M.A., English, University of Texas-El Paso, 1969
B.A., Texas Western College, 1967

Background

Byrne is the Department of Communication's broadcast news coordinator and media law specialist. She began her teaching career at the University Texas-El Paso, coaching intercollegiate debate for 10 years and teaching speech communication and broadcasting. In 1977, she was hire by El Paso Community College to develop the broadcast curriculum at the newly established school. While there, she directed the Borderlands Project, in which students produced monthly TV documentaries for the local PBS affiliate, and published a quarterly supplement to the El Paso Times about issues related to the U.S.-Mexico border culture, economy and history. Byrne also worked for El Paso Cablevision as a documentary producer, turning out more than 20 30minute programs, and for KCOS-TV, El Paso's public TV station. After coming to Utah State in 1984, Byrne built the communication department's broadcast news program from the ground up, starting with a 30-minute program on a local cable channel, which has evolved into the student-produced "Cache Valley Headline News," two local news segments inserted daily on the CNN Headline News feed for Cache Valley viewers. This collaboration with CNN is the only such relationship in the United States between a university broadcast journalism program and the Atlanta-based international news network. "Cache Valley Headline News" also is the only local daily TV news in Cache County. USU broadcast majors working with Byrne have won scores of regional and national awards for journalistic excellence, and one of the "Headline News" student producers, Smithfield, Utah, senior Eric Olsen, was named the 1994-95 best all-round student journalist in the four-state Society of Professional Journalists region 9, of which Utah is part. Byrne is assistant head of the Department of Communication, chair of the undergraduate curriculum committee and adviser to the USU student chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. She also serves on the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences Undergraduate Council, the USU Honors Advisory Board and the USU Athletics Council.

Research/Professional Activities

During the past several years, Byrne's professional activities have centered on keeping up with the rapid technological advances that are changing the face of broadcasting, and translating those advances into new classroom leanring and training opportunities for broadcast majors. She has attended annual faculty seminars of the International Radio and Television Society in New York City, conferences at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg, Fla., and seminars and conferences on new broadcast technology and media law developments across the country.

"The best thing about broadcasting is that it gives you a chance to learn it all as it's happening-O.J. (Simpson) in the afternoon and o.j. (Sunkist) in the morning."
Penny Byrne, 1995

"Penny Byrne IS broadcasting at USU."
Student evaluation
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