WWU Journalism Department Features
A Tale of Two Professors
This spring, Don Shelton and Natalie Breymeyer are each teaching a section of Western’s reporting course, JOUR 307. While these two professors may have very different journalistic backgrounds, both hope to inspire through instruction.
Better late than never: WWU ‘celebrates excellence’ of journalism emeritus
Lyle E. Harris, a journalism professor emeritus, was the only person to receive a Celebration of Excellence honor despite no longer teaching courses at Western. Harris received the Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award to recognize the lasting impact he made on those he taught.
Mitch Evich ‘Bellringer’ Memorial Scholarship
Mitch Evich made his mark at The Western Front in the early 80s as an up-and-coming reporter and editor with a knack for principled news writing and inspiring the same in others, including one of his life-long friends.
In 2022 that friend established a scholarship in his honor.
Welcoming two new staff to the Journalism Department
Students seeking journalism advising will have the joy of being greeted by new faces Jennifer Dalton and Colleen van Pelt, who were welcomed into their journalism department positions as department manager and program coordinator in the fall of 2022.
Succeeding together: A look at Western’s new department chair Brian J. Bowe
Western professor Brian J. Bowe took over Western’s journalism department chair position this fall. When expressing his desire to be chair, Bowe told his colleagues that he wanted to adopt the motto, “let’s succeed together.”
Journalism faculty works together to create, maintain food pantry
Apples, granola bars, Minute Rice, check. Menstrual pads, diapers, hand sanitizer, check. Together, journalism professor Betsy O’Donovan and I weaved through the Winco aisles as we crossed items off O’Donovan’s mental list of items to buy for the journalism department food pantry during winter quarter. The pantry, funded and routinely stocked by Western Washington University journalism faculty, was running low, and it was time for a refill.
Winter 2022 Message from the Chair
After 18 months of fully remote teaching, some courses returned to face-to-face in fall, and more in spring. It’s still a work in progress, but it is nice to be in a classroom again and see our students in person. Obviously, we continue to adapt in order to assist all our students, but it finally feels like we are seeing progress toward something more “normal.”
Although Western saw a drop in enrollment in the freshman class of 2020-2021, along with most colleges and universities, we saw an increase in students this year. The journalism department was impacted, but not nearly as much as some others.
Campus newspaper rebrands as “The Front” after over five decades
Following the infamous 2020, this year is full of new beginnings, including the rebranding of The Western Front. Before the newspaper became The Western Front in 1967, it was called the Straight News, the Collegian, The Normal Messenger and the Northwester Viking. Now, it is called The Front, and its staff is focusing on a digital-first presence.
Careful consideration of these changes was made by editors for years, but this quarter, The Front is launching an updated website and logo, new social media strategies and a new weekly podcast.
Halfway There
Campus is desolate besides a few students meandering around. It is late February and cold, but sunny nonetheless. I see Professor Joan Connell, my advisor for Klipsun magazine, sitting cross-legged outside the Communications Facility Building. She is so quaint.
Joan is wearing a black beret, a scarf, tights and an N95 mask. She looks dressed for an occasion. I do not.
Scott, Snow and Serendipity
I see a man hold his phone over his head to photograph one of the construction sites on campus. Assuming it’s Scott Terrell, I head his way. It’s freezing, and feels like it’ll snow. Scott is wearing a funny-looking black fleece hat and a fabric mask with apples on it.
Two years ago, Scott taught my photojournalism class, but since then, we’ve only seen each other sparingly in the hallways. Now, when he glances over, he looks like he has no clue who I am. As I approach him, he says he didn’t recognize me with my mask.
Community Through Computers
I remember being the 17th person on the waitlist for J207, Newswriting, the primary prerequisite for all journalism classes at Western Washington University. After taking a gap year between high school and college, I was doing everything I could to speed up my graduation process. If I didn’t get into this class, it would change my entire course schedule.
Checking waitlists on Web4U is a frustrating process, but I was doing it every chance I got: in between classes, on my work break, even as I bumped shoulders with a peer on the jam-packed bus.
Winter 2021 update from the chair
Well, what a long strange trip 2020 has been for us all.
Some of you may have noticed that our alumni newsletter site was not updated last spring. This is through no fault of Stella Harvey – our student editor and now alumna – and her crew who worked to collect and write stories, edit them, get everything designed to go live. Rather, just as we were doing final reviews – the world changed. Suddenly, faculty and students had about two weeks to prepare for an entirely remote spring quarter. Then summer. Then fall. As each new quarter approached we planned for both in-person and remote teaching and held our breath.
