Kie Relyea

Instructor, The Front Advisor

Kie Relyea Updates

Winter 2023 Update

I like to tell students that journalism is about relationships between journalists and the people we ask to trust us with their stories. I say this when I teach newswriting and when I teach The Front. It’s the one thing I hope they remember from the brief time I have with them.

As I enter my second winter as Front adviser — and after a week of meeting with students one-on-one to discuss their work at the halfway point of the quarter — I realize that the relationships I build now are with student reporters and editors at the start of their journey. They tell me The Front is stressful. They say it’s hard. Some say it pushes them outside their comfort zone.

But they also say they are proud of themselves, that they feel their confidence growing, that they enjoy interviewing people they might have never met otherwise.

When you’ve been a reporter and sometime editor in the newspaper industry for 30 years, as I was, it can be hard to step away.

But I continue to do so, knowing that a new generation of Front reporters and editors are ready to build their own relationships with the community they cover.
Winter 2022 Update

This is my first winter teaching full time at Western, having taken over the role of adviser to The Front from professor Betsy O’Donovan.

After 30 years as a reporter and sometime editor in the newspaper industry — nearly 23 of them at The Bellingham Herald — I left in June for a chance at a new career. I’ve taught newswriting at Western off and on over the years, but this was a big step for me to take away from familiar rhythms.

I’m learning the difference between knowing something and teaching it. My new colleagues and the student journalists at The Front are helping me find my way. I appreciate their help and grace every day as I seek new footing.

It’s hard work.

But it’s fun work to see students collaborating with each other, to see their growth, and to see their “aha” moments when what they’re learning clicks into place for them — all this as the pandemic rolls along and we wonder what’s next after omicron.

So, I do what I’ve always done. Shake off my worries and do what I can, this time while helping a new generation of student journalists do the work of informing their community.