Department of Journalism News

Highlights from Department of Journalism 2008-09

1. The department hired Lori Tharps, a new assistant professor emphasizing magazines. She is the author of, most recently, Kinky Gazpacho: Life, Love and Spain.
   
   
2. The department is currently the eighth largest department in the university, with more than 800 students and paid deposits are up 6 percent for next year.
   
   
3. The department hosted three American Press Institute Conferences: “Newspaper Next 2.0”; “Digital Ethics for Journalism” and “Building Community.”
   
   
4. The department hosted a Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists/National Association of Hispanic Journalists Multimedia Workshop in January 2009.
   
   
5. The department hosted the BarCamp News Innovation Conference in April 2009.
   
   
6. The department hosted the Society of Professional Journalist's regional conference in April 2009
   
   
7. Under the leadership of Professor Maida Odom, the department continued its involvement in area high schools with the Prime Movers High School Journalism Workshop. The department received more than $100,000 in grants to support the Prime Movers project.
   
   
8. The department hosted several prominent speakers, including photojournalists Scout Tufankjian, freelancer; Harvey Finkle, freelancer; Lori Waselchuk, freelancer; and David Handshuh, New York Daily News. The department also hosted talks by Tom Rosentstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism; Barry Levine, SCT '81, executive editor of the National Enquirer; Jon Stephenson, freelance foreign correspondent from New Zealand; Jeffrey Litvack, general manager of the Associated Press’ Mobile News Network; and Yair Stern, SCT '70, former director general of Israel Television.
   
   
9. This year's Kirsch Lecture was given by Baltimore Sun foreign affairs correspondent David Wood, SCT '70.
   
   
10. The department held its first Professional Advisory Council meeting. The group will advise the department on assessment, internships and careers and development issues. The first meeting will coincide with this year's annual awards reception.
    
    
11. More than 40 journalism students had internships during the spring semester.
    
    
12. Master of Journalism student Joel Hoffmann was named as the distinguished weekly newspaper journalist in this year's Keystone Press awards.
    
    
13. Journalism undergraduate Chris Stover was named as one of UWire's top 100 journalism students in the country
    
    
14. More than $25,000 was given to 61 students at this year's journalism awards reception.
    
    
15. Journalism undergraduate Rachel Hooper won an all-expenses paid trip to this year's National Association of Hispanic Journalist's national convention in San Juan, Puerto Rico as part of the group's Student Project.
    
    
16. Journalism undergraduate Ayisha Arshad was named as a Pamela Harriman Fellow for summer 2009. She is interning at the U.S. Embassy in London.
    
    
17. Journalism undergraduate Julio Nunez participated in the G8 Youth Summit and was invited to the 2009 annual conference, "Building Future Leaders,” this summer. He also placed 19th in the Hearst Competition Radio News competition.
    
    
18. The Temple News was named the best college newspaper web site in this year's Editor and Publisher's EPpy awards.
    
    
19. The department was proud to honor three journalism alumni with Lew Klein Awards in fall 2008: Yair Stern, Al Shrier and Ed Cunningham. Sharon Dunwoody, a 1975 Master of Journalism program graduate and professor of journalism at the University of Wisconsin, was also honored last fall when she was named to the university's Gallery of Success.
    
    

Faculty Accomplishments:

• Associate Professors Linn Washington and Chris Harper won honorable mentions for the Multimedia Urban Reporting Lab, the department's capstone, in the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication's competition for teaching diversity in the classroom.
  
  
• Associate Professor Fabienne Darling-Wolf participated all semester in a Global Learning Circle organized by the Teaching and Learning Center. The circle developed a project that was presented as a poster at the Shared Futures, Global Learning Forum on March 19-21, 2009. Darling-Wolf conducted a program review for SUNY Geneseo. She was awarded a research leave for next year and Grantin-Aid to write a book. She published a book chapter titled “World citizens ‘à la française’: Star Ac’ and the negotiation of ‘French’ identities,” in Real Worlds: Global perspectives and the politics of reality television. She also published the article, with Associate Professor Andrew Mendelson, “Seeing themselves through the lens of the other: An analysis of Japanese readers’ negotiations of National Geographic’s The Samurai Way story,” in Journalism and Communication Monographs.
  
