Tammy Merrett
Program Director, The Alestle & Mass Communications Instructor
Office Phone: (618) 650-3597
Email: tmerret@siue.edu
Website Links: www.alestlelive.com
Tammy Merrett is an award-winning college media adviser with 28 years of student newspaper advising experience and has worked in the field as a professional journalist – both as a reporter and editor – since 1986. She has been a member of the Board of Directors of the St. Louis Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists since 2010, serving in several positions, including Treasurer and President.
Merrett has also served on the board of the Illinois College Press Association since 2012 in several positions, including Secretary/Treasurer and President. She has a wide variety of accomplishments in ICPA — taking the annual awards competition online, re-tooling the competition to better fit the changing media landscape and being an integral player in the planning and execution of ICPA’s annual convention in Chicago.
Her SIUE students regularly win many collegiate journalism awards at the state, regional and national levels, including being one of the highest ranked collegiate news organizations in the state and a national Pacemaker finalist.
As an extension of her role as a college media adviser and member of SPJ, she has devoted time throughout recent years to judging national and statewide journalism contests for professionals, students and incarcerated journalists.
A particular focus in Merrett’s career has been teaching and upholding the First Amendment. She is the recipient of the College Media Association’s Louis E. Inglehart First Amendment Award for her work in college media facing 1A challenges and defending college students’ 1A rights. She presents regularly at state and national college media conferences about various journalism-related topics, including being a part of a 1A panel with First Amendment legend Mary Beth Tinker.
Originally from Kansas, she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Communications with a News Editorial emphasis from Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kansas. After moving to and working in Central Missouri, she then earned a Master of Arts in Communications Management from Webster University in St. Louis. She was also a member of the St. Louis Journalism Review Board of Editorial Advisers and worked for the media criticism publication in various capacities for 12 years.
Before joining the faculty at SIUE to become the Program Director for The Alestle, she worked for eight years as the faculty adviser to The Montage at St. Louis Community College-Meramec, where her students were Pacemaker finalists and two years as the junior adviser at The Journal at Webster University in St. Louis, where her team won a national Pacemaker Award. Merrett lives in St. Louis.
