Back row, L to R: Wy L. Spano, Stephanie Odegard, Scott D. Meyer, Tina M. Karelson, Greg A. Brown; Chris G. Cardozo, Jim A. Stolpestad, Dr. Scott D. Augustine, Dr. Don L. Winkelmann, Dr. Kurt D. Winkelmann

Front row, L to R: Ray W. Foley, Tom H. DuPont, Jackie M. Jodl, Mimi G. Pizzi, Ellen A. Boschwitz, Gloria L. Goetzke, Tom E. Ramsay

The CLA Alumni of Notable Achievement (ANA) program was created in 1994 as part of CLA's 125th anniversary to celebrate and honor the significant achievements and contributions of college alumni. All ANA honorees have been nominated by CLA alumni, faculty, and staff.

Of the college's 120,000 living graduates, approximately 1,300 have been selected as recipients. By honoring its alumni, CLA recognizes and celebrates not only their singular accomplishments but also the collective depth and breadth of their interests, talents, career paths and achievements in all sectors of society.

See a list of all CLA Alumni of Notable Achievement.

• Dr. Scott D. Augustine (M.D. '79; B.E.S., '75), internationally successful inventor, entrepreneur, and doctor


• Ellen A. Boschwitz(B.A. '77, English), admired public servant, business owner, and community volunteer


• Greg A. Brown (B.A. '87, Russian area studies), esteemed U.S. military officer and defense policy leader


• Christopher G. Cardozo (J.D. '77; B.F.A. '72, studio art; B.A. '72, art history), eminent artist, collector and community volunteer


• Thomas H. DuPont (B.A. '67, journalism), innovative communications and branding specialist


• Raymond W. Foley (B.A. '48), exemplar of advertising, public relations, corporate and community leadership


• Gloria L. Goetzke (B.A. '64, sociology), veteran social worker, instructor, and devoted community volunteer


• Jacqueline M. Jodl (B.A. '85, political science), admired business leader and tireless community volunteer


• Tina M. Karelson (M.A. '95, English, B.A '85, English and journalism), recognized advertising leader, writer, and valued community member


• Scott D. Meyer (B.A. '04, journalism), esteemed public relations expert and corporate leader


• Stephanie Odegard (B.A. '69, humanities), successful international entrepreneur and volunteer leader


• Maybeth G. Pizzi (B.A. '80, speech communication), 6-time Daytime Emmy winner, television production; writer and talent sleuth


• Thomas E. Ramsay (B.A. '68, psychology), innovative filmmaker, teacher, and dedicated conservationist


• Wyman Spano (B.A. '60, political science), respected teacher, author, and Minnesota politics expert


• James A. Stolpestad (J.D. '67; B.A. '64, history), venerable Twin Cities attorney, real estate investor, and developer


• Dr. Donald L. Winkelmann (PhD '63, economics), esteemed scholar in economics and agricultural practices


• Dr. Kurt D. Winkelmann (PhD '87, economics; M.A. '82, economics), leading expert in global investment banking and research analysis

Happy holidays! Welcome to another issue of English@Minnesota. As I celebrated Thanksgiving last month, I was thinking about the many reasons we have to give thanks to students, faculty, staff, donors, and friends of the department.

For the past three years, I have taught Introduction to Literary Theory and Literary Studies in the Modern University, a seminar required of all new PhD and MA students. Each year I have appreciated both their enthusiasm for literary studies and their creative ideas for how the department can better communicate what it offers to all of its students. In the fall 2011 seminar, a team of graduate students presented suggestions for making our website more lively and informative. I took their advice, forming a committee of faculty, graduate students, and staff that revamped several pages of the website in the following months; we've also started an online weekly interview series, 5 X Friday, to spotlight our accomplished students, alumni, and faculty.

I am thankful for our first-year fellowships, which attract the best graduate students to our literature program and provide them with the time, as one student said, to "take a few more classes, explore a few more ideas, engage in a few more conversations." Other fellowships support the students during the last year of dissertation writing, freeing them from teaching so that they can produce high-quality scholarship that can be turned into published articles and books.

This fall's English@Minnesota profiles fellowship funds, those gifted in recent years and those established many decades ago that have supported generations of graduate students. Only two of our many graduate funds, Klaeber and Ruud, produce sufficient income to provide full-year fellowships, which--with tuition, benefits, and a stipend--round out at $40,000 per student. Since our mission is to attract the "best and brightest" students to our Literature and Creative Writing Programs, we have made fundraising for graduate fellowships a priority. We'd love your help in building these funds.

I am thankful too for the comprehensive teaching opportunities that make our graduate students so attractive when they search for jobs. All new Literature and Creative Writing students attend an Orientation Program in August that includes sessions on teaching, take the one-semester Teaching Practicum in their first year, and throughout their studies attend Brown Bag lunches that focus on teaching issues. Meanwhile, they ease into more responsibility, generally starting out as Teaching Assistants for the large literature survey courses, then teaching their own courses in undergraduate writing, and finally offering "stand-alone" courses taken by undergraduates.

I celebrate as well our award-winning faculty, students, and alumni and share a few examples with you:

Last March at Britain's Cambridge University, Professor Nabil Matar was awarded the 2012 Building Bridges Award from the Association of Muslim Social Scientists for his pioneering scholarship on relations between Islamic civilization and Europe during the early modern period. Professor Matar is one of the very few scholars worldwide who can read ancient and modern Arabic texts which, as other scholars have noted, makes his work so richly insightful. Past recipients of the award include the Archbishop of Canterbury and the prime ministers of Spain, Malaysia, and Turkey.

Also in spring, Edelstein-Keller Professor of Creative Writing Charles Baxter won the 2011 Rea Award for the Short Story, given annually to a living American or Canadian writer whose published work has made a "significant contribution in the discipline of the short story as an art form." Baxter joined a list of acclaimed honorees including Alice Munro, Grace Paley, and John Updike.

This year several alums of our BA, MFA, and PhD programs received the following honors: Minnesota Book Award, American Book Award (two!), the Academy of American Poets' Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, the Loft Minnesota Emerging Writers Grant (two!), the Poetry Society of America's Frost Medal, and numerous Minnesota State Arts Board Grants.

Books written by three alums--Amanda Coplin, Sam Kean, and Cheryl Strayed--catapulted onto The New York Times' bestsellers list. BA alumna Strayed's memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail topped the nonfiction list for three months and was chosen to kick off Oprah's Book Club 2.0. Write on!

