The Online Reflector

Of the many diverse journalists who have written for The Reflector, Peter Noot and Shelly Pfenninger are two who have continued to make an impact in the media.

Noot began working for The Reflector in 1973.  Over the course of three years, he was the Assistant Editor his sophomore year and Editor-in-Chief his junior year. When Noot worked for the paper, the newsroom was located in the basement of the Schwitzer Student Center, then called Schwitzer Concourse. To Noot, it felt like a second home, he said.

“One of my favorite things, other than having an opportunity to write, was having a home on campus,” Noot said.

Noot, an English major, said he really enjoyed writing columns. One of his favorite pastimes on the paper was writing comedic articles.

“Of all the things that I have written for the university over the past 35, 40 years, one of the greatest moments was walking into the cafeteria and seeing everyone laughing over my article,” Noot said.

During that time, the big issue that was discussed and written about was dorm visitation hours.

“The men could come and go as they pleased, 24 hours a day, but the women had to be in by 11 on week nights,” Noot said.

Noot said that he loved working for The Reflector and that it greatly affected his job aspirations, even preparing him for his current job.

“The Reflector was my introduction to getting things ready for print and trying to think from a perspective of an audience,” Noot said.

Noot is currently the director of publications and university editor of all of the University of Indianapolis publications. Some of what his job entails is editing letters for various offices before they go out and look over job announcements from the Human Resources department.

“It [my current job] has made me fall in love with words even more than I was when I was 18,” Noot said. “It has made me a more sophisticated consumer of the things that I read today.”

Shelly Pfenninger began working for The Reflector in 2007.  She worked for the paper for a total of three years holding positions such as Sports Editor for a semester and Managing Editor her senior year.

While working for The Reflector, Pfenninger said she loved covering news stories.  The online Reflector was also redone and the layout was redesigned during her three years with the paper.

She said she learned some very insightful things while with The Reflector, lessons that couldn’t have been taught in another classroom.

“Understanding the newsroom and deadlines, editing process, creating a hook and angle- those were all things that I couldn’t have learned anywhere else,” Pfenninger said.

Pfenninger is currently working in Public Relations as the Director of Communication for an international trade association.

“It was a great experience, overall, in understanding how publication works,” she said.  “It was a lot more than just getting a newspaper out it was priorities and balancing projects,  managing a staff and just creating something that you can really be proud of.”