  
• Professor Tom Eveslage participated in the Teaching and Learning Center’s January 2009 Winter Teaching Conference. He revised the "Regulating Student Expression" chapter, published in 2009 edition of Communication and the Law textbook. He wrote "Celebrate Students' Precarious Status," a commentary for the Pennsylvania School Press Association’s web site, in February 2009, for the 40th anniversary of the landmark Tinker student press rights case. He serves as a member of Press Rights Commission of the Journalism Education Association. He also worked with Assistant Professor Maida Odom on the grant-funded Prime Movers program bringing student media to Philadelphia public schools. As part of this, he coordinated day-long workshops at Temple in November 2008 and March 2009 for public school teachers establishing student publications, broadcasts and online programming. He serves as the advisor of the student chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, working with students and the professional chapter to plan the regional conference, held at Temple in April.


• Associate Professor Chris Harper presented a paper at this year's Media in Transition 6 conference, “Stone and Papyrus, Storage and Transmission,” held at MIT. In addition, he published opinion pieces in the Philadelphia Daily News and the Chronicle of Higher Education.
  
  
• Associate Professor Carolyn Kitch has an invited essay, titled “The Afterlife of Print,” that will appear in the 10th-anniversary issue of the international journal Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism. She also continues to serve as book review editor for the journal. She was invited to speak at a four-day conference on media and memory, sponsored by the Israel Science Foundation, held earlier this summer at the University of Haifa and at Yad Vashem, the Israel Holocaust Museum. She will become the chair of the nationally-elected Standing Committee on Research of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, and also serves on the organization’s board of directors.
• Associate Professor Andrew Mendelson wrote the forward to Kevin Rivoli’s photojournalism book In search of Norman Rockwell’s America. He presented at the Online News Association conference in September 2008 and the NPPA Northern Short Course in March 2009. He judged the photo competition of the Milwaukee Press Club. He published (with Associate Professor Darling-Wolf) the article, “Seeing themselves through the lens of the other: An analysis of Japanese readers’ negotiations of National Geographic’s The Samurai Way story,” in Journalism and Communication Monographs. He was part of a panel on the future of journalism careers at this year's SPJ regional conference. He presented to Temple surgical residents on best practices of presenting research. He has been invited to participate in the Scripps Howard Academic Leadership Workshop 2.0 at the Manship School of Mass Communications, Louisiana State University.
  
  
• Assistant Professor George Miller received multiple awards for his journalism from the PA Press Association and the Society of Professional Journalists’ Keystone State Pro Chapter.
  
  
• Assistant Professor Larry Stains was promoted to associate professor of professional practice.
  
  
• Professor Ed Trayes is running the 42nd year of the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund-sponsored editing intern training program at Temple. This year, there were 14 interns who attended the two-week Temple residency before heading off to work as copy editors at the following news organizations: The New York Times (4), The Wall Street Journal (2), The Philadelphia Daily News (2), Dow Jones News Wires, The Hartford Courant, The Oregonian, The Virginian Pilot, The Roanoke Times and The Journal News (White Plains, NY). Colleges and universities represented include: City University of New York, Penn State (2), University of Missouri, Columbia University, Boston University, University of Oklahoma, Marshall University, Ball State University, Kent State, Ithaca College, University of Maryland, Macalester College and the University of Colorado. More than 50 such programs have been run at Temple since 1968. Trayes judged the Philadelphia regional photo contest of the American Society of Magazine Photographers. He worked with Aperture Agency, a student-run photography business that does installations as well as provides event coverage. He helped select this year’s Dow Jones Newspaper Fund editing interns for summer 2009 during an annual meeting in Princeton, N.J. He has been awarded a study leave for fall 2009.
  
  
• Associate Professor Karen Turner has been re-elected as Temple University Faculty Senate President. She presented "In Loving Memory of… a collaboration of Tyler School of Art and the School of Communications and Theater," a multidisciplinary community arts project aimed at bringing an awareness to the impact of youth violence on the Latino community in North Philadelphia. Working with Turner and Tyler School of Art Professor Pepón Osorio, art and journalism students told the unique stories of seven families through the use of installation art, photography, audio and video.