Of 56 graduate and undergraduate students from all over the University who received the President's Student Leadership & Service Awards last spring, three came from English: majors Kari Eloranta and Echo Martin, and MFA student Claire Stanford.

Michael Lee, an English major, was honored as the 2011 Best Individual Poet at the national College Unions Poetry Slam.

Three graduate students, Aaron Apps, Feng Sun Chen and Katie Robison, published books this year, well before they were scheduled to graduate.

Ivory Tower, the literary arts magazine produced by undergraduate students during their two-semester magazine production course, won the Tony Diggs Innovation Award from the University's Student Activities Office. They were praised for encouraging daily doses of literature on campus by maintaining a Poet Tree and circulating writing notebooks.

Perhaps the best news in this bleak economic era, alums are winning jobs. Between 2007 and 2011, according to university data, 92% of Literature graduate students and 90% of Creative Writing graduates found employment, figures well above the rate at comparable institutions. As BA alumnus and landscape architect Bob Close says in this issue's interview, English is a "fabulous foundation" for a 21st century world of integrative problem-solving across the occupations.

In 2010-11, as many of you know, we conducted a search for an assistant professor of poetry that culminated in the hiring of Peter Campion, an award-winning writer of poetry and critical essays who was also a Guggenheim Fellow last year. This winter, we are conducting a search for two assistant professors who specialize in 18th- and/or 19th-Century British Literature and interdisciplinary topics. We look forward to the two new colleagues who will join us next fall.

I hope you enjoy the stories in this issue of English@Minnesota, and I encourage you to continue supporting our exceptional students and faculty by making a gift. Wishing you a happy and healthy New Year!

Somali novelist Nuruddin Farah first visited Minneapolis, and specifically the Department of English at the University of Minnesota, in 1988 as an Edelstein-Keller Visiting Writer in the Creative Writing Program--years before the Twin Cities became a major destination for Somali refugees fleeing civil war. Little did he know that he would return numerous times, culminating with a three-autumn tenure starting in 2010 as the College of Liberal Arts' Winton Chair.

English has again been privileged to play host. And Farah has more than returned the favor. He has taught three graduate courses in English. He gave the fall 2010 Commencement address. In September 2011, he published his 11th novel Crossbones, which has received wide acclaim across the U.S., Europe, and Africa, and is a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. His publication reading packed the Central Minneapolis Library, one of three readings presented under the department's auspices in collaboration with CLA and community partners. He's also written and produced staged readings for two plays, the latest of which, A Stone Thrown at the Guilty, is presented in revised form December 7 and 8 at Rarig Center's Stoll Thrust Theatre.

These theatrical productions have been exhilarating for a writer who has always been interested in drama. This fall, he's had the opportunity, because of the Winton Chair, to hire celebrated British theater director Irina Brown to workshop and develop A Stone Thrown at the Guilty. The reading, featuring professional Twin Cities actors Sonja Parks and Bruce Young, as well as local Somali youth, will be followed by a discussion led by Brown and Farah, presenting a rare opportunity for Twin Cities audiences to observe a world-class theater director develop a work of drama with an esteemed international writer.

"The ethical and political ideas the play raised have an urgency that felt very current," says Brown, who has directed two plays at London's National Theatre. "It is inspired by Dostoyevsky, and, like Dostoyevsky, Farah is not afraid to tackle complex dilemmas of faith, of political and social turbulence. The insight, courage, and potential of this play made me believe we should find a rehearsal room to develop this piece. I am thrilled that now we get such a wonderful opportunity to work together."

Another highpoint of Farah's time here has been teaching. "I've enjoyed the students, from whom I've learned a great deal," Farah acknowledges. "They've been quite impressive.

"I've also had the opportunity to mount some courses that probably hadn't been tried before. The experience of mounting original courses and teaching them, and then finding that the students have also enjoyed them, has meant a great deal to me."

Farah is thankful to the department for providing him this freedom, which he has embraced with course reading lists ranging across continents. The first course focused on books that, in Farah's words, "changed our understanding of literature in the 20th century," and included Günter Grass, Joseph Conrad, and Chinua Achebe. The second, also a reading course, tackled first novels by authors who would go on to write paradigm-shifting work. This year, Farah's students are reading authors known for books written in their second, third, or fourth language, such as Michael Ondaatje and Henry Roth.

He has delighted too in having a foot in both disciplines of English, drawing students from the Creative Writing and doctoral literature programs. Declares Farah: "My principle when teaching is to say to the students, 'I can't teach you to write or to research. What I can do for you, however, is make you appreciate reading.' It's only after you understand and appreciate the art of reading, and the act of reading, that you can write and research better."

Finally, Farah has very much appreciated his interactions with the greater Somali community in the Twin Cities, through high school and college talks, community meetings, and, particularly this fall, the process of staging the play reading, which has involved young people as actors, graphic designers, and publicists. "The first two years I was talking to the community at large," Farah describes, "which was successful in that people were still feeling the wounds, the scars of the civil war. This past year I have been concentrating mainly on the young, because now you have a crop of young Somalis, some of whom are interested in theater, some of whom are interested in literature and culture. We've been talking about how to remain Somali and at the same time fulfill their American dream."

Farah, who is held in great esteem by many Somalis for his achievements, is uniquely qualified to talk about that balance. His second novel, A Naked Needle (1976), was not well-received by the Somali government of dictator Siyad Barre, and Farah was encouraged not to return. He has chosen to remain an Africa-based writer by living, teaching, and writing in many African countries and currently resides in Capetown, South Africa. And yet he is also a citizen of the world, receiving international literary prizes such as the Neustadt and flying to countries around the world for talks and residencies. During his stint in Minnesota, he has become a familiar face to an airport cab company. How does he stay sane and grounded in the midst of such upheaval?

"By keeping my eyes on the ball," Farah responds, "and the ball is Somalia. Focusing on what makes me continue to live and work and think, which is: I am a writer, I come from Somalia, and on top of that the world has been kind to me. The fact that I have been able to hold the Winton Chair for three semesters has strengthened my belief in that kindness," he says with emphasis.

"I'm very grateful to CLA and to Dean James Parente. I'm very grateful also to my friends in Minneapolis."

The door's always open.

The Winton Chair in the Liberal Arts was established in October 1987 to encourage "innovative, distinctive research in the liberal arts" with the special directive that the chair be held by individuals whose research or creative work "questions established patterns of thought." The benefactors were David Michael Winton and Penny Rand Winton.

