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OBU—Oklahoma Baptist University
Holly Easttom
Holly Easttom

Holly Easttom

Assistant Professor of Journalism

Biography

Holly Easttom worked as a journalist on and off for over 15 years in many publications (both as a freelance and full-time writer/columnist) before transitioning to education. She maintains over 30 years of writing experience. Easttom began teaching at OBU in 2002 as an adjunct and became a full-time faculty member in 2006. She serves as advisor for the weekly student newspaper, The Bison, as well as the OBU yearbook, The Yahnseh. Easttom is a strong advocate for student learning and providing hands-on experience. To provide more assistance to students, she moved her office to the learning lab where the Bison is produced.

Easttom received over 80 awards for journalistic writing and design from the OIPA, OCPA, APA, CMA, among others. Most recently, she was awarded the Scripps Howard Foundation/AEJMC Social Media Externship Grant. The externship is a competitive program and includes many applicants across the nation. Past recipients have included New York Times correspondents, former CNN reporters and noted authors.

During her career, she has also published poetry in many journals (listed below). She has received numerous awards for poetry and taught several community courses in creative writing, composition, journalism, and poetry. Additionally, she was recognized as the featured poet in several IAO readings, working closely with two poet laureates of Oklahoma.

In academia, Easttom earned over ten awards for writing, publication and scholarly research. During that time, she was awarded many academic scholarships to study abroad and to further literary research. Some of these honors include the Hauptman Fellow for Outstanding Scholarly Activity, the Regina Woodbury Scholar award, the James Axley Writing Award, and Professor of the Year.

Easttom's interests include a fond love for cats, writing poetry and spending time with family.

 

Education

  • B.A., University of Central Oklahoma
  • M.A., University of Central Oklahoma

Courses Taught

  • English Comp: Exposition/Argument
  • Classical Literature
  • News Writing
  • News Reporting
  • Student Newspaper Production
  • Student Yearbook Production
  • News Editing and Design
  • Advanced News Reporting
  • Journalism in the Media
  • Speech and Communication

Memberships

  • Journalism Education Association
  • OIPA
  • CMA
  • SPJ
  • EPA
  • AEJMC

Publications and Presentations

The following papers have been presented at conference/symposium or published in various journals:

"Miles and Miles of Nought': The Existential Implications of Emily Dickinson's Death Poetry,” "The Wife of Bath as Anti-feminist,” “Taking up the Cross: The Existential Jesus,” “Advising From High School to College and Back Again,” “Everybody Has a Story, but How Do Staffers Find Them? The Importance of Generating Feature Ideas In and Outside of Class,” “Humor Theory in Dorothy Parker’s Fiction,” “Viability of the Humanities,” “Culture Akimbo,” “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? as Sartrean Model,” “Women in Journalism,” and “Christian Journalism.”  

Other recent presentations include “Politics and Social Media as News Source,” “Citizen Journalism: Next Step in News Delivery or Societal Devolution?” "Social Media and Externships,” “The Evolution of Journalism and Print,” “The Good, the Bad, and the Misunderstood: Private University Student Presses Versus Public,” “Telling Your School’s Story in Under 200 Pages: Yearbook Design for Smaller Publications," "Journalism and the Christian Mission," "Yearbook Tools to Trend It All," "Rhetoric, Media and the Search for Truth," "Audience Impact on Content and Direction," “Yearbook Photos and Phobias,” “From the Classroom to the Newsroom: Transitioning from Academic to Professional Arena” and "Newspaper Advising on Christian Campuses." 

Easttom's Poetry has also been published in the following journals: Pegasus, Absolute, Allegheny Review, New Plains Review, Poetry Motel, ZuZu’s Petals Quarterly, Spindrift, Artisan, Potpourri, Isle of View, Branded Monkey, Individual Artists Of Oklahoma, and Byline.