CAHSS Students to Share Helping News Outlets Tackle Real-World Challenges at Annual Wolzien Lecture
From left to right: Laura Frank, Dylan Lindsey, Alyssa Avila and Jay Moraytis.
This year’s Media, Film & Journalism Studies’ Wolzien Lecture (register here) Thursday, October 30, 5:15-7 p.m. in Sturm Hall’s Davis Auditorium, will feature a panel of students participating in MATCH Lab, an innovative, experiential learning partnership that matches students and Colorado media organization executives to solve real-world problems.
MATCH Lab evolved through College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences (CAHSS) Wolzien Visiting Professor of the Practice Laura Frank’s MFJS courses in collaboration with COLAB, an organization dedicated to strengthening local journalism and supporting an informed and engaged civil society.
“My classes have become MATCH labs, and the need couldn’t be greater,” said Frank, who is also Director of COLAB and this year’s Wolzien Lecture facilitator. She cited the 2025 annual survey by COLAB, the Colorado Media Project and the Colorado Press Association — to which 156 news organizations responded — finding that the median number of FTEs (full-time employees) in the typical newsroom had dropped to 1.35 people, with only one person doing everything else.
“They need help with reporting, resources and innovative approaches and the University of Denver (DU) feels like the right place to lead a growing national movement to link higher education with the future of local news and stronger communities,” Frank said. “Our teacher-scholar model and commitment to community engagement make us a natural incubator. MATCH Lab enables students to apply what they’re learning alongside professionals. They’re getting future career experience, making valuable contacts, boosting their resumes — it’s a win-win.”
With support from COLAB and the Wolzien professorship, Frank has reached out to other professors across MFJS and CAHSS to participate in MATCH Lab. Students in MFJS Professor Erika Polson's “Strategic Communication Seminar” in spring 2025, for example, helped the Aurora “Sentinel” come up with original ideas to reach younger audiences and reshape their approach to community outreach.
Frank’s current class, “The Future of Journalism,” has partnered with a Colorado filmmaker who is producing a documentary about local journalism in Colorado and creating impact and community engagement campaign opportunities for news outlets statewide.
Frank is personally excited about the student-panel format for this year’s Wolzien lecture. “I could talk about the amazing things these students have been doing but I wanted to give Alyssa Avila, Jay Moraytis and Dylan Lindsey a chance to share their own stories of discovery and impact.”
She added that these three students, who also attended Frank's spring-quarter classes, presented at "The Local News Solutions Conference" in August. "The news professionals who heard them immediately recognized the impact of what they were doing. Representatives from all kinds of news organizations approached the students afterwards and one of the students landed an internship on the spot.”
Match Lab helped student Jay Moraytis, a double major in strategic communication and Spanish who will graduate in June 2026, better understand “what newsrooms and journalists really need help with. I worked to develop solutions, leading to an internship with 'El Comercio de Colorado,' a bilingual newspaper, where I'm getting valuable job experience in both the strategic communication and Spanish fields.”
Dylan Lindsey, a double major in strategic communication and political science with a minor in leadership studies slated to graduate in March 2026, likewise found the experience of working alongside professionals in a real-work setting invaluable. “MATCH Lab provided me with an actual client who offered unique feedback and insights into the applicability of our work,” he said.
For “The Denver Clarion” Editor-in-Chief Alyssa Avila, a journalism and Spanish major minoring in socio-legal studies graduating in June 2026, “Working with Match Lab expanded my understanding of how AI and other innovative technologies can improve newsroom efficiency. It was also incredibly rewarding to develop a project that has had a real-world impact on local newsrooms.”
Frank hopes to cast a widening net for MATCH Lab by expanding participation to other news outlets, departments and universities. “We want to reach a point where news organizations are raising their hands and saying, ‘we need help with this,’ and then let the group of more than a dozen universities across Colorado step up and say, ‘we can take this on.’”
She believes the stakes couldn’t be higher for preserving local journalism, an integral part of preserving democracy. “According to a recent survey, about three quarters of Americans are concerned about the future of democracy. Our students are playing a vital role in strengthening democracy at the local level. The energy that these young people bring, the ingenuity of the ideas they generate and passion they inject into newsrooms, well the whole is far greater than the sum of the parts and benefits everyone.”
Register for the Oct. 30 Wolzien Lecture, endowed by CAHSS Alumni Tom and Valerie Wolzien, here.