Margery Durham, professor emerita of English, died September 23, 2012, in Polson, Montana. Durham was a scholar of Romantic and Victorian literature, especially Matthew Arnold (the subject of her dissertation), George Eliot, the Brontë sisters, and Charles Dickens. Among other articles, she wrote the widely cited essay "The Mother Tongue: Cristabel and the Language of Love," about Coleridge's poem, which was included in (M)Other Tongue: Essays in Feminist Psychoanalytic Interpretation, edited by her colleagues Shirley Garner and Madelon Sprengnether along with Claire Kahane (Cornell University Press, 1985).

"Margery was a devoted student and teacher of the full range of Victorian literature, glad to share her understanding of its complex forms and values," remembers Professor Michael Hancher. "More than 30 years ago she was a founding member of the Victorian Literature Subfield, which continues today as the Nineteenth Century British Subfield. She played a key role in the enduring tradition of Victorian studies at Minnesota, and will long be remembered for that contribution, as well as for her generous friendship and hospitality."

Durham was born in 1933 in Nashville, Tennessee, and received her BA (1955) with honors in American History from the College of New Rochelle, a liberal arts college near New York City. She worked as a copy editor in Washington, D.C., and New York City, where she began taking evening classes at New York University. There she completed a MA in English Literature, followed by a PhD in English Literature at Indiana University in Bloomington in 1965.

Durham joined the faculty at the University of Minnesota that year and taught in the Department of English for three decades; she also taught for a year at the University of East Anglia in England. In 1969, she married a colleague, Lonnie Durham, whom she had met as a graduate student at Indiana. As her obituary notes, "Their relationship as colleagues was a delightful mix of collaboration and competition, underlined and punctuated by loving wit."

The Durhams retired in the fall of 1996 and moved to Polson, Montana, a small town south of Glacier National Park on Flathead Lake. There Margery enjoyed drawing and painting, as well as playing bridge and hiking, fishing, and swimming, until a palsy related to Parkinson's curtailed her activities. Margery is survived by her husband, her daughters, Alice and Emily, stepson James, and one grandson.

Norman Fruman, an educator and scholar best known for his biography of the English poet and critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and a long-time member of the Department of English at the University of Minnesota, died April 19, 2012, at his home in Laguna Beach, California, of cancer. He was 88.

Professor Fruman's Coleridge, The Damaged Archangel (George Braziller, 1971) revealed a darker side of the so-called "Sage of Highgate" than had previously been known. Although many scholars and other readers were shocked by Fruman's portrait of the revered Coleridge as a liar and plagiarist, his findings were too well-documented to be dismissed or ignored. Among the book's 100 mostly favorable reviews, many of them in non-academic publications, The Times Literary Supplement called it the most important Coleridge study since John Livingston Lowes' The Road to Xanadu (1927).

Born in the Bronx, New York, in 1923, Fruman was the son of Russian immigrants, attended Townsend Harris Hall, a free, three-year high school for gifted boys, and then the City College of New York. In 1943, about to begin his senior year at CCNY, he was drafted into the army as an infantry private. A year later, he attended Officer Candidate School, was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant, and was sent to Europe as the youngest combat platoon leader in the 42nd Infantry, the famed "Rainbow Division."

As such, in late 1944, Fruman, just turned 21, took part in the Battle of the Bulge, the last great German counteroffensive in the West. Fruman's unit was ordered to defend an Alsatian town 30 miles north of Strasbourg, and to hold the line there at all costs. He and his men did so until they ran out of ammunition, then became prisoners of war. The survivors of his unit, many of whom died in a failed escape attempt along with most of their would-be rescuers, were finally liberated in April 1945.

Back at City College by year-end, Fruman graduated in 1946, received his MA in Education from Columbia Teachers College in 1948, and--after a three-year stint as a writer-editor at The American Comics Group, and later as a freelance writer--a PhD in English from New York University in 1960. The Coleridge biography grew out of his work on his doctoral dissertation.

In addition to his years at the University of Minnesota (1978-94), Professor Fruman taught at California State University, Los Angeles (1959-78), where he won the Outstanding Professor Award; as a Fulbright Professor at the University of Tel Aviv; and as a visiting scholar at various universities in France, while also writing many article-length studies and reviews. In 1994, he was one of the leading initiators of the organization now known as the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers (ALSCW). For many years he also served on the board of the National Association of Scholars, and was the cofounder of its Minnesota affiliate. But in an interview in 2010, Professor Fruman acknowledged that it was the Coleridge book for which he was likely to be best remembered: "It made me both famous and infamous."

Professor Fruman is survived by his wife of 53 years, Doris, three children, Jessica, Sara, and David, and four grandchildren.

Adapted from an article by Roy Winnick in Literary Matters (2010).

In September of 2011, after founding and running Close Landscape Architecture+ here in the Twin Cities for 35 years, Bob Close (BA 1969) took a leap into the unknown: He shuttered his nine-person office and accepted a job with AECOM, a global company of some 46,000 employees. AECOM provides professional expertise for building, natural resource, and social projects, with branches in energy and environment, government and transportation, design and construction.

Close is director of landscape architecture for the U. S. Midwest region--which in practical terms means he's helping to design city projects in, say, Saudi Arabia with AECOM architects, engineers, economists, and urban designers. "I really like AECOM's mission," Close remarks in an interview at his office in the LaSalle Plaza in downtown Minneapolis, "to bring together what they can to solve the world's complex problems."

When the offer came, Close was already pondering a new start. "Design is more and more an integrative process," he explains. "What I had been thinking about doing was totally restructuring my practice--not being a room full of landscape architects. Having a few landscape architects, architects, a private developer, having an economist, an environmentalist, an ecologist, an engineer. We did a project like that for the Central Corridor at the West Bank, had all those people around the table, and it was really fun."

These days the table is virtual as often as it is not: "Really, within the [AECOM] network is anything you need," Close notes. "Here in Minneapolis I might need somebody from New York or somebody from Australia. But we have the technologies here--the smart board, the web access--so that you can have a drawing up and in Jakarta they can see you."

This English major didn't intend to end up in urban design. Close's father Winston, who died in 1997, served as University of Minnesota advisory architect and professor; his mother, Elisabeth Scheu Close, who died in 2011, was the first female licensed architect in Minnesota and received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the University in 2003. The two met as graduate students at MIT, where Austrian native Scheu also received her BA, and started their own architecture firm (and marriage) in Close's hometown, Minneapolis, in 1938.

