Growing up, Tricia Bell always thought she would be a teacher. Life happened and teaching didn’t, but an adjunct position at Bluffton provided her with the opportunity to live out her childhood dream.
Bell is the content manager in Bluffton University’s public relations office where her primary role is to tell compelling stories. However, this semester, she has another primary role–to educate the minds of 11 students in her video production class.
“It’s been so interesting seeing students in a different setting than I have as content manager,” said Bell. “Before, I was always telling a lot of the students’ stories, but I wasn’t witnessing them in class–now I’m enmeshed with them.”
Though teaching is something that Bell was interested in in her past, it’s been a challenge.
Tricia Bell works with students Kam Singleton, Nicole Centofanti and Hannah Conklin. Photo by Claire Clay
“I’ve never taught a class before,” said Bell. “But, we had student interns at the TV station quite often, and I taught them how I think writing about writing a story, how I think about incorporating a video into it, the mindset I would go into for different stories and different angles to look at.”
“Now, it’s just teaching those similar concepts and lessons to [multiple] students instead of one-on-one.”
At first, Bell didn’t anticipate accepting the adjunct position offered to her, but a friend’s post on social media made her think twice about declining the offer.
“One of [my college friends] posted about ‘taking a leap of faith,’ and he said was going to teach a programming class, and he talked about how at times, he didn’t feel like he was necessarily as qualified as someone else,” said Bell, “but, he took it, and he was really happy that he did because he realized that he did have something to teach others.”
As a mom of two small kids and a wife to a working husband, she thought she had too much on her plate to handle the additional position.
“But, I thought back to [my friend’s] post and thought, ‘If I say no now, I’ll still say no in two years, I’ll still say no in four years, I’ll just keep saying no because there’s always something going on–life always happens, right?’” Bell reflected. “But, I’ve always wanted to teach, so yeah, let’s start.”
Bell hopes that after this semester, her students can tell a compelling story through a video if asked to do so, and she hopes to continue sharing her knowledge with those who are truly interested.ested.
Originally from Coldwater, Ohio, Bell is currently in her third year as an employee for Bluffton University. For the almost seven years before she came here, she worked at WLIO in Lima as a reporter, but that wasn’t her first gig.
FOX 25 in Lima was Bell’s first position after graduation from Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., with a bachelor’s degree in telecommunications. After FOX was sold to the NBC affiliate in Lima, WLIO, Bell served as the news director at FOX 25 and oversaw the news operations before and during the merger and transition.
Though she had success in the TV world, Bell was ready for a change in scenery.
“Before I had my daughter Cece, I was sitting in court just about every single day–hearing about the terrible things people were doing in the world and not about the good things people were doing in the world,” said Bell. “Those were the stories I liked to tell. I liked to tell the positive stories, but being the senior reporter, I got the lead stories.”
“I just realized it was time for a change.”
Being the senior reporter for the local news station, Bell traveled to Bluffton frequently to cover the things that were happening on campus.
“At the beginning of the [2015] academic year, I came to Bluffton to cover move in day,” said Bell. “And, at the intersection of College and Spring was Dr. Harder waving and greeting all the of students.”
“In my previous visits to Bluffton, everybody was warm and inviting and welcoming here, so when I heard there was a position open, I knew there were going to be great stories to tell here.”
After being at Bluffton for nearly three years, Bell says that everyday is still very different.
“My favorite part about doing TV was that I was doing something different every single day,” said Bell, “and that is true here, as well.”
But, just because every day was different didn’t mean it wasn’t a challenge.
“At first, it was a challenge to write longer,” Bell admitted. “When you do a news package, it might only be about 150-200 words–most [written] stories are at least 500 words.”
Bell quickly overcame that challenge by learning to ask more questions and follow lines of questioning that provided her with more detail to write those longer stories that were required of her.
“Now, it’s juggling all these different responsibilities and prioritizing which responsibilities are needed over others at different times,” said Bell.
As a teacher and staff member, Bell’s two positions heavily overlap.
“It’s all about storytelling,” stated Bell. “All I do is tell stories as a content manager. I do it on social media, I do it in video form, I do it through written stories, I do it through news releases–everything I do is telling a story.”
Whether she’s up in her second-floor office on Spring Street or doing hands-on lessons in the Hester Graphic Arts Studio, Bell will be dreaming up, developing and telling compelling stories through the written word, the spoken word and through video.
Bell resides in Lima with her husband Brian and son Reed and daughter Cece.
