Spring 2006: News from the Chair
January 2006
Dear J-Alumni,
A student reporter from NYU’s award-winning Washington Square News came to see me the other day about the radical new changes now afoot for undergraduates studying journalism at NYU, about which more in a moment. In the course of our conversation, the student reporter allowed as how he had chosen journalism over another CAS major because of this department’s palpable energy. This, as you can imagine, was especially nice to hear from a student, but all the more so because it squared exactly with what I experience every single day. See if you agree:
Just since the summer, we have hired 13 new professors, including full-time faculty and six Distinguished Writers in Residence who join Pete Hamill in this special capacity. The announcement last September was astounding enough to have made national educational and media industry news. In addition, in the coming school year, we welcome Perri Klass, M.D., who has accepted a joint appointment in Journalism and Pediatrics and will teach two courses in Journalism in the spring term each year.
We have made several important new staff appointments. Jill Strasfeld, who comes to us from a background in hospital administration, is in a brand new position as Director of Administration. Cathleen Dullahan, who many of you will remember from your days at school, has taken on responsibility for Undergraduate Student Services and Assessment. Shazia Ahmad, the former assistant managing editor of The New York Observer, succeeds the remarkable Ellen Walterscheid in Career Services. Professor Walterscheid has moved on to head up career services at the new CUNY J-school, where we wish her well.
As many of you know, we hosted the first of what we intend to be many major All-Alumni events the weekend of Oct. 22-23, 2005. The Cultural Reporting and Criticism program centered its 10th anniversary celebration around a lecture by Margo Jefferson, The New York Times cultural critic. The following night, more than 200 former students — and C-Span — filled Hemmerdinger Hall for a panel discussion titled, “The Mission and Romance of Journalism and Its Afterlife,” featuring father and son, Peter Osnos and Evan Osnos and moderated by Lola Ogunnaike of The New York Times. Lola is a 1999 graduate of the Master’s program. A live rhythm and blues band featuring our own Asst. Prof. Adam Penenberg and a room-stopping impromptu set by the alumna presently known as Taragirl (also Grad ‘99) and her “new brand of truthified soul.” I mean she rocked the house.
More about the house, be it 10 Washington Place or in the new facilities at Cooper Square: It is a place you are always welcome for department Brown Bags and other events, which you can always find listed under Events and Announcements on the department’s home page, along with news of student, faculty and alumni publishing. This reminds me: If you have newly published books or articles that are linked electronically or in PDF form and that warrant a big department shout-out, please let me know for possible inclusion. We like to showcase the best of the best, which this past year included new books by faculty members: Robert S. Boynton’s The New New Journalism, Paul Berman’s Power and the Idealists and in February 2006, Charles Seife’s Decoding the Universe.
Polshek Partnership is well-along in the design for 20 Cooper Square, the superb, state-of-the-art new space we are moving to, on the top two floors (one with gorgeous arched windows) of a converted warehouse building at 20 Cooper Square, just a few short blocks from Washington Square. Our target move-in date is now January 2007, but still on track. We will keep you posted on plans for the inauguration festivities.
Perhaps most exciting of all is the introduction of the new undergraduate curriculum, which goes into effect with the fall term of 2006 — this year. This represents the culmination of nearly a decade’s worth of faculty deliberation and study, harnessed in an effort to provide our future students with the most intensive preparatory education in journalism possible. For us, as you all well know, this means heavy on the liberal arts. Read all about it.
Again, know that we want to involve you in department life as much as you are willing to be involved. And please keep us up to date with your comings and goings.
With best regards,
Brooke Kroeger
Chair