Close Associates, Inc., was known for Modern residential design, although the Closes also designed Ferguson Hall on the U campus. According to Bob, architecture was such a consuming topic at the home dinner table that all three Close children deliberately turned away from the practice in college. "We didn't want to take over the business," he remembers with a smile. "Back then, that's the last thing you wanted to do."

After he graduated with a double major in English and Studio Art in 1969, Close traveled and worked with no definite aim. And then, when he was living on a farm near Cannon Falls, an offer fell in his lap. "One day," Close describes with amusement, "a guy who I'd never seen in my life knocked on my door--he knew who I was. And he asked me if I'd like to assist him. He was a landscape architect and a city planner; he had a one-man shop in Farmington. And he lived about a mile down the road. Charlie Tooker, his name was. I worked for him part-time for a couple years, and then he just looked me in the eye and said, 'You're wasting your time; you need to go back to school.'"

And so Close came back to architectural design, "through the back door, basically," he says with a laugh. With a growing family, he decided to stay in Minnesota and earn a BA in Landscape Architecture at the U. He began working for one of his teachers while a student, took on teaching design studios after graduation, and shortly after, as he describes, "I just hung out my shingle and thought, 'We'll just see how it goes.'" It went, slowly at first, but before the recession Close Landscape Architecture+ was gainfully employing 15 people. In 2007 he was elected to the Council of Fellows of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA). Close served five terms as an adviser to the Twin Cities Metropolitan Council on its Livable Communities Advisory Committee. And he has been active in the Urban Land Institute Minnesota District Council.

As an undergraduate, Close was transfixed and challenged by his classes, ranging from astrology to meteorology, Shakespeare to studio arts. "I talked to a lot of people, including my parents, and everybody encouraged me to get a liberal arts degree," he recalls. "They said, 'You will learn more about more things than you can possibly imagine; you'll get a fabulous foundation for wherever you end up.' And that was absolutely right."

There's a bit of an edge to Close's tone: he's well aware that popular media, during the recent recession, have taken to critiquing the usefulness--and price tag--of any post-secondary study that doesn't directly prepare one for a high-need occupation. "As a student I read a lot of stuff I would have never read," he goes on. "I learned how to present, how to capture my ideas in words. Comprehension when reading; synthesizing information, and being able to distill it. I still love words. To me, that's what oftentimes architects are lacking--they can't express themselves as well as they might, certainly not in the written word.

"Communication is critical with a client," he stresses. "You want to be sure that they know that you heard them. And you give it back to them: you say, 'Here's where it's led me, it's led me to these thoughts, and that translates into these ideas for you.' Because design is such an iterative process, it's extremely beneficial to hear well and translate what you hear. That's the best way to build trust with a client and to build an idea."

With his focus on process and communication, and his engaging, friendly manner, one suspects that Bob Close would've been an excellent teacher. And, indeed, he did teach urban design and architecture studios at the U for nine years and interdisciplinary design studios at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design for three. Not coincidentally, one of his favorite instructors in English was Professor Emerita Toni McNaron, a pioneering proponent of the more democratically organized classroom who was at the same time as rigorous as any old guard. "I really liked her classes in particular, just because of the intensity," Close reveals. "She was extraordinarily demanding. Out of fear if nothing else, you read, you thought, you interpreted. She was never easy on students, but she squeezed the very best out of them."

Close participated in the 1996 Twin Cities Campus Master Plan for the U, once again returning to his, and his dad's, stomping grounds. He has been tickled to watch many of their recommendations come to fruition, including light rail down Washington Avenue. "Yeah, the '96 master plan was all about livability and blurring the lines between town and gown," he says. "And you can see it: it's transformed in many ways. I see good food in Coffman Union--I see people cooking there. You don't have to go to the Campus Club to get a decent meal. I see the Scholars Walk and see connectivity being paid attention to. The influx of some interesting architecture. Land care, their landscape arm, is doing a fabulous job. To me, the University is paying attention to the fact that it can be a more beautiful place."

Once again, an integrated approach to a complicated problem, one that necessitates skills in listening and reading, comprehension, synthesis, invention, and written presentation. Skills for the challenges of the 21st century that the study of English provides in full. "English was a logical place to be, and I got a lot of encouragement to pursue it," Close declares. "I'm glad I did."

Back row, L to R: John C. Pierce; Doug Gorence; Harvey H. Zuckman; Steve H. Bickel; Greg J. Pulles; Perry A. Witkin

Not pictured, Ray Foley and Kathy Tunheim

The CLA Alumni of Notable Achievement (ANA) program was created in 1994 as part of CLA's 125th anniversary to celebrate and honor the significant achievements and contributions of college alumni. All ANA honorees have been nominated by CLA alumni, faculty, and staff.

Of the College's 120,000 living graduates, approximately 1,300 have been selected as recipients. By honoring its alumni, CLA recognizes and celebrates not only their singular accomplishments but also the collective depth and breadth of their interests, talents, career paths and achievements in all sectors of society.

See a list of all CLA Alumni of Notable Achievment.

• Anthony "Tony" J. Bianco, III (B.A. '76, humanities), venerated journalist, author, and nationally recognized expert in business matters


• Steven "Steve" H. Bickel (B.A. '72, journalism), successful producer and film industry marketing leader


• Alan Bjerga (M.A. '98, mass communication), leader in the field of journalism and respected agricultural policy reporter


• Mark T. Fitzpatrick (B.A. '76, international relations), international expert on global security and nuclear proliferation


• Raymond "Ray" W. Foley (B.A. '48), exemplar of advertising, public relations, corporate and community leadership


• Douglas "Doug" A. Gorence (B.S. '77, economics), respected financial analyst and investor


• Gregory "Greg" J. Pulles (B.A. '70, economics; J.D. '73), admired attorney, corporate leader, and community volunteer


• John C. Pierce (M.A. '76, Ph.D. '69, political science), esteemed scholar and higher education leader


• Deborah "Deb" L. Redmond (B.A. '78, M.A '80, speech communication), respected professor and champion of the study of film-making


• Kathryn "Kathy" H. Tunheim (B.A. '79, political science), accomplished public relations expert and consummate community volunteer


• Sugith Varughese (B.A. '78, theatre), award-winning actor, writer, and director and esteemed professor


• Sharon Rice Vaughan (B.A. '69, sociology; M.A. '94, American studies), national pioneer in advocacy and care for victims of domestic violence


• Perry A. Witkin (B.A. '78, M.H.A. '82), innovator in the medical device industry and disaster relief volunteer


• Harvey H. Zuckman (Bachelor of Elected Studies '74), successful entrepreneur and social justice advocate

Jaime Lilleodden is originally from Sleepy Eye, Minnesota and a recent summa cum laude graduate from the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She completed majors in psychology and sociology of law, criminology, and deviance

Finding an authentic experience
My internship experience with the Minnesota Department of Corrections allowed me to venture outside of Dinkytown, away from my textbooks, and beyond the secured hedge of the Women's Correctional Facility in Shakopee, MN. As a double major in psychology and sociology of law, criminology, and deviance, I realized how an authentic, applied experience with criminal offenders is necessary to even begin to understand the mind of an addict and the field of community corrections.

