The 21st annual Dr. Lewis B. O’Donnell Media Summit came back to SUNY Oswego Thursday, Oct. 23, in the newly renovated Hewitt Hall, the building for the College of Communication, Media and the Arts.

Alumni from communications, media and arts backgrounds returned to their alma mater to give advice to students hoping to find careers in their field.

The theme of this year’s media summit was “The evolution of an idea. How to nurture creativity in a digital age.” The summit wanted to focus on how creativity can still be fostered in an increasingly digitally reliant world.

A student-led executive board was responsible for making this event possible. “ A lot of the members have a background in graphic design and in social media, so there was a lot that went into creating the logo. Abby [Marin] created a really great logo with the help of many others on the board, and it just kind of came together to make all of these great posts,” Amiee Cisneros, student director of the media summit, said. “And then we also, in the background, had to collaborate with who was going to be doing what, you know, as far as making sure that each of the panelists and moderators had somebody that was helping them throughout today.”

At the media summit, there was a panel of accomplished alumni who were there to share thoughts on this year’s theme while also giving advice to students.

“ To me, the biggest advice that I have always consistently had, even when I was a student here, is like to do things, make stuff, join the paper, do [W] TOP, make student films, do the radio station,” Michelle Garcia, Editorial Director of NBC BLK, said. “Do whatever it is that, like, you find interesting that you think you wanna do after school and try it here.”

Garcia emphasized the importance of failure and how it is part of the business in which she works. Garcia was the moderator for the event, giving the panelists questions to be answered and shaping the way the media summit unfolded.

Kim Abbondondolo, one of the panelists, shared who her biggest inspiration is to get her to where she is today in her career. “ Honestly, Steve Levy…I met him when I was here, and the fact that, you know, just showing that someone from Oswego could have such a successful career in sports also helped me be inspired to say, ‘Hey, I can probably go get that too,’” Abbondondolo said. Abbondondolo is a three-time New York Emmy-winning Branded Content Producer at MSG Networks.

The two final panelists were Barry Gliner, the Director of Post Production for Warner Bros. Discovery, and Gabriel Almanzar, the Vice President of Creative and Editing Operations at CBS News. Almanzar spoke on the importance of being multi-talented and knowing how to do a little bit of everything.

“ Multi-skilled set. You want to graduate Oswego being multi-skilled,” Almanzar said. “ The people that hang around or the people that get the most opportunities are the people that can jump on this or can jump on that, can do this, can do that.”

The media summit was founded in 2005 by alumnus Lou Borrelli, who graduated from SUNY Oswego in 1977. A few years later, Al Roker, who graduated in 1976, decided to co-sponsor the event. The event was then renamed to honor the memory of their beloved professor, Dr. Lewis B. O’Donnell.

As SUNY Oswego works to integrate artificial intelligence into its classrooms ethically, some of the panelists spoke about the impact AI has on their work life. Abbondondolo believes AI can be used as a tool to help curate ideas, but emphasized not letting it stop students from being their creative selves.

“Don’t let the fear of AI taking over stop you from being your creative self, bring your creative flair to everything and just in general network with people,” Abbondondolo said. “Connect with everybody. That’s what we’re all here to do, here to learn, and we’re happy to give back and speak on it.”