Students and alumni celebrated the founding of COMM Week by enjoying refreshments and networking at Bob Davis C-Day on Wednesday at Lake Claire.

By 5:30 PM, attendees were already settled in eating free pizza and refreshments while they networked and enjoyed the shade of the Lake Claire gazebo.

Sean Sposato, a radio-television production sophomore, heard about C-Day at a UCF National Broadcasting Society meeting.

“They said we’d have a lot of opportunities to meet professionals,” Sposato said. “Really, that’s what I’m trying to do, understand this whole world of communications.”

The event was attended by a wide range of communication alumni and students, including Brooke Savage, a sophomore radio-television broadcast journalism student, who had to take a “selfie” with her professor, Dr. Tim Brown, for class credit.

History of Bob Davis C-Day

Brown is serving as this year’s co-chair for the COMM Week events, and spoke in front of the diverse group which included representatives from the alumni association.

“[Dr.] Bob Davis was one of the…founding faculty of the school, and started this program called C-Day, which was, as you have right here, just a simple pizza party with some music, just a chance to [sic] for people to get together and relax in a casual environment,” Brown said.

C-Day was COMM Week’s original and only event, and Davis, its founder, passed away last year. He played an integral role in the creation of UCF’s Ad-PR program in the early 90’s.

Florida Public Relations Association C-Day was sponsored by the Florida Public Relations Association, which Davis was a member of, and under which he received his accreditation. The FPRA was represented by Cynthia Lambert, the public relations specialist for MetroPlan Orlando, who received the association’s Bob Davis Award in 2007. The award is given to members whose efforts are particularly “behind the scenes,” and may go unnoticed.

C-Day is an enjoyable opportunity to network and make good connections, said Lambert.

COMM WEEK

Attendees at C-Day also discussed which events they would be attending throughout the rest of COMM Week.

“I also want to see that [Friday night’s keynote speech by Marci Gonzalez from News One] and, I guess, understand how she got to where she was,” Sposato said. “It’s going to be interesting to see how she made her networks.”

COMM Week will continue into the weekend while students attend seminars, workshops, speeches and networking events designed to assist them in their respective communication fields.

COMM Week will host a reception, keynote, and award ceremony on Friday evening at the Fairwinds Alumni Center.

The schedule for Saturday, the busiest day of COMM week, is as follows in the Nicholson School’s building:

• 8:30 am – How to Produce a Project, Mobile Reporting Tools, Social Media ROI

• 9:45 am – Breaking News, Dress for Success, Building a Social Media Brand

• 11:00 am – Networking and Interning

• 12:00 pm – Family 101 Lunch Discussion

• 1:00 pm – Adobe Photoshop, Premier Editing, Personal Finance Workshop, That’s Not My Major

• 2:15 pm – Digging Deep, Standups/Anchoring, Your Website/Portfolio

• 3:30 pm – Digging Deep, Standups/Anchoring, Your Website/Portfolio, Event PR

By Ernest Duffoo