What Jamie worked on
Supervised by Katheryn Graeve, an experienced addiction counselor and an inspirational mentor, I was assigned a client with an extensive criminal background and a long history of chemical abuse. Like a licensed addiction counselor, I was responsible for co-facilitating her small group therapy sessions, providing treatment resources, administering assessments, and developing her individual treatment plan. Observing a need for more assistance in re-entry services, I began meeting with the individual women involved in the treatment program, discussing their transitional needs, and providing resource materials that they personally felt would be helpful in transitioning from prison to the community.

Finding her passion
By the end of my internship, I had compiled a book of resource materials for the women to use upon their re-entry into the community including meeting information, housing options, and additional treatment opportunities. Not only did I uncover an enthusiasm for counseling and a passion for re-entry services, my position as a chemical dependency intern allowed me to put a face to addiction and understand the hard reality of its consequences: prison.

A newfound path
Although an internship is not a requirement of the psychology major at the University of Minnesota, the value of the experience has been unprecedented. With the help of the CLA Internship Grant and the Psychology Engagement Scholarship, which I was awarded both fall and spring semester, I was financially able to continue my experience throughout the year. Aside from my study abroad experience in Sicily, my internship with the Minnesota Department of Corrections has been the most educational and rewarding opportunity of my undergraduate career.

Through this experience, I have decided to pursue a career in addiction counseling, specifically within the correctional community. Ultimately, my internship with the Shakopee women's prison provided me with something where textbooks fell short: experience and a newfound career path.

Jaime Lilleodden is originally from Sleepy Eye, Minnesota and a recent summa cum laude graduate from the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She completed majors in psychology and sociology of law, criminology, and deviance. As part of her college career, Jaime was a community engagement scholar, studied mafia history and politics in Sicily, Italy, was employed at the University of Minnesota YMCA and as a peer adviser for the College of Liberal Arts and completed an honors thesis project with Professor Moin Syed on international travel and cultural sensitivity. If you have any questions, please contact Jaime at lille081@gmail.com.

Antonia Kaczkurkin is currently earning her doctoral degree in the Clinical Science and Psychopathology Research program at the University of Minnesota.

Our understanding is just beginning
Although PTSD was not formally recognized by the clinical community until 1980, its symptoms have been known and recorded throughout history. Despite the acknowledgement of this disorder for the past 30 years or so, we are just beginning to understand the biological mechanisms that contribute to PTSD symptoms. Understanding the physiological and neurobiological processes that lead to the maintenance of PTSD symptoms is vital to advancing the development of interventions for treating PTSD patients.

Understanding fear
A promising approach to studying PTSD focuses on classical fear-conditioning: a process of associative learning acquired when a neutral object or situation is paired with an unpleasant outcome and, in turn, the neutral stimulus comes to elicit anxiety associated with the anticipation of the unpleasant outcome. Conditioned fear makes intuitive sense when considering PTSD: patients who experience a traumatic event are conditioned to fear objects and situations related to the trauma.

Why some and not others
However, important questions remain such as why some individuals develop PTSD following a traumatic event while others do not. Discovering the answer to this question requires a better understanding of the specific abnormalities in conditioned fear which may represent risk factors for developing this disorder. One abnormality that may be especially relevant to PTSD is the over-generalization of conditioned fear, which is simply the heightened tendency to transfer, or generalize, one's fear to benign objects or situations that resemble features of the traumatic event. This over-generalization is thought to result in the proliferation of trauma cues in the individual's environment that increases the frequency and duration of trauma-related fear responding.

Examining brain processes and fear
Although the neural underpinnings of such generalization of conditioned fear have been studied extensively in rodents, there has been little cross-species translational research exploring this phenomenon in humans. In order to bridge the research on generalization of fear in animals to humans, my dissertation will use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the brain processes associated with abnormal generalization of conditioned fear in veterans with PTSD. This work represents a collaborative effort between the University of Minnesota and the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Medical Center and I am privileged to work with faculty members Shmuel Lissek and Scott Sponheim on this project.

Because what does not kill you can make you ill, there is a moral imperative to care for those made ill by psychological trauma that was endured in defense of our country. It is my hope that a better neurobiological understanding of the PTSD-relevant abnormalities in generalization of conditioned fear will bring us closer to more effective, brain based treatments for those suffering from the painful psychological consequences of military combat.

Antonia Kaczkurkin is currently earning her doctoral degree in the Clinical Science and Psychopathology Research program at the University of Minnesota. She earned her bachelor's degree in psychology summa cum laude and with honors at the University of Arizona and completed her master's degree at the University of Minnesota. She has been a Diversity of Views and Experiences fellow and a National Science Foundation fellow. If you have any questions, please contact Antonia at kaczk003@umn.edu.

In August, when Governor Mark Dayton announced Minnesota's second Poet Laureate, an individual who would succeed the distinguished Robert Bly, we were thrilled to hear him pronounce a very familiar name: Joyce Sutphen. A poet and professor at Gustavus Adolphus College, she has three degrees from the Department of English. After graduating summa cum laude in 1982, she returned to the University earning an MA in English and Creative Writing (1992) and then a doctorate (1996), subsequently winning a Minnesota Book Award in Poetry for her third collection, Naming the Stars (Holy Cow! Press, 2004).

"Joyce Sutphen is a talented writer and teacher," proclaimed Governor Dayton, "who will be a great voice for poetry in Minnesota." Indeed, Sutphen, interviewed here by one of our MFA students, exemplifies the qualities of our students, alumni, and faculty who are award-winning scholars and writers, inventive thinkers, inspirational teachers, and agents for change in the world. Want other examples?

