By Lois Self
Executive Secretary
As the green turns to gold in the fields around Dekalb, the NIU journalism
program and our activities with NINA swing into high gear. The program's
big news this fall is new faculty. Students streaming back in increasingly
high numbers to our journalism classes are greeted this semester by two
new additions. We welcome Dr. Brian Thornton in the areas of print journalism
and media law and ethics and Dr. Edgar Huang in photojournalism and graphics.
Thornton comes to NIU from Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls,
Texas. He brings to the program a wealth of teaching experience, a Ph.D
from University of Utah, and more than 10 years of professional experience
with newspapers and magazines. He previously served as an investigative
reporter and associate editor for the Hawaii Observer and the Maui News.
His magazine
experience includes working for the Hawaii Observer and West Hawaii Today,
and creating After Dark Magazine, a local entertainment publication. From
Maui, he moved to the Wichita (Kansas) Eagle where a guest lecture for a
journalism class at Wichita State introduced him to the passion for teaching
journalism which sent him to graduate school. Thornton brings energy, experience
and enthusiasm to his new job and is eager to join the NINA community and
keep his ties to the newspaper industry strong.
Dr Edgar Huang, who has just completed his doctorate in journalism at Indiana
University, looks forward to revitalizing the curriculum in graphics and
photojournalism and to developing new coursework in visual communication.
Like Thornton, he adds a wide array of professional as well as teaching
experience to the journalism faculty. He has worked as a professional
photographer, photo editor and free-lance writer in both the U. S. and China.
Last summer, he presented a paper based on his dissertation research on
"Readers' Perceptions of Digital Imaging Alterations in Documentary
Contexts" at the Association of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
He plans to continue research and teaching in the area of digital imaging
and the ethical as well as practical issues these technologies involve for
journalists.
The department is very pleased with these outstanding new members of our
journalism faculty and looks forward to introducing them to you as well
as to our students as major new resources of our program. We also continue
to have the support of post-retirement, part-time teaching from professors
Avi Bass and Tony Scantlen, who retired in 1999 and 1998, respectively.
This year, we look forward to successfully concluding a major program review,
making progress on redesigning and equipping our photojournalism and graphics
instructional facilities, increasing attention to international and intercultural
issues in our curriculum, further cultivating our already strong internship
program for journalism majors and maintaining and strengthening our ties
with journalism professionals in our region. Of course, a major aspect of
all that is our cooperation with NINA, which continues to be a hugely valuable
association for journalism education at Northern.
We are very excited about the upcoming fall NINA conference on campus this
October , where we will share the results of our annual newspaper contest.
This year we received more entries than ever and our judges are hard at
work as I write, making the very tough calls on awards. As you'll read elsewhere
in this newsletter, an outstanding program is planned for the day and we
look
forward to seeing you all at the conference.
Once again, let me express my deep gratitude for all the support NINA members
are providing for journalism education in our region. You are helping us
shape the future of your profession in very important and positive ways.
Join us Oct. 29 and, in the meantime, please feel free to contact me if
you have suggestions about how NINA or the journalism program at Northern
can better serve you.
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