4/27/98
ATHENS, Ohio -- You could say it's been a good couple of weeks for Martha Rial.
First, Rial (pronounced RILE), a photographer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, won the Pulitzer Prize in spot news photography on April 14. And today, she received her undergraduate diploma from Ohio University.
Rial, 36, won the Pulitzer for 45 photos that chronicled three weeks among Rwandan and Burundian refugees in Tanzania. Excerpts from her diary ran with the photos originally in a special Post-Gazette section titled "Trek of Tears."
Rial was recognized for her accomplishments and her anticipated June graduation with a bachelor of fine arts degree at a School of Visual Communication reception and opening of a student exhibition in Baker Center Ballroom held on the Athens campus Sunday evening. This morning, President Robert Glidden presented Rial with her diploma, nearly nine years after she first enrolled at Ohio University.
Rial studied at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and the Community College of Allegheny County in West Mifflin, Pa., before coming to Ohio University in 1988. She studied in the visual communication program from fall quarter 1988 through spring 1991.
When she left Ohio University, Rial and her visual communication advisers believed she was one class short of graduating a required junior-level English composition class. As it turns out, two English classes she completed at the Pittsburgh schools gave her the required number of English composition courses, according to Ohio University Registrar Bill Jones. The university requires that students take English composition their freshmen and junior years, but the university recently waived the requirement that one of them be taken during her junior year, Jones said.
Jones said Rial applied for June graduation earlier this month and that she officially will graduate with the June class. According to Jones, Rial will graduate with a 3.45 grade point average and 199.5 credit hours, when only 192 were required to earn a bachelor's degree.
"It's a thrill for Viscom to be able to call Martha Rial a member of our family," said Larry Nighswander, director of the School of Visual Communication. "It says a lot about Martha's warm and caring personality to see her sharing her experiences with our students so soon after winning her Pulitzer."
Rial, a Murrsyville, Pa., native, has been a staff photographer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette since 1994. She previously worked at the Fort Pierce (Fla.) Tribune and Journal Newspapers in Alexandria, Va. She also earned a degree from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh.
Rial's sister, Amy, was the inspiration for the project that won the Pulitzer. Amy has been working for the past two years as a public health nurse treating refugees in Tanzania. During the assignment, according to an account in the Post-Gazette, Rial encountered women and children waiting in long lines for food and health care, buildings riddled with bullet holes, and Tanzanian Army tanks, one of which hit her.
"This was the first time I ever worked overseas," Rial said. "Most journalists covering the area flew there on military planes. I flew on a commercial flight. It took me five days to get from Pittsburgh to my sister's village."
Besides this honor, Rial recently received the first Scripps Howard Foundation award for photojournalism. Rial spoke on her Pulitzer experience today in Baker Ballroom as part of School of Visual Communication events during Communication Week.