I became acquainted with University of Guelph political studies Arpana Chakravarty when, as a volunteer reporter for The Ontarion, she attended last year's CanACT etiquette dinner and wrote a story for the student newspaper. Later, she came to work as a SPARK writer, and enrolled in my third-year agricultural communications course. And although I knew she was a fan of dancing, given the performance of her Blitz Dance Crew at this year's United Way University Idol event, I didn't know she was so committed to Bollywood until I opened up today's Guelph Mercury newspaper. Check Arpana's story here, and see some of the SPARK stories she wrote in the University of Guelph Research magazine here.
OWEN ROBERTS
Owen Roberts is an agricultural journalist and communications instructor based in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. He is a trustee on the Global Foundation for Agricultural Journalism and an associate editor (communications) for the Journal of Agromedicine. Previously, Owen was president of the International Forum for Agricultural Journalists, an agricultural communications faculty member at the University of Illinois, and research communications director at the University of Guelph. His programs and research papers have been recognized through awards from the Journal of Applied Communications, the National Agri-Marketing Association, the Association for Communications Excellence and the Canadian Farm Writers' Federation.