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Furman students bring home NATAS Southeast Student Production Awards
Kenzie Doyle shared her journey from high school all-state cross-country runner to Olympic trials qualification in the award-winning sports story “Following Footsteps,” by communications studies major Kaylie Armitage ’25.
Furman University students brought home two wins across five nominations from the Southeast Student Production Awards, hosted by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), the professional organization behind the Daytime and Primetime Emmy Awards.
Each year the student production awards provide a chance for Furman’s communication studies students to show off the hard work they put into multimedia productions for their digital storytelling, advanced multimedia storytelling or broadcasting classes.
The story of Ukrainian taekwondo champion Anastasiia Savchenko ’27 earned communication studies major Ella Harrison ’25 a NATAS Southeast Chapter Student Production Award.
“It’s a difficult competition because we’re up against institutions that have a journalism school or design schools,” said media specialist and instructor Mary Sturgill, a former news anchor and reporter.
Furman students “make amazing connections with faculty mentors in and outside the classroom,” which leads to professional-quality storytelling every day in the Digital Storytelling Studio and Media Lab, said Mac McArthur, professor and chair of the Department of Communication Studies at Furman. “With 24 nominations and 12 wins in the past five years, Furman students continue to showcase their media production skills, which are competitive on the national level,” McArthur said.
The winners recognized at this year’s Southeast NATAS Student Production Awards are:
- Ella Harrison ’25, sports story or segment, “Born to Fight”
- Kaylie Armitage ’25, sports program, “Following Footsteps Episode One”
Harrison’s video tells the story of Anastasiia Savchenko ’27, a Ukrainian national taekwondo champion who fled Ukraine with her family when war broke out. Harrison couldn’t attend the awards ceremony, and was studying in the James B. Duke Library when she learned her story had won.
“I was trying to be quiet when I called my mom and said, ‘I think I won a student production award,’” she said with a laugh.
Students who received nominations at the Southeast NATAS Student Production Awards are:
- Marissa Schabes ’24, Ella Harrison ’25, Esmie Fernandez ’25 and Cole Morehead ’25, newscast, Knightly News Episode 9
- Aru Sakhariyanova ’26, news report, “Unearthed”
- Alyssa Hildenbrandt ’25, Andrew Brown ’27, sports story or segment, “All American Dream”
Ella Harrison ’25 was part of the Knightly News crew nominated for a NATAS Southeast Chapter Student Production Award, and won an award for her sports story, “Born to Fight.”
Furman’s communication studies students engage in digital storytelling that Sturgill said raises their reputation as journalists and media producers. In the classroom, instructors open students’ eyes to potential stories all around them, encouraging them to be curious and think critically about the communities they’re in.
“We’ve really been given the opportunities to tell stories about topics that extend outside of Furman and into the community,” Harrison said. “That experience is so valuable and it’s something I may not have gotten at another school. These are the kinds of skills I can take with me wherever I go and into any career I decide to pursue.”