Meet the J-School Deans: Dean Sarah Bartlett, Associate Dean Andrew Mendelson, and Assistant Dean Yahaira Castro

Associate Dean Andrew Mendelson will present an overview of the school’s curricula and degree requirements. There will be significant time for questions.

Director of Student Affairs Anthony LaViscount will discuss the J-School’s Student Affairs Office and how we can help you be successful in the program. We will share importamt information, policies, and procedures and will help prepare you for the upcoming semester.

Jeremy Caplan, director of teaching, learning and assessment, will help you set yourself up for a great start to your J-School journey. We’ll explore systems for organizing your work, and you’ll outline a toolkit to help you stay on top of multiple classes and reporting projects.

Michelle Higgins and Yolanda Rodriguez from the Career Services Office will help you set yourself up for career success in this virtual session.

Director of Public Safety John Scully will cover the CUNY policies on equal opportunity and non discrimination, sexual misconduct, and reasonable accommodations and academic adjustments (AD-504).

Professor Jeff Jarvis will help you see why we have to follow the money to understand why the news is what it is and how it got that way. We will discuss the roots of journalism as a business to explore how we got here and also to look at how we will survive. It is also important to discuss the conflicts of interest that come with all sources of support for the news.

In this interactive session with video journalist Corinne Chun, we’ll explore journalist safety and security through three case studies pulled from Corinne’s actual experiences — reporting on civil unrest, protecting sources, and facing identity-based harassment. We’ll take a tour of her go-bag, review her raw footage, and discuss the importance of mental and emotional wellness. Come prepared with questions, and be ready to problem-solve your way through real-world scenarios.

Learning Outcomes

• Reporting Safely
• Identify potentially dangerous situations
• Gain an understanding of the importance of situational awareness
• Understand how to avoid unsafe circumstances for themselves and the people with whom they interact
• Employ basic safety maneuvers when escape is not possible
• Know what to do when confronted aggressively by police and other officials
• Understand their basic rights as journalists and citizens

Corinne Chin is a video journalist, DEI facilitator, and safety trainer. She is currently working as a senior video producer on the launch of CNN’s “As Equals,” a grant-funded series focusing on global gender equality. In her role at The Seattle Times, she is a senior video journalist and the founder and leader of the newsroom’s Diversity & Inclusion Task Force. Her video storytelling — which has spanned the globe from Latin America to sub-Saharan Africa — has won numerous awards from the Online News Association, Radio Television Digital News Association, Pictures of the Year International, and more. Corinne has both an M.S. and B.S. in Journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She is a co-director of the Asian American Journalists Association’s affinity group Women and Non-Binary Voices, and she is a past president of AAJA Seattle.

John Smock, Cinthya Santos-Briones, and Jessica Bal from the Photojournalism Department will lead photo sessions in which you will learn the following:

• Critical thinking skills as it relate to understanding visual journalism
• Cultural sensitivity in how they create an interpret imagery
• Emphasis on “professionalizing” the use of mobile for photo.
• An understanding of the principles of good photo (and video) composition
• Use of the built-in post production tools in the photo album app.
• Prep for shooting Craft I assignments — environ portraits, storefronts/small businesses, events (presser, board meeting, etc.) to accompany written pieces.
• An introduction to the changing culture and history of photojournalism
• An introduction to the contemporary ethical landscape of photojournalism
• An introduction to (a more professional use of) photo in a social media context.
• An introduction to photo programming at the school and reassurance that there is plenty more photo to come with dSLRs
• An excitement about the power of photo and visual storytelling as a tool for personal and professional growth”

Associate Professor for Research and Chief Librarian Barbara Gray will highlight the unmatched training and support you get for researching your reporting at Newmark J-School. She’ll share a few key resources and techniques to jump-start your work in the Craft of Journalism class.

Learning Outcomes

• Know what research tools, training, and one-on-one research support is available to students
• Get some tools and tips to jump-start your reporting in the Craft of Journalism class

To report on New York City, you have to understand the people and the processes that make it work. In this session, we will outline the basic structure of the city’s government, the power each person has, and how the recent primary and other upcoming elections could shift things.

Katie Honan is a reporter covering New York City, most recently at The Wall Street Journal. While at the Journal, she was part of some of the biggest national stories, including the search for Amazon’s HQ2 campus and the coronavirus outbreak in New York City. She and her colleagues won a 2019 Loeb Award for breaking news coverage of Amazon’s decision to pull out of its New York City location and a 2020 Newswomen’s Club award for best front-page story for reporting on the coronavirus. Honan previously covered neighborhoods in Queens for the late DNAinfo New York. She joined DNAinfo.com from WNBC/Channel 4, where she was the station’s first social media editor. While at NBC 4 New York, Honan was part of breaking news teams that won Emmy Awards for coverage of the Empire State Building shooting and Hurricane Sandy. She is a lifelong Queens resident.

