Alumna Profile: Cheryl Reitan

Cheryl Reitan has worked in marketing and public relations at the University of Minnesota Duluth for more than twenty years; she helped construct UMD’s first web page.  Cheryl is responsible for communication with the strategic purpose of recruiting more students, building diversity throughout our university, and continuing to increase the positive image of UMD.

Cheryl routinely writes new stories for UMD’s homepage.  Cheryl uses Google Analytics to measure which news stories generate the most activity, and she tracks which news outlets are using UMD stories for news.

In her work, Cheryl likes to use storytelling to better capture the audience’s attention, a craft she developed while earning her MA in English and her Master of Liberal Studies, both degrees from UMD.

Cheryl is also an author and editor.  With Sue Sojourner, she developed Thunder of Freedom: Black Leadership and the Transformation of 1960s Mississippi, published by University Press of Kentucky, January 2013.  With UMD students, she edited and produced The Rare and Remarkable: Stories from the Past, a collection of stories spanning 13 decades, celebrating the University of Minnesota Duluth’s 125th anniversary