Making an Impact

Celebrating Alumni Who Are Making a Difference
in Their Communities

Dallas Gagnon ’22
Earns Fellowship to Attend Syracuse
Grad School

Dallas Gagnon ’22

Dallas Gagnon’s path to her current
job and graduate school is a perfect example of the importance of networking and staying persistent when it comes to achieving your educational and career goals.

The recent FSU Journalism graduate applied four times for positions at MassLive — an online news site based in Springfield, MA — but kept being turned down due to her lack of experience. At the time, she was a beat and general assignment reporter for Turley Publications, a print-only weekly paper that hired her directly out of college following her internship there.

“I was still trying to figure out what kind of journalist I wanted to be,” says Gagnon. “But I stayed persistent and kept in touch with the editor.”

Her efforts recently paid off in a big way. Gagnon not only received a job offer from MassLive, but the site’s parent company, Advance Local Media Group, also selected her as the recipient of its prestigious Advance Local Fellowship, which will cover the cost for her to attend Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications to earn her master’s degree in journalism.

“I was shocked when I received the fellowship,” says Gagnon. “They knew how badly I wanted to work there, which is appealing for the company, and ultimately that is why they decided to invest in my education.”

Gagnon is now working full time at MassLive while taking online courses at Syracuse University.

Rebecca Gerfen ’24
Skates for Team USA

Rebecca Gerfen ’24

Since the age of four, Rebecca Gerfen ’24 has been skating at J.W. Hayden Recreation Centre in her hometown of Lexington, MA. The center used to be the home ice for all of the Hayden Synchronized Skating Teams, one of the top synchronized skating clubs in the world.

By seventh grade, Gerfen was competing at the national level for her age group; and by her junior year of high school, she was representing Team USA at international competitions. She has had the opportunity to compete in Croatia, Italy, France, Austria and Canada.

“It was really fun and exciting,” says Gerfen, who graduated from FSU last spring. “There is no better feeling in the world than taking to the ice in front of a crowd chanting ‘USA.’”

As a competitor and coach at the highest level of synchronized skating, she has been at the forefront of an effort to get the event added to the Olympics. One of the impediments is that the size of synchronized skating teams (typically 16 skaters on the ice at one time) is large, and it’s too expensive for the International Olympic Committee to take on at the Winter Olympics.

Before she recently retired, Gerfen was on one of the first teams that dropped down to 12 skaters, creating an entirely new division for the sport called the Senior Elite 12, with an eye toward getting synchronized skating into a future Winter Olympics.

“My goal was never necessarily to get myself into the Olympics; it was just to get the sport added,” says Gerfen. “I think we have a good chance, and part of why I chose to push my sport in this way was so that my students can someday have the opportunity to go, too.”