Board of Directors
The Board of Directors for Campus Communications, Inc.
Aaron Sharockman
Chair
Executive Director of PolitiFact
Aaron Sharockman is the executive director of PolitiFact, the largest fact-checking organization in the United States. Aaron leads the growth and development of PolitiFact, manages its outreach and news partnerships, and oversees new initiatives and product development. Aaron has been with PolitiFact since 2010 and served most recently as the editor of PunditFact, a website dedicated to checking claims by pundits, columnists, bloggers and the hosts and guests of talk shows. Previously, Aaron was a government and politics reporter for the Tampa Bay Times. Aaron was a 2016-17 Reynolds Fellow at the University of Missouri and taught a class on political fact-checking at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.
Austin Vining
Graduate student with journalism experience
University of Florida Graduate Student
Austin Vining is a doctoral student and graduate research fellow with the Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project at the University of Florida. He joined the Campus Communications Inc. board in 2016. Before returning to academia, Vining worked as a journalist for community daily newspapers in Mississippi. His work garnered awards from the Mississippi Press Association, Louisiana Press Association and Louisiana/Mississippi Associated Press Media Editors. Fun fact: Vining holds the distinction of serving as his college newspaper’s first two-term editor-in-chief.
Rick Hirsch
Alligator alumnus with newsroom experience
Managing Editor of Miami Herald
Rick Hirsch is managing editor of The Miami Herald, where he has worked as a reporter and editor for 38 years. He is responsible for day-to-day oversight of The Herald’s news content on mobile, tablet, desktop, social and print platforms. He played a key role in its shift to digital news and video, as well as its collaboration with public radio. He also supervises newsroom training and recruiting.
Prior to moving into digital journalism in 2003, Hirsch served in a variety of editing and reporting roles, including managing editor of the newspaper’s Broward County edition. In Miami, he has supervised The Herald’s coverage of local government, public and private schools, and played a key role in coverage of Hurricane Andrew and its aftermath, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.
Hirsch is a past president of the Florida Society of News Editors, a past chair of the University of Florida’s College of Journalism Advisory Council and a college Alumnus of Distinction, and a founder of the Online News Association’s South Florida group.
Ana Cavalcante
Student Member
Ana Cavalcante is an undergrad student at the University of Florida double majoring in political science and international studies with a regional focus on Latin America. Hailing from Brazil, Ana has lived in Gainesville since 2014 and graduated high school from P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School. During her time at UF, Ana has been involved with the Hispanic Student Association and has interned at the Bob Graham Center for Public Service and at with Beyond120 Program. Outside of UF, she has interned with the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund and studied abroad in England.
Trey Csar
Professional with expertise
Trey Csar is a longtime education advocate and the Chief Operating Officer of Impact Florida, a new nonprofit, nonpartisan education advocacy organization, and the former President of the Jacksonville Public Education Fund (JPEF). Over a nine-year period, he grew JPEF into an
active voice for universally high-quality public schools in the Jacksonville area through research, community mobilization, and advocacy for common-sense systemic improvements. As part of that work, Trey oversaw the Quality Education For All Fund, through which private donors, in collaboration with the Community Foundation for Northeast Florida and JPEF, invested $38 million to improve the recruitment and retention of high-quality teachers and leaders in historically under-performing schools in Duval County.
Trey teaches a graduate course in K-12 education policy at the Jacksonville University Public Policy Institute and serves as board chair of Renaissance Jax, a nonprofit focused on developing youth STEM talent in Northeast Florida
through LEGO robotics programs. Before coming to the Jacksonville Public Education Fund, Trey worked as a youth organizer in San Francisco, working to involve students throughout California in advocating for better educational opportunities for their fellow students. He taught in an inner-city elementary school in Houston with Teach For America and served as an assistant principal at KIPP New Orleans West (NOW), a school set up in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to work with low-income students who evacuated to Houston from the New Orleans area.
Trey has a master’s degree in education policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and bachelor’s degrees from the University of Florida in Journalism and Business Administration. He lives in the Riverside-Avondale neighborhood of Jacksonville with his wife, Sunny Gettinger, and their two children, Cort and Max.
Joe Allen-Black
Professional with expertise
Joe works as a digital analytics strategist for FFW, an international digital consulting agency based in Denmark that develops products for companies around the world, ranging from the National Audubon Society to YMCAs to the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District. Joe's background is in news. After graduating from the University of Florida (he was Alligator editor-in-chief in 2003), Joe worked at the Florida Times Union and the Boston Globe, where he helped launch a micro-local news initiative and a redesign of Boston.com. He's worked as a news producer, news editor, web developer, product manager and digital strategist, his key role today. He's guided user research and digital redesign efforts focused on improving marketing and content visibility. Joe lives in St. Augustine.
Taylor Boyce
UF graduate within last 5 years with expertise
Taylor graduated from UF in April 2016 in with a degree in advertising. Since then, she's worked her way up at three digital marketing companies, managing content campaigns, gaining expertise in research, branding, social media management and campaign management. As an Ad Ops associate for Digital Trends in Portland, Or., Taylor is on top of where digital advertising is today and where it's headed. Taylor's first job in advertising? During college, as a digital advertising intern and then ad staffer at the Alligator.
Jacob Luft
Community Member at Large
Jacob is an executive at the Daily Racing Form, where he serves as digital product strategy lead with emphasis on mobile/tablet solutions for the paying customer base of its premium products. He graduated from the University of Florida in 1997, and was an Alligator editor-in-chief. He lives between Gainesville and Orlando. Jake broke into the business as a web producer for CBS Sports (which became CBS Sportsline), and joined the digital staff of Sports Illustrated in New York City in 2000, where he became product manager for its sports app.