Professor Jeff Jarvis will discuss questions about objectivity and journalism and the value of lived experience and perspective.

Bruce Shapiro, executive director of Columbia Journalism School’s Dart Center for Journalism, will help students:

• Understand the ethical and craft-related challenges of reporting on trauma survivors
• Understand the challenges journalists face in managing their own self-care and trauma

Director of Editorial Projects John Mancini, who runs the NYCity News Service, will lead an exercise that requires incoming students to turn around a person-on-the-street story on deadline. The aim is to give your reporting professors a chance to get to know your work. The assignment will not be graded.

Safety requirements will dictate how you will do your reporting. It is likely you will be able to have a choice of speaking with people in person, by phone or by computer, in any combination.

The assignment:
Interview and photograph people in NYC, elsewhere in the U.S. or where you reside. All students will ask their subjects the same question, which will be conveyed to you along with other details on the day of the exercise.

You will produce:

• A 300-word story with a headline
• A source list
• A draft tweet
• One to three photos

NOTE: If you’re in the bilingual concentration, you’ll be writing in Spanish.

John Smock, Cinthya Santos-Briones, and Jessica Bal from the Photojournalism Department will lead photo sessions in which you will learn the following:

• Critical thinking skills as it relate to understanding visual journalism
• Cultural sensitivity in how they create an interpret imagery
• Emphasis on “professionalizing” the use of mobile for photo.
• An understanding of the principles of good photo (and video) composition
• Use of the built-in post production tools in the photo album app.
• Prep for shooting Craft I assignments — environ portraits, storefronts/small businesses, events (presser, board meeting, etc.) to accompany written pieces.
• An introduction to the changing culture and history of photojournalism
• An introduction to the contemporary ethical landscape of photojournalism
• An introduction to (a more professional use of) photo in a social media context.
• An introduction to photo programming at the school and reassurance that there is plenty more photo to come with dSLRs
• An excitement about the power of photo and visual storytelling as a tool for personal and professional growth”

Facilitator: Stacy-Marie Ishmael, Chair, Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism CUNY Foundation, Inc.

In this session, which will build upon topics covered in the History of Journalism and both Photo sessions, Stacy-Marie Ishmael will survey the biggest and most contentious issues at the intersection of journalism and diversity. Students should expect to encounter both challenging  historical context and highly topical conversations that affect and inform the practices and policies of a wide variety of US newsrooms (and journalism schools). These discussions will incorporate lessons from the readings and podcasts provided in advance.

Stacy-Marie Ishmael is a writer and editor currently based in Austin, Texas. She co-hosts the Slate Money podcast, and was previously the Editorial Director at The Texas Tribune. She is the chair of the board of the Foundation for the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, and has written extensively on newsroom management and DEI.

Senior Audio Engineer Chad Bernhard and Kalli Anderson, director of the Audio Journalism Program,  will lead an Introduction to Pro Tools class to teach incoming students the fundamental basics of editing audio with the Pro Tools digital audio workstation. Before the live session, students should watch at their own pace at least the first 10 short chapters (less than an hour) of Chad’s “Pro Tools Basics” video series on YouTube. During the live class, students will observe an editing session with Chad, in which he will put all the steps covered in the asynchronous videos together. This will be followed by a Q&A with Chad and a short hands-on editing exercise. Note: To get the most out of this session, students need to have Pro Tools installed on their laptops and should also have completed the asynchronous video series in Pro Tools basics (chapters 1-10).

At the end of the session, students will have a basic understanding of:

• The workflow and folder structures within a Pro Tools session
• Importing and exporting audio content within Pro Tools
• Basic editing and mixing of audio content

Alistair Wallace, Director of Campus Services, will give a brief rundown of the services provided by the Equipment Room, and will field any questions you might have.

In this session led by John Mollenkopf, director of the Center for Urban Research at The Graduate Center, you will gain a clear sense of the city’s current demographics and how they are changing. John will  present two tables that show the distribution of all residents in NYC for 2000 and 2019 by race, ethnicity, and borough and the same table just for voting age citizens (the electorate).  This information will help you obtain an understanding of the broad history of racial, ethnic and cultural groups in the city and how to explore the ways that social, cultural and political events are shaping life for today’s New York.

John Mollenkopf is Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology at The Graduate Center at CUNY and directs its Center for Urban Research. Previously, he taught at Stanford University and served as director of the Economic Development Division of the New York City Department of City Planning. He has written, co-authored, edited, or co-edited 18 books on urban politics, urban policy, and the role of race, ethnicity, and immigration. He received his B.A. from Carleton College in 1967 and PhD from Harvard University in 1973.

