September 5, 2013 Dear Georgetown: I have been asked to write a letter in support of Rio Zieglers application for Georgetowns

masters program in Public Relations and Corporate Communication, and it is a request that I am happy to fulfill. I have taught Rio in various classes required for her major, served as her internship director, acted as her internship supervisor, and kept in touch with her since her graduation in May 2013. Given these experiences, I have come to know Rio well and can speak to her suitability for your prestigious program. Rio absolutely sparkles! In the three classes that she took with me, she performed hands and feet above all of the other students. In my mass communication theories and methods class, she routinely scored close to 100% on every exam, at least 20 points higher than any of the other students. Her work in my senior seminar on friendship in film was equally stellar. She wrote the best term paper in the class, a study of the television comedy Friends, and had insightful things to say all semester. She also presented a version of this paper at our undergraduate research symposium the following semester. Rio is a breath of fresh air amid a generation of students that often seems apathetic or uninvolved. She is curious and engaged and goes beyond what is expected. Rio is also creative and hard-working. One semester she did an internship in radio at Entercom in Virginia Beach, and by the end of the semester she was already onair and producing her own show. I had been sending students to Entercom for decades, and this never happened before. However, as Rios supervisor attested, she works harder than any student he ever had before, and he did not want to lose her. Her winning personality helped to land her another gig as a host on Teen News Now, for which she interviews local high school students. Some of them are shy, and Rio has the warmth to bring them out. When she showed her clips to the other students in the internship class, everyone remarked about how professional she looked. She also did a second internship in marketing for the Girl Scouts of America and was embraced not as an intern but as a regular employee involved in all organization functions. She performed admirably. In addition, she was selected to be a Virginia Wesleyan College Ambassador, assisting in the recruitment of new students to campus. In the words of our VP for Enrollment Management, Rio was our best. She works really hard and delivers. She is a pro. And that is my final comment about Rio: she already acts like a professional. I had heard about her from my other colleagues long before I had her in class. The product of our rigorous liberal arts education, Rio is skilled at reading, writing, critical thinking, and public speaking. In her writing courses and as an editor for the college newspaper, she never missed a deadline. Always trying to improve, she studied voice and theatre to hone her radio voice and public persona. She works

very well with others and is a team player, always shouldering her share of the work.

Rio is mature beyond her years. She comes from a close family that has given her stability and encouraged her to go as far as her talents, which are considerable, will take her. She is interested in working in the competitive field of communication, public relations, and marketing, and she takes advantage of every opportunity that comes her way to gain more experience. Her energy and enthusiasm will take her far. Rio Ziegler loves to learn and is one of the best students to come out of Virginia Wesleyan College, having won our distinguished communication award for 2013. I give her my highest recommendation. Shes perfect for your program, which she determined was the best possible fit for her interests and aspirations, and I look forward to following her promising career. Please give her the chance to add a Georgetown masters degree to her already substantive resume; you wont regret it.

Sincerely, Kathy Merlock Jackson, Ph.D. Professor and Chair of Communication Editor, The Journal of American Culture