens, Altoona; Jean Korten Moser, Lititz; and Lini Kadaba, Newtown Square (2025 PPC Membership Retention/Recruitment Campaign).

Students who submitted completed projects for consideration were in Longo’s Intercultural Communication and Internal Communication classes.

Penn State Scranton student winners are:

Category 58B — Collegiate Writing — Features

Honorable Mention — Marbella Duricko, Penn State Scranton, for “Community Spotlight: Coffee Inclusive”

This project was part of a community partnership with Rich Perry of Wilkes-Barre POWER. Longo used her LinkedIn profile to ask her contacts if they had any opportunities for a student to write content that would help them get some professional clips. Perry responded and Duricko’s “Coffee Inclusive" was the first piece she wrote for POWER’s website, showing how vital community partnerships are for students, Longo explained.

Category 60 — Collegiate — Podcast — Created/Produced by Student

First Place — Marbella Duricko, “Intercultural Interludes: Felicity He”

Second Place — Emma Bannon for “Intercultural Interludes: Professor Allen Babiarz-Lira”

“Marbella’s first-place award and Emma’s second-place award were from CAS 471: Intercultural Communication,” Longo explained. “I continued the podcast assignment that Zamarra Vrabel won first place statewide/nationwide (Jim Bernosky got second place statewide last year) for this class. The students were tasked with recording, editing and producing their own podcasts. The prompt was to interview someone from a different culture than their own and to use the various techniques we had been studying, like intercultural communication competence.”

Category 61A — Collegiate — Art and Design (print or electronic)

Second Place — Marbella Duricko “Cultural Exploration Blog”

This project was a blog assignment from Longo’s CAS 471: Intercultural Communication class in which students designed and created a blog that told the story of how they interacted with various cultures in their lives.

Category 62 — Collegiate — Public Relations Campaign

First Place — Zamarra Vrabel for “Support Starts Here: PSU Scranton Mental Health Resources”

This project was a video Vrabel created for her CC 401: Internal Communication class as her final project. The class was tasked with creative a video based on what they learned all semester to effectively market on-campus services to other students. Vrabel worked with campus counselor Sarah Smith.

“As an educator, I try to move beyond theory and into application,” Longo said. “These awards prove that our students are not just competing at a collegiate level but are meeting the professional standards expected by industry leaders.”