Facilitator: Associate Dean Andrew Mendelson

Facilitator: Stacy-Marie Ishmael, Chair, Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism CUNY Foundation, Inc.

In this session, which will build upon topics covered in the History of Journalism and both Photo sessions, Stacy-Marie Ishmael will survey the biggest and most contentious issues at the intersection of journalism and diversity. Students should expect to encounter both challenging  historical context and highly topical conversations that affect and inform the practices and policies of a wide variety of US newsrooms (and journalism schools). These discussions will incorporate lessons from the readings and podcasts provided in advance.

Stacy-Marie Ishmael is a writer and editor currently based in Austin, Texas. She co-hosts the Slate Money podcast, and was previously the Editorial Director at The Texas Tribune. She is the chair of the board of the Foundation for the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, and has written extensively on newsroom management and DEI.

Senior Audio Engineer Chad Bernhard and Kalli Anderson, director of the Audio Journalism Program,  will lead an Introduction to Pro Tools class to teach incoming students the fundamental basics of editing audio with the Pro Tools digital audio workstation. Before the live session, students should watch at their own pace at least the first 10 short chapters (less than an hour) of Chad’s “Pro Tools Basics” video series on YouTube. During the live class, students will observe an editing session with Chad, in which he will put all the steps covered in the asynchronous videos together. This will be followed by a Q&A with Chad and a short hands-on editing exercise. Note: To get the most out of this session, students need to have Pro Tools installed on their laptops and should also have completed the asynchronous video series in Pro Tools basics (chapters 1-10).

At the end of the session, students will have a basic understanding of:

• The workflow and folder structures within a Pro Tools session
• Importing and exporting audio content within Pro Tools
• Basic editing and mixing of audio content

 Gina Rae Foster, PhD, will delve into how can we navigate difficult situations while keeping ourselves whole and empowered. We encounter difficult situations daily. Some of these we can resolve quickly and smoothly with little thought; at other times, our experiences may challenge solutions and/or feel deeply wounding. This workshop is designed to connect participants with concepts and tools to begin and continue experiencing difficult situations with increased awareness, skill, and confidence of our own strengths and choices. During our time together, we will learn the Resiliency Principles as well as facilitation roles and skills: come prepared to reflect, share, and practice resilient communication strategies we can bring into our own professional and personal lives.

The session will help students:

• Understand the 4 Resiliency Principles and how to apply these to analyzing difficult situations
• Identify facilitation roles and skills and how to apply these in responding to difficult situations
• Discover matches between the Resiliency Principles and facilitation roles that indicate opportunities for empowering self-care

An internationally known scholar, educator, and artist, Gina Rae Foster is the author of two books of poetry: heart speech this (2009) and Beautiful Laceration (2012), as well as a book of philosophy: Lyric Dwelling: The Art and Ethics of Invitation and Occupation (2012). She currently directs the Teaching & Learning Center at CUNY’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Her humanitarian projects include work with the Liberian refugee community in Staten Island, domestic violence survivors in Oregon, and at-risk and immigrant children in New York City. A graduate of Pomona College in Claremont, CA Dr. Foster holds a DPhil from the European Graduate School, an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Oregon, and an M.A. in Religion from Vanderbilt University. She is also certified in International Trauma Studies through the International Trauma Studies Program affiliated with Columbia University.

Virtual Resume Fair is a one-hour virtual event hosted by Michelle Higgins and Yolanda Rodriguez of Career Services where incoming students share their resumes for input and advice from industry professionals. The goal is to help you hone your elevator pitch and network with professional journalists while gaining valuable feedback including tips on formatting, content, and how to translate your course work into experience that employers will value.

Professor Jeff Jarvis, Associate Professor Carrie Brown, Jeremy Caplan, who leads our entrepreneurial programs, and Mekdela Maskal, engagement editor at Climate Now, will lead this session where students meet community organizers from the South Bronx. The idea is to have students listen to them and ask them about their information needs, the role news can play in solving community problems, and what their relationship with journalism has been and what they hope it could be. We will practice human-centered design, a process for creative problem-solving that is rooted in empathy.

The session aims to teach students the value of and strategies for listening to communities to better understand what kinds of news stories, products, or delivery mechanisms best serve them. The goal is to see community members not only as potential sources for quotes, but also as collaborators that can help to shape editorial agendas.

Mekdela Maskal is passionate about visibilizing journalism work and creating community participation in reporting. Prior to joining Covering Climate Now as their engagement editor, she helped launch THE CITY’s ongoing Open Newsroom project, an initiative that brought communities and journalists together in public libraries to build trust and make reporting a more collaborative process. She’s earned a B.S in Media, Communications and Culture from NYU and an M.A. in Engaged Journalism from Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at School at CUNY. All of her favorite things to do are outside with the earth, gardening, practicing archery, hiking and swimming.