Winter 2020 Update from the Chair
Once again, we are seeing an increase in the number of majors/pre-majors for our department. Even as other universities are seeing a decline in enrollment, Western is not – nor is the journalism department. As we begin the 2019-2020 academic year, we have 275 majors and pre-majors and 43 minors. The latest numbers place 98 in the public relations track, 92 in the visual journalism and 85 in the news-editorial track. These numbers represent an increase in each one of our tracks, and an overall increase of approximately 10 percent.
Jenny Bettis joins the Journalism Department
If you find yourself in need of some administrative assistance one of these days, you’ll likely be connected to Jenny Bettis, the journalism departments new department manager. Bettis joined the journalism department in October after her family was caught in the middle of the Paradise Camp Fire in California in 2018.
“We were living right next to Paradise, where the Paradise fire happened, our landlord wanted to sell the house so, [with my husband’s family here] this was just a safe landing place for us.”
Q & A with Dr. Carolyn Nielsen and Professor Hamida el-Bour
Hamida el-Bour is the director of L’Institut de Presse et des Sciences de l’Information (IPSI), and she is a titan of Tunisian journalism. She began her career as an investigative journalist, and she served for a period as the head of the Tunis-Afrique Presse (TAP) wire service. She spoke with Associate Professor Carolyn Nielsen about some of the changes to Tunisian journalism education following the 2011 Jasmine Revolution.
Betsy O’Donovan joins the Journalism Department
Betsy O’Donovan came to the journalism department in fall quarter of 2018. She’s from North Carolina, if the many stickers and posters decorating her office don’t give that fact away, the frequent “y’all’s” do.
She is warm and sincere. Everyone who visits her office is quickly invited to take a Snickers from her well-stocked candy mug. When the door to her office is closed there’s a thought-provoking question written on the back for students to write an answer to while they wait. Most of all, she loves her position, and it shows.
Busy Brian J. Bowe
2019 is a busy year for Professor Brian J. Bowe.
On Jan. 4, Bowe began his journey to Jordan where he is teaching mass communication theory for five months.
The exchange is facilitated by the U.S. Fulbright Scholar Program and Bowe is one of 800 awarded this opportunity. For those that know Bowe, the exchange falls perfectly in line with the professor’s interests. He’s authored many peer-reviewed journal articles about Islamic media relations and started learning Arabic about ten years ago.
Professors Publishing Books
Joan Connell, a senior instructor with 42 years of professional journalism experience, is getting ready to publish her first book “Healing All Creation: Genesis, The Gospel of Mark and The Story of the Universe.”
In his most recent work, “Anticancer Living: Transform Your Life and Health with the Mix of Six ,” master writer and senior instructor at Western, Stephen Howie, gracefully tells the story of people and science to take an insightful look into the relationship between lifestyle choices and cancer. Howie helped produce Anticancer Living as a ghostwriter and collaborator. The book is authored by Lorenzo Cohen, Ph.D., and Alison Jefferies, MEd.
Journalism Department taking students to Tunisia
At the start of September, 2019, three Western journalism professors and six journalism students will be traveling to Tunisia to embark on an educational exchange.
Thanks to a $100,000 grant from the U.S. Embassy in Tunisia, Carolyn Nielsen, Joe Gosen and Brian J. Bowe will be able to spend two weeks in Tunisia before the start of fall quarter and later host Tunisian students at Western.
Spotlight: Dean Wright
Within the walls of Western’s journalism department, a vast array of faculty exist. Among them is Dean Wright, an adjunct professor with a long resume and a passion for ethics.
Wright’s teenage years were spent admiring the sense of social justice in the 1960s, leading to his wanting to be a politician. Later, however, he decided to test the waters in journalism.
“I decided that it’s a lot more interesting to write about politicians than to be one,” Wright said.
Winter 2019 update from the chair
As we begin the 2018-19 academic year, we have 251 majors and pre-majors, another increase. The latest numbers place 96 in the public relations track, 78 in the news-editorial track and 73 in the visual journalism track. We also have 86 minors, with 57 choosing the PR minor and another 29 choosing the news-editorial minor. These numbers represent an increase of more than 10 percent over last year and we expect that trend to continue.