Among undergraduate students are these three: English and Political Science major Eric Murphy, the Opinions Editor for the Minnesota Daily, brings readers to voices that need to be heard; this year he holds the department's Donald V. Hawkins Scholarship. Jennifer Snider, the department's Jessie M. Comstock Scholarship winner, is a busy English major with a Social Justice minor who volunteers in our community service learning program. Christopher White, the recipient of an Anna August Von Helmholtz Phelan Scholarship, has for three years tutored local elementary school children as part of the University's America Reads program; he's enrolled in the DirecTrack to Teaching Program, which offers guaranteed admission to the College of Education and Human Development's initial licensure program.

English alumni are editors, teachers, community activists, lawyers, and business people. This fall Monica Nassif (English BA 1982) was named the 2011 University of Minnesota Entrepreneur of the Year by the Carlson School of Management. Nassif is the founder of Caldrea, a luxury cleaning products line, and its offshoot the Mrs. Meyers' Clean Day brand. Before starting Caldrea in 1999, she worked as a brand-builder for prominent retailers and consumer product firms and operated her own marketing communications business. Her business career began with a Dayton-Hudson internship that English adviser Beverly Atkinson helped her acquire.

Andrew Nath (English BA 1991), Executive Vice President of Premier Bank in Maplewood, manages a portfolio of $180 million. "English classes teach you to read, assess, critique, analyze, and report," he wrote in an email. "The most rewarding part of my job experience is the interaction with people to determine the issues that need resolution and working within a creative environment to solve those issues."

Our faculty also make their marks on the world. Professor Nabil Matar, an internationally known pioneer in the study of early modern relationships between Europe and the Islamic World, joined the department in 2007 as a Presidential Professor in the President's Interdisciplinary Initiative on Arts and Humanities. Last February, he coordinated the international conference "Shared Cultural Spaces: Islam and the West in the Arts and Sciences," which explored historical influences between Muslim and Western literature, science, art, and architecture--an event funded by a prestigious National Endowment for the Humanities grant. Receiving a well-deserved Scholar of the College award from the College of Liberal Arts, Matar has seven books in print or forthcoming. When his children suggest he retire, he laughs. He's on a mission, he says, to change the way people think about Islamic-Western relations.

This fall, English professor Michael Hancher and Writing Studies professor Laura Gurak launched an innovative project called Digital Humanities 2.0 supported by the Institute for Advanced Study. Their goal is to advance artistic creation and humanities research by leaping ahead of the ongoing digitization and envisioning the next versions. In October, Regents Professor Patricia Hampl co-organized a one-day international conference on the personal voice in writings on genocide, torture, and oppression. "My Letter to the World: Narrating Human Rights" was topped off by New Yorker writer Philip Gourevitch who delivered the Esther Freier Endowed Lecture.

Our faculty do get around! In Berlin last spring, Professor Timothy Brennan held the prominent Mercator Professorship awarded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the National Science Foundation of Germany. Also in spring, Professor Paula Rabinowitz held the Distinguished Fulbright Lectureship in American Literature in the People's Republic of China and taught at East China Normal University in Shanghai. This year, Professor Dan Philippon splits his time between Italy, where he is a Fulbright Core Research/Teaching Fellow at the University of Turin, and Germany, where he is a Senior Fellow at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich.

Just as our faculty travel widely, so too does our reputation. In September, Poets & Writers ranked our Creative Writing Program as number 10 in the Top Fifty MFA Programs in the United States. This national magazine bases its annual rankings on such measures as selective admissions, student funding, and student teaching load, as well as a poll of MFA program applicants. The reputation of Creative Writing will no doubt be burnished by its new assistant professor. Joining us this fall was Peter Campion, a nationally distinguished poet who received a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship to add to an already impressive list of awards including the Pushcart Prize and the Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

This year we host three international visitors. Last spring, Dr. Rosemary Moyana, associate professor of English and acting dean of Education at the University of Zimbabwe, shared her expertise in the African novel. We are fortunate to have arriving this fall Ji-Soo Kang, professor of English and vice dean of Academic Affairs at Inha University in Incheon, Korea. She is a medievalist specializing in women writers and gendered language. We are also hosting Humin Liu, an associate professor at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies in China and a China-US Education Trust American Studies Fellow. She is working on a comparative study of war-induced trauma in British World War I and American Vietnam War fiction.

Our entering graduate students hold the promise of distinction. Professor Katherine Scheil, director of Graduate Studies, reports that the literature students come with an assortment of BA, MA, and law degrees from such institutions as Barnard, Brigham Young, Chicago, Duke, Harvard, Michigan, Ohio State, and SUNY Binghamton. Professor Julie Schumacher, director of Creative Writing, notes that the MFA class includes a beekeeper, a Fulbright Fellow, a songwriter, a McKnight Artist Fellow, and a translator of contemporary Scandinavian poetry; many of these new students have already been published in literary journals and magazines.

Doctoral candidate Elissa Hansen came to the department to study medieval contemplative writers with Professor Rebecca Krug, author of the ground-breaking Reading Families: Women's Literate Practice in Late Medieval England. Now writing a dissertation titled "Signs of the Time: Temporality in Fourteenth-Century English Contemplative Writing," she holds a Graduate School Dissertation Fellowship. Next spring, an essay written by Hansen will be published in Reading Memory and Identity in the Texts of Medieval European Holy Women (Palgrave-MacMillan), edited by Margaret Cotter-Lynch and Bradley Herzog.

This is what English does. We teach our students to read and analyze literatures; to write in scholarly, creative, and public ways; and to put their knowledge and skills to work for the benefit of many communities. We provide them with examples of excellence through our own faculty and visitors from abroad. We use endowed lectures, in-house presentation series, and faculty-student research groups to create a yeasty environment where innovation and enthusiasm can ferment.

I hope you enjoy the stories in this fall's English@Minnesota, and I encourage you to continue supporting our exceptional students and faculty by making a gift at http://english.umn.edu/giving. Wishing you a dazzling holiday and a brilliant 2012!

Readers of this newsletter are probably familiar with the famous Old English poem Beowulf. But you may not know how readers of that poem continue to support graduate students in the Department of English. Here's the story: Frederick Klaeber, an esteemed faculty member in English, retired from the University of Minnesota to his native Germany in 1931, having completed his first two editions of the poem Beowulf. Klaeber was at work on a third edition when his house in Berlin was destroyed by an American bomb in 1944. Klaeber was injured, and his library was destroyed--all of his books, journals, notes and references lost. "The Klaebers are in bad shape--in fact, starving," read a letter from Germany sent to Joseph W. Beach, then Chair of English at Minnesota: "I doubt if they will be able to live through another winter without help." Beach and other Minnesota colleagues came to the rescue, sending food, clothing, and materials on Old English scholarship so that Klaeber could complete his work on Beowulf; the contributions continued until Klaeber's death in 1954.

