The CUNY Graduate School of Journalism has tapped Marie Gilot to lead a new educational initiative aimed at teaching working journalists the skills they need in a rapidly evolving profession. She will start as the school’s first director of professional development on Sept. 8.
Gilot comes to CUNY from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation based in Miami, where she has helped manage grants for the journalism and media innovation programs over for the past three years. In that role, she worked with journalists, academics and technologists to advance the foundation’s mission to promote informed and engaged communities.
Gilot also has a journalism background, having worked as a daily newspaper reporter and served as publisher of an investigative news website in El Paso, Texas. She is a CUNY graduate with a B.A. in Communications from City College. Gilot also has a master’s degree in political science from the University of Texas at El Paso and a master’s in public policy from Princeton University.
While the CUNY J-School has been offering digital media training to individuals, news organizations and nonprofits since 2009, the new initiative represents a major expansion of its professional development curriculum to better serve the journalism community.
One of the goals is to generate an array of intense, immersive courses in emerging areas of specialization, such as product development, data analysis, audience engagement and user-centered design. The school will reach out to its own faculty and known experts in the field to teach the courses.
The program will be aimed at mid-career journalists who want to bolster their long-term employment prospects by adding new skills, digitally savvy journalists who seek deeper expertise in a niche area and media companies that want to offer customized training to their editorial and business staffs.
“We see this as a transformative opportunity for the CUNY J-School: to create a new form of nimble journalism education to address an emerging market need,” said CUNY J-School Dean Sarah Bartlett.
For more information about professional development offerings and opportunities at the CUNY J-School, contact Paul Mucciarone, associate director of professional development, at .