Jeanie Adams-Smith is currently an assistant professor at Western Kentucky University in the photojournalism department. She is part of an award-winning program that places students at newspapers and magazines all over the country and internationally. Jeanie has been on the W.K.U. team for three years and during that time has curated two photo exhibits, started a student photo night, brought in prestigious guest speakers from the working profession, and has represented W.K.U. as a national photo contest judge four times. She was runner-up Kentucky Photographer of the Year, 2002 and a picture editing coach of the nationally acclaimed Mountain Workshop held in Cave City, KY, which involved layout and design of a book of photography covering the community. She won 3rd Place Feature Picture Story in the Pictures of the Year International contest, 2002, and was a photographer for the 24/7 photo documentary project. Jeanie and fellow professor, Tim Broekema won an Award of Excellence in 2003 for their multimedia work, The Long Road Home, about a family recovering from car accident injuries.
Before coming to Bowling Green, Jeanie was a photo editor for the Chicago Tribune. Her main job at the Tribune was overseeing the national and foreign coverage for the photo desk. Special projects included issues in international over-population and an investigation in to child relief organizations. Another project she edited on the child murders in Chicago landed her and the reporting team a Robert F. Kennedy award for excellence in journalism.
Other activities during her ten years in Chicago included chairing a national Women in Photojournalism conference, sponsored by the National Press Photographers Association, which brought hundreds of women in the field together to discuss issues in photography effecting women. She also published her first book, Portraits of Minor League Baseball, The Kane County Cougars. The project followed the minor league team and their fans for three years.
She also was third in Illinois Photographer of the Year in 2001 and won many national photo awards including first place in the Pictures of the Year International Multimedia Division, 2001 with her pictures from the Survivors, Children of Divorce project. She was also part of the City 2000 project that documented Chicago during the millennium. She won 2nd place and honorable mention in POYI 2000 and an honorable mention in POYI 1999, all in Issue Reporting.
From 1999 to 2000 Jeanie joined the Visual Communications department at Ohio University as a Knight Fellow. She received her masters degree and taught picture editing for a year.
The Tribune gave her a year leave of absence during the fellowship. When she returned, she was photo editor for the A-section of the Tribune including working on Page One the morning of the September 11th attacks in New York and Washington, DC.
Jeanie has a bachelors degree in photojournalism from Western Kentucky University as well as a masters degree in interpersonal communications from W.K.U. Plus she received her masters degree in visual communications from Ohio University.
Other awards Jeanie had won include, Chicago Arts Council Grant, Kit King Graduate Scholarship, Kodak Student Scholarship, and was the first female student to receive the Bob East Scholarship. She has recently received two grants, one from the Kentucky Foundation for Women and one from W.K.U. to finish a book project.
Jeanie has just published her second book, Survivors: Children of Divorce. The book is a 208-page photo documentary which provides emotional insight into an important national issue, both socially and economically. For more information on Survivors: Children of Divorce, visit the website at www.survivorscod.com.
Jeanie is married to husband, David, a former editor at the Chicago Tribune, and has a daughter, Abigail who is a 15 months-old.
