Vegetarian at Saint Louis University: Can it be Done?

By: Nina Carlsen

College students at Saint Louis University need to know the answer to this question as hundreds of students rely on on-campus dining options as their main source of food during the school year.

In order to answer this question it is necessary to first understand what a vegetarian or a more plant-based diet consists of. The vegetarian diet is typically seen as the complete elimination of meat from one's diet. A more plant-based diet typically includes the elimination of all animal products such as milk, cheese, eggs etc.

Now, in order to find out how a person with these dietary restrictions can be accommodated at SLU it was essential to speak to people on the other side of the lens as far as on-campus dining goes. Dine SLU Nutritionist Donna Foy as well as Dine SLU Director of Operations Myron Bridges offered insight on the topic of being vegetarian at SLU.

Both Foy and Bridges provided a list of all restaurants and dining halls on SLU's main campus that have at least a few vegetarian options. Below is a graphic that shows the different options mentioned.

Image edit created by Nina Carlsen on Sept.19, 2021.

Both Foy and Bridges also mentioned a tool that students with dietary accommodations, such as a vegetarian or vegan diet, can utilize while dining on campus. It is called the Bite U App.

Video recording taken by Nina Carlsen of the Bite U App on Sept. 20, 2021, Audio clip featured of Foy taken by Nina Carlsen on Sept. 20, 2021.

Bridges suggested for all students to follow Dine SLU on their favorite social platforms, "Whether it be Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram we post regularly about dining on campus and showcase new initiatives on those pages." These social pages can be found @dineslu on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

When asked about what Dine SLU can do to improve accommodating students who have a vegetarian diet Foy said, "About four members of SLU's community have mentioned their concerns and questions about accommodations regarding the vegetarian diet on campus just this week. At Dine SLU I believe we should work on offering even more options and increase the variety of food provided while accounting for the wants and needs of our students."

As a result of speaking with two informed members of SLU's main dining service provider it seems that a vegetarian diet can be a sustainable and achievable feat that will continue to evolve and improve as more students living on campus adapt plant-based diets.

App Review: Made - Story Maker & Collage

By Nina Carlsen

Made is a photo editing app that allows users to enhance their Instagram stories by providing unique templates, backgrounds, fonts and filters.

This is an app that I have utilized for a project in my intercultural communications class. The templates allowed for me to benefit from the pre-made creative layouts where I could easily enter the text and images of my choosing.

Image presented is an example of content that can be made using the Made app. Content created by Nina Carlsen in May 2021.

I discovered the app based on a recommendation from a friend who has edited instagram posts with it for our sorority's official Instagram.

Image features Marisa Sadauskas and is courtesy of Kennedy Ewald. Content created using Made in March 2021.

The app is free but if the user wants to have access to the entire collection of templates it is a monthly subscription cost of $4.99. This is a limiting factor of this app, as some reviews point out that they wish the entire collection was readily available instead of having a monthly payment.

It could potentially be a useful tool for journalists as a way of gaining traction on news pieces if it is used as a promotional tool for social media stories. A news organization or individual journalist could utilize this tool to upload images and a summary related to the story being promoted.

What is Multiplatform Journalism?

By: Nina Carlsen

Multiplatform journalism allows for creativity and collaboration to ensue. When done correctly, a journalistic piece is enhanced through the practices of multiplatform journalism. When done incorrectly, chaos and distraction likely follow.

"Multimedia is often defined as the use of various elements: text, audio, photos, video, graphics, and animation" said Journalism Professor at Rowan University, Mark Berkey-Gerard.

To reflect on Berkey-Gerard's summary of multimedia, a multimedia journalist is therefore someone who utilizes skill to combine those various journalistic elements to make an engaging and methodical piece of writing.

As a result of viewing multiplatform journalistic pieces it becomes obvious that, with a plethora of tempting elements, journalists can get carried away with the over-inclusion of content.

An example of this can be seen in this article by Kevin Mcgill and Jay Reeves for the Associated Press: https://www.stltoday.com/news/national/hurricane-ida-makes-landfall-in-louisiana-with-major-force/article_9367d4ff-76ea-52f2-b202-b3ea636bae3b.html. The article provides a video, graphic, text and photo element for readers. The article, although well-written, includes a content overload which might distract readers from the main topic at hand.

Journalism's ever-changing nature does provide positives for multi-media journalists as well. With multiplatform journalism, balance is essential. The technique of balancing between elements such as video, audio, graphics etc. and the text of an article is what makes journalistic pieces competitive in the current media. Good journalism today is being able to create and utilize these extra elements to strengthen a piece of writing.

Here are a few examples of articles including infographics that are directly related to the article's main content and enhance the viewing experience for the reader: https://www.the-scientist.com/infographics. The use of these infographics allow readers to visualize the written content and ideally would further inform and educate them. The writers of these pieces deliberately placed the chosen infographics in order to explain scientific concepts that, otherwise, could be objectively difficult for many people to understand with just a text component.

To master multiplatform journalism is to follow the media closely and gain an in depth understanding of what your audience needs from the piece that they are reading.