This page is a chance to learn more about my education experience. This includes my university experience but perhaps more importantly the education I’ve continued to seek in the years since.
I love learning and constantly strive to understand more. I consider understanding a little bit of everything to be central to being a good Project Manager/Scrum Master.
Bachelor of Liberal Arts - Mass Media Communications,
Henderson State University 2013 - 2016
I graduated from HSU with a 3.96 (Summa Cum Laude). I was a busy bee, including:
Managed KSWH-LP 102.5 FM, the college radio station
Pioneered Comic Studies minor (first in Arkansas)
Started a student organization that quickly grew to over 50 members (Legion of Nerds)
Presented research at Comic Con International in San Diego twice (2015, 2016)
Gave the student commencement speech at graduation
(watch: real life lessons from video games)Wrote for Oracle (newspaper) and Forge (magazine)
Maintained comix-quest.com, a comic journalism blog (currently paused)
Tutored fellow students, focus in communications, public speaking, and English/ESL
Focus:
Broadcast journalism; radio, newspaper, and television practicums
Media law and ethics; public relations
Online journalism; Mass media marketing
Creative nonfiction; digital art
Awards:
Outstanding Sophomore Award (Ellis College)
Outstanding Senior Award (Ellis College)
Promising New Broadcaster of the Year (Ellis College)
Dean’s List (Ellis College)
First Place in Illustrative Narrative (Arkansas College Media Association)
*you’ll notice Ashley Bles as the name used in these links. Same person, cooler name now!
I’ve stayed busy since graduating too, though!
Certifications and Training
Certified Scrum Master - 2018 - present
In 2018, I spearheaded the initiative at Cubic Austin to get project managers certified as Scrum Masters through Scrum Alliance as part of our move to expand Agile methodologies throughout the company.
W3C Introduction to Web Accessibility - 2020
As part of a passion for disability advocacy, I took the World Wide Web Consortium’s officially sponsored Web Accessibility Initiative certification through EdX. W3C are the authors of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), an international standard of accessibility in web content through design, development, and writing.
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner - 2023
In an effort to expand my knowledge of cloud practices and backend architecture and strengthen my cross-functional project management skills, I acquired my Certified Cloud Practitioner certification from Amazon Web Services.
2015 Comic Con International Badge
2016 Comic Con International Badge
Legion of Nerds, year 1 (I'm in the front)
Comic Con International Poster Session (and cosplay)
What am I working on right now?
Expanding language proficiency in:
Spanish
Greek
German
Dutch
Emerging project management tools as I learn of them
(as there are always new ones being released!)
CSS
HTML5
Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies (CPACC)
Library/Media Sciences (pre-Masters independent study)
Figma, Procreate, Adobe Illustrator (digital art, UI/UX)
Charcoal, graphite, and pastel art