Meanwhile, Klaeber's assets had been frozen in the U.S., and he was unable to collect the royalties for what had become the standard scholarly edition of Beowulf. In 1951, Klaeber wrote to the University of Minnesota and to his U.S. publisher, donating his U.S. assets and the royalties from his edition to establish a scholarship in English. The U eventually received his U.S. assets, but Klaeber's publisher, D.C. Heath, didn't act on the letter. In 1987, Klaeber scholar Helen Damico, professor of Old English and Middle English at the University of New Mexico, uncovered the correspondence and called up Heath. Two years later, a $25,500 backlog of royalties was sent to the U; the checks continue to arrive. Today, the Klaeber scholarship helps to support one graduate student each year by releasing the student from teaching and allowing him/her to concentrate on scholarship.

You may know that our graduate students receive a mix of fellowships and teaching assistant assignments, but, to date, no single fund can cover the annual costs of even one graduate student on fellowship. Yet it is crucial for our students to have dedicated time to do their research. "I feel so grateful--to the department in general and my donor in particular--to have been welcomed into the English department with an offer of a fellowship," says current student Laura Brennan. "The difference between being on fellowship and being a teaching assistant . . . means the ability to take a few more classes, explore a few more ideas, engage in a few more conversations, and feel that you've taken just a few more steps toward completing your PhD."

As state support continues to shrink, and competition among universities for the best students intensifies, private support can help the department ensure that we have fellowships to attract and support outstanding graduate students. "It's great that Minnesota gives us the opportunity to teach and that makes us so much more marketable," affirms graduate student Elissa Hansen. However, she notes, students also profit, at the beginning and the end of graduate study in particular, from the deep focus on learning, research, and writing that a fellowship allows.

We plan to profile more of our historic donors to the Department of English in a future newsletter--stay tuned. In the meantime, we would be grateful if you could help contribute to our graduate fellowships--no amount is too small--at http://english.umn.edu/giving. Feel free to email me at kscheil@umn.edu.

This fall, the Creative Writing Program welcomed Peter Campion as assistant professor of poetry. Campion is the author of two collections of poems, Other People (2005) and The Lions (2009) both from the University of Chicago Press. He has received a Pushcart Prize, the Larry Levis Reading Prize, the Rome Prize Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Guggenheim Fellowship in Literature. [This interview first appeared on the MFA program blog.]

What should writers consider when they are looking at MFA programs?
I think an applicant should check out the work of the faculty in the various programs and the work of recent graduates. Then there are concerns like geography and duration of the program--different people have different preferences. I also think it's important never to put yourself in dire financial straits in order to get the degree. One of the great things about Minnesota is that the funding is generous. Another thing I love about our program is that there's real exchange across the genres. You all take classes together, and are very much engaged in ongoing conversations. And this is a great area for literature and for the arts. It was wonderful to get to meet with all of you in Maria Fitzgerald's Reading Across Genres, to discuss Seamus Heaney's The Burial at Thebes, and then to be able to all go together to see the play itself performed at the Guthrie.

How do you approach teaching the poetry workshop as a graduate instructor?
I like to work from the ground up, to begin by describing the actual tones and structures of the poem at hand. My hope is not to push any set aesthetic, but to help each writer find the poem he or she is striving toward. We also do a good deal of reading. I want students to uncover their own stories about the history of the art.

You're working on a third book: would you mind discussing your process in terms of how you put a book together?
I'm much better at helping students and friends structure their books than I am at doing it for myself, which feels a little bit like trying to see the back of my head, and with no mirrors. But I'm fascinated by the idea of the poetry collection as a made, shaped thing. I suspect that each book searches for its own structure. As Mother Ann Lee, the leader of the Shakers, once wrote, "Every force evolves a form."

I'm interested in your process of reading a poem in general. What are you looking for?
I pay attention first to the specific feel of the language--what are the lines and sentences like? Then I try to understand the shape of the poem--what action is it performing? And then I ask if it moves me. I want both my intellect and emotion to be engaged and taken on a trip that feels worthwhile. There are so many ways that a poem can do this.

Any upcoming poetry releases you are really excited about?
Yes. So many. I've just read David Wojahn's new poetry collection, World Tree, and I recommend it. I also admired Laura Kasischke's Space, in Chains. Gjertrud Schnackenberg's new book is marvelous and moving. I'm also reading a lot of fiction and history. I'm reading Teju Cole's Open City, which is fantastic. It seems to nod to W.G. Sebald, and yet it's entirely original.

Ask Susan Taylor (MFA 2001) about her favorite teaching moment, and she'll tell you she was weeping. A faculty member in the English department at Saint Paul Community and Technical College, Taylor had proposed the school's first creative writing course and taught it. The students so inspired her that she organized a public reading. "I had to stand at the back of the theater," she recalls in an email, "because I was crying and didn't want anyone to see. The students' work was good; and there they were, believing in their own writing enough to read it in front of an audience for the first time."

Several students from that first class went on to enroll in the creative writing track at Metropolitan State University, and some plan to apply for MFA programs. "Before they took Intro to Creative Writing they didn't know they were writers," notes Taylor, "and now they do.

"I think it's essential to offer creative writing to community college students: this is such a richly diverse student body with a world of stories to tell. It's not just that they need to express themselves; these are stories that can help explain the world to itself, which is what Grace Paley once said stories do. These are new voices that can strengthen the choir."

Taylor knows herself how much one community college class can change a life. After growing up in a small town near a Naval weapons research center by Death Valley, she moved to San Francisco and worked the graveyard shift at a warehouse. She began taking classes at City College of San Fancisco. "It was in Miss Norene Smith's Composition A course that I read Louise Erdrich's story 'Scales' and Paley for the first time," Taylor remembers. "To hear a blue-collar, young, female narrator in a story I was assigned in a college class bridged those worlds for me. I started writing short stories that semester."

The stories piled up, and Taylor applied to Minnesota's Creative Writing Program. She was living by then in Los Angeles--and feeling stuck. A phone call informed her that she had received an Edelstein-Keller Fellowship. "Suddenly, it seemed possible to go to graduate school. Because of that vote of confidence from the U of M, I dared."

She packed what she owned into her Toyota and headed northeast. After her fellowship semester, she began teaching--and discovered that she not only enjoyed it but was good at it. She won a department award, voted on by undergraduates, for Outstanding Graduate Teacher. She even loved teaching Composition. "I found that creative writing pedagogy infused into a composition course results in a much better classroom experience," she describes now, "and better student writing."

