Communication students compete at the national level in film, forensics and original research

Bobby Johnson (center) and Ryan Grant (right) at the GCA Film Festival. Photo: Nathan Bedsole

By Ian Wesselhoff

T he Department of Communication at Georgia College & State University is enjoying a successful spring, with awards and recognition pouring in for film, speech and debate, student research papers and more.

Much of that success was found at the 2026 Georgia Communication Association (GCA) Conference, held Feb. 26-28 at Mercer University. GCSU was named Student Involvement Champion, and Jack McKinney, senior rhetoric major, won Top Student Paper for "The Nation Wears Prada: A Transnational Rhetorical and Ideological Critique of the 2025 Met Gala Through a Banal Nationalistic Framework." As an undergraduate student, McKinney earned the award competing against doctoral and master's students across the state.

"It's like, wow, the other people's works that I'm competing with are absolutely brilliant, and it's a really cool pleasure to be on the stage that they're at," McKinney said.

Flourishing film

At the GCA Film Festival, Georgia College communication students shone in the Documentary category: seniors Bobby Johnson and Ryan Grant won Best of Competition for their serial killer documentary "Paul John Knowles - The Casanova Killer," and Della Goines and Erin Finnegan won an Award of Excellence for "Another Round," a film about student drinking culture.

Grant, a member of Bobcat Media Productions, says that the organization gave him the experience to be more confident in his directing and editing abilities when it came time to make the film.

For Johnson, the inspiration to pursue this documentary came from personal experience.

"My high school psychology teacher actually knew the woman who was murdered. He was in a class with her," Johnson said. "And I think that's what really drew my attention to it. This guy affected somebody that I've been face-to-face with … I didn't know how far we'd get with so little footage we had from back then, but we surprised ourselves."

Johnson and Grant also won numerous awards at the Bobcat Film Festival on March 6, where Charis Philo and Allison Doster won Best College Cinematography for "An Imperfect System." Though the Bobcat Film Festival is held here in Milledgeville, its college awards are decided by judges not affiliated with GCSU.

At the international Broadcast Education Association Festival of Media Arts, sophomore Brooklyn Bailey won an Award of Excellence for her short film script entitled "Move Forward."

"I think it's awesome. I think it was deserving. I think [all our students] did a great job," said Prof. Mike Crews, advisor to Bobcat Media Productions. "It's good to see our students putting themselves out there, because obviously they're doing good stuff whether they put it out there or not."

Flying forensics

The Georgia College Speech & Debate Team qualified for the American Forensic Association's National Speech Tournament, held April 3-6 at Lewis & Clark College outside Portland, Oregon.

Madeline Johnson and Joshua Jones at the American Forensic Association National Speech Tournament. (Photo: Nathan Bedsole)

Junior co-president Joshua Jones, senior co-president Halle Bergstrom, senior Teresa Owen and first-year student Madeline Johnson all qualified for the prestigious tournament, and Jones and Johnson were both able to make the trip to compete.

"We didn't break anything through to the final rounds, but an incredible trip to the big dance," said Dr. Nathan Bedsole, director of Forensics. "The kids were so fired up they started writing their speeches for next year on the plane ride home."

Though the team did not have the budget yet to compete in a district qualifier last year, Bedsole took students to the national tournament for a professional development trip, driving to Charlotte to watch every round.

Two of the students that went to nationals last year, Jones and Owen, qualified to compete this year. The trip to Oregon was Jones' first time on a plane.

"You went and saw it, you put in the work, you got your qualification the very next year. It's significant for them in that regard," Bedsole said.

Johnson, an English and French double major, aspires to be president of the team. Her close relationship with its senior-level members, including co-president Jones, has given her the groundwork to succeed with Georgia College Forensics for years to come.

"That mentorship element is so important, especially for forensics," Johnson said. "There's so much knowledge about how you prepare a speech, how you perform an event, how you behave at a tournament that is just kind of passed down orally from the team members, so having those older team members to guide is so valuable."

To Bedsole, the Speech & Debate Team is yet another example of the great work GCSU undergraduates are doing.

"They're super trained in rhetoric, the actual art of speech, so they're excellent representatives of our department's embodied practical focus," Bedsole said. "But beyond that, I think they're exemplary of the wonderful work this university does with its liberal arts mission in that it requires students to develop expertise in a subject matter that is almost necessarily different than the expertise in its delivery … you have to deliberately span beyond the boundaries of any one field or discipline."

Header Images: Madeline Johnson and Joshua Jones attend the American Forensic Association National Speech Tournament. Dr. Bedsole, Jack McKinney with the group of award winners at the Georgia Communication Association 2026 annual conference.