Chanel Wayne has made the honor roll of the American Advertising Federation's Most Promising Minority Students Class of 2013.
By Staff Reports
(Honolulu)– — Hawai’i Pacific University senior Chanel Wayne has made the honor roll of the American Advertising Federation’s Most Promising Minority Students Class of 2013. Wayne — an advertising and public relations major — is one of only fifty students nationally to be selected for this prestigious, industry immersion program being held in New York City, Feb. 4-6, 2013.
The AAF’s Most Promising Minority Students Program acknowledges those minority students who are deemed exceptional by their college professors and advisers. HPU Department of Communication visiting instructor AnnMarie Manzulli nominated Wayne and called her a “stellar student.”
“This wise young woman has strengthened her leadership skills by being involved with student run organizations such as the Campus Activities Board,” said Manzulli. “She chaired the committee that was responsible for planning campus wide events very early in her academic career.”
Manzulli lauded Wayne’s writing and storytelling ability. “Not only can she write, she can see the world through the creative lens of a cinematographer and tells the tale through the voice of a scriptwriter. I believe this is an excellent skill set for delivering scathingly succinct advertising messages.”
One semester she took a writing assignment to the next level by bringing the project to the stage, Manzulli said. “She proposed a ‘poetry slam’ event at a local coffee shop — which became a reality that very semester. She organized the event through one of the student clubs, and it became a university-wide poetry slam series at that coffee shop for the rest of the semester.”
“She has vision, and isn’t afraid to manifest it into reality,” Manzulli said.
“Being selected as one of AAF’s most promising students is such an honor and I am so very grateful to the people and programs at HPU who helped to make me a viable candidate,” said Wayne, who is also a staff writer on the student newspaper Kalamalama. “The many opportunities available at HPU have helped me to develop skills I didn’t know I had. Thinking about who I was as a freshman, who I am today, and all of the experiences in between that have helped me grow as an individual — I just feel so fortunate for the entire journey.”
The Most Promising Minority Students Program started in 1997, in response to the advertising industry’s concerns regarding identifying top minority talent for entry-level positions. Since the program’s inception, AAF and its sponsoring partners have assisted in connecting the ad industry with hundreds of outstanding minority career candidates. The program has been expanded to provide more students with the opportunity to meet recruiters from major ad agencies, media companies and client organizations and to participate in professional development workshops. The industry immersion component of the program gives the students exposure to the inner workings of major industry companies. See http://www.aaf.org/default.asp?id=213
Hawai‘i Pacific University is the state’s largest private university with 7,500 students from the United States and more than 80 foreign nations. HPU is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, the Council on Social Work Education, the National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission, and the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education.