NORMAN, Okla. – The University of Oklahoma community has been recognized by the Broadcast Education Association (BEA) at its 2026 Festival of Media Arts, a premier annual awards competition representing campus excellence in media production and media education.
Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication students and faculty earned 33 undergraduate awards, one graduate award and one faculty award. The BEA received more than 2,000 entries from over 300 schools for the competition.
OU’s awards highlights include:
Student submissions to the Festival of Media Arts are the basis for the association’s national college rankings released each April. Last year, OU earned the distinction of BEA’s top overall media program.
“Experiential education is one of Gaylord College's most important missions,” said Andrea Miller, Ph.D., dean of the college. “We are so proud that the students are being recognized for their talent and hard work and our faculty for their mentorship.”
A full list of student and faculty winners can be found on the BEA Festival website.
About the University of Oklahoma
Founded in 1890, the University of Oklahoma is a public research university located in Norman, Oklahoma. As the state’s flagship university, OU serves the educational, cultural, economic and health care needs of the state, region and nation. For more information about the university, visit www.ou.edu.
Over four weeks this summer, teams of incoming engineering students designed mobility devices for Duck, a young rescue dog born without a front leg. Students in OU’s Engineering Summer Bridge program designed and prototyped mobility devices tailored to Duck’s needs, using CAD software, electronics and 3D printing while applying the engineering design process to a real engineering problem.
University of Oklahoma researcher Keenan Greyslak, Ph.D., has long been interested in how a mother’s diet during pregnancy and lactation may influence a child’s risk of developing metabolic diseases earlier and more severely as they age. With a new grant from the National Institutes of Health, he is furthering his investigations while taking another step toward a career in academic biomedical research.
Zhenghong Tang, Ph.D., has been named chair of the Department of Geography and Environmental Sustainability in the University of Oklahoma’s College of Geographic and Atmospheric Sciences. A leader in the field of planning, Tang will oversee the department and its mission of creating a community of interdisciplinary scholars and experts who aim to better understand the Earth’s human-natural systems.