Tammy Merrett
Program Director, The Alestle & Mass Communications InstructorOffice Phone: (618) 650-3597
Email: tmerret@siue.edu
Website Links: www.alestlelive.com
Tammy Merrett is an award-winning college media adviser with 18 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, first as University Liaison and then as President.
Merrett has also served on the board of the Illinois College Press Association since 2012 as 2nd Vice President. Her main duty is improving and coordinating the statewide journalism contest each year. 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 and students. 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-Murry lives in St. Louis. In her spare time, she is an official for Confluence Crush Roller Derby.