Nice Work
Emily Corio
was promoted to full teaching professor in fall 2023. Corio joined the WVU Reed College of Media in the fall of 2011 and was named chair of the journalism program in August 2021. She teaches courses in audio and video storytelling and special topics reporting courses.
During her tenure, Corio has co-led collaborative reporting projects that brought together faculty and students from WVU and George Washington University. In 2019, the team focused on in-depth and explanatory reporting on the opioid epidemic's impact on children in West Virginia. She has also created courses in adventure travel writing and photography, which ultimately led her to develop the college's Sports and Adventure Media major that launched in 2018.
Corio spent a decade working in public media as a journalist before joining the College of Media. She's an award-winning reporter who served as the assistant news director for the West Virginia statewide public television and radio network. Her reporting and stories have aired on NPR’s “All Things Considered” and “Morning Edition,” WNYC’s and PRI’s “The Takeaway,” and the CBC.
She graduated from the University of North Carolina in Greensboro’s Broadcasting and Cinema Department and the Honors Program in 2001 and received her Master of Science in Journalism from WVU in 2009.
Elizabeth Oppe
also was promoted to full teaching professor in fall 2023. She joined the College of Media in fall 2011 and teaches media and society and public relations courses, including a service-learning capstone course in which students work with regional nonprofits on event promotion and public awareness campaigns. She is the founder and president of GetMoving!, a Morgantown-based organization that encourages and challenges people of all ages to get active. Her capstone students manage logistics and promotion for the organization’s annual Day of Play, which allows K-12 students to engage in sports and activities with WVU athletes.
In addition to teaching courses in public relations, Oppe developed and teaches a communications course for executives in the online MBA program offered through the WVU Chambers College of Business and Economics.
Prior to coming to WVU, Oppe held several faculty positions, including those at Florida State College in Jacksonville, Glenville State College, University of Charleston, West Virginia State University and West Virginia Wesleyan, where she taught courses in business, public relations and communications, as well graduate courses in change and innovation. Oppe also worked for a short time as a sideline reporter for CBS College Sports.
Oppe earned her Ph.D. in instructional and organizational communication from Ohio University. She received her bachelor’s degree from Glenville State College and her master’s degrees in business administration from WVU and in global sports from New York University.
Joseph Jones
was promoted from a visiting assistant professor to a tenure-track position. He joined the College of Media in June 2021 and teaches courses in media history, culture, ethics and law.
Jones engages students in critical thinking, empathy and articulating their diverse views and positions. In both the classroom and his research, Jones examines consumer culture, lifestyle journalism, news, and popular forms of entertainment – with a focus on the entanglements of pleasure and power in constituting worldviews, identities and ethical scripts – to better understand how media enables or constrains our abilities to think holistically about other people and the environment.
Jones has taught a wide range of courses on such topics as history, globalization, popular culture, media ethics, media law, and the principles of journalism. He has also co-led a study- abroad course to Italy that examined art, culture, design and fashion sustainability. His recent work includes the influence of commercialism on the Black press, the discourse of sustainable fashion, and the construction of cultural identities, gender norms and race through media.
Jones serves as the vice chair of the Media Ethics Division for the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. He earned a Ph.D. from the Missouri School of Journalism, a master’s degree from the University of Missouri and a bachelor’s degree from Truman State University.