Taylor ended up earning a minor degree in Composition, Rhetoric, and Literacy Studies along with her MFA. Classes such as Educational Psychology of Adult Learners and Rhetoric proved invaluable during the job search and after. She was first hired at Century College, where she helped establish a student creative writing club and publication. Today she is tenured at Saint Paul College, a century-old vocational education college with recent liberal arts accreditation. The fresh start is exhilarating, she says: "How often do you get a chance to help build a program from the ground up?"

Besides creative writing, Taylor proposed an Introduction to Technical Writing course, which she now regularly teaches along with composition and literature. She's been instrumental in getting an anthology of student work published and is co-adviser of the student creative writing association. With other colleagues, she is working on proposals for an online literary and arts magazine class and an AFA in creative writing.

Like many community college faculty, she teaches four classes a semester, as well as summer offerings. One of the job's challenges is also one its greatest rewards: getting to work with, in Taylor's words, a "wide variety of human being." She clarifies: "The diversity of learning style, background, culture, age, and needs means I am constantly changing what I do in order to teach more effectively: these are students who can make you a better teacher every day."

Taylor says that she has continued to learn from the teaching models and the "generosity of spirit" of Creative Writing professors Julie Schumacher, Michael Dennis Brown, and Maria Damon. "Because I'm currently working on dark urban YA horror/fantasy," she observes, "the Young Adult Narrators course I took with Julie has been coming to mind lately." Taylor participated in the Loft Literary Center Mentor Series in 2003-2004. Her work has appeared in many literary journals, as well as the anthologies From Inside Grief: Death, Loss and Bereavement and Blink: Sudden Fiction by Minnesota Writers. The latter's sequel, Blink Again (Spout Press), features Taylor's flash fiction "Bomb Threat."

She used to write flash fiction between wash cycles at an LA laundromat, she relates: "The compression of the story was a function of the sense of time and the need to ignore the drunk guy slumped over in the yellow plastic chair across the room." Now she writes at home, while the family sleeps. "I throw in a load of laundry, write, throw it into the dryer, write some more, fold while thinking about what I'm writing, then go back to the computer. The by-product is always having clean towels."

Joyce Sutphen (BA summa cum laude '82, MA '93, PhD '96) was recently named the poet laureate of our great flannel state. She graciously agreed to answer a few questions for us about her writing and what it's like to preside over Minnesota's poetry kingdom. [Interview first ran on the MFA Program blog.]

How does it feel to receive a title like "poet laureate"?
It feels a bit unreal; I can't explain how it happened or what I did to deserve the title. People like to tease me ("Where are your laurels?" "Do I have to address you as Madame Poet Laureate?"), and I laugh and change the subject.

Is there a difference between a poet laureate's responsibilities to the (general) public and his/her responsibilities to the writing community?
I hope not, because I don't think in those terms. I write for passionate intelligent readers, and those readers are part of the writing community that exists in every part of the state.

Minnesota is not the only thing you write about, but it's something that surfaces and resurfaces throughout your body of work. Is there some aspect or part of Minnesota you've been preoccupied with in your writing lately?
I haven't finished with writing about my family and the experience of growing up on a small farm. That's material that keeps looking different to me, and I continue to try to get it down, to create something that conveys what's being lost when those independent little places disappear. Lately I have been writing poems about the late sixties, when I was an undergraduate at the University, and the early seventies, when I was trying to find my way through . . . life.

Which contemporary Minnesota poets are you excited about?
I feel fortunate to have met so many fine Minnesota poets over the years. I especially admire Connie Wanek (of Duluth), Tim Nolan (Minneapolis), Patricia Kirkpatrick (St. Paul), and Phil Bryant (St. Peter). These four are excellent poets in very different ways and make a sort of poetic compass for me. We often send each other new poems and talk about who we are reading. Lately I have been admiring [BA alumnus] Ed Bok Lee's new book, Whorled, [BA alumnus] Jim Moore's beautiful Invisible Strings, and [PhD alumnus] Bill Reichard's Sin Eater. Of course, there are poets I have admired for years and those I've come to read and admire more recently. I tried to make a list, but it's impossible!

Can you give us a prompt for a poem?
For me, most poems come in one of two ways: either I get an idea or some words, and I obey the direction of that prompting and start writing, or I start reading poems (from a volume I'm currently reading or a book I pull from the shelf) until something (an idea or a word) catches my imagination, and I pick up a pen and write. In the classroom, it's hard to present students with more than one poem, but sometimes I like to take a pair of poems that complement each other in some way, read the poems out loud, talk about them a bit, and then give the class about ten minutes to write. I try not to suggest a direction in this kind of exercise, since I want the richness of the source poems to lead the way.

Soon after he graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2000, Peter Geye began writing a novel. He entered a low residency MFA program with the University of New Orleans, working at a bank during the day and writing at night and on weekends. He knew where the story took place before he knew the story: the North Shore of Lake Superior, which he had discovered on family trips as a child. Then came the characters: an old man, dying; his bitter son, who has joined him at a cabin near the big lake. And finally the central drama: the wreck of a great ore ship, like those giants he remembered parading into the Duluth harbor.

After Geye received his MFA in 2003, he started a PhD at Western Michigan University, eventually editing the literary journal Third Coast. The novel stayed in his head, fermenting. He went back to it and revised. The manuscript got elbowed aside again. Degree in hand, he returned to it, honing to spare elegance its tale of a shipwreck survivor's trauma, which, long repressed, nearly destroys his family. Three years went by finding an agent and a publisher and revising with an editor. "It's a grueling process," Geye describes in an email from his Minnapolis home. "If I didn't have thick skin when I started, I do now." Meanwhile, he'd become a father once, twice, three times.

A decade after its first sentence was written, Safe from the Sea was published last October by literary press Unbridled Books. The response, from first readers such as library and publishing trade journal critics, was immediate and positive: "[In] this deeply moving, powerfully realized debut novel, an estranged father and son find reconciliation in the final week of the father's life," praised Library Journal. Staff at independent bookstores read the novel and began hand-selling it to customers. Blogs such as Bookslut.com took up the buzz, and in February Safe from the Sea won the inaugural Indie Lit Award for literary fiction, a prize given by literary bloggers. In May the book received a Northeastern Minnesota Book Award.

It's safe to say Geye's publisher wants the next novel before a decade is up. And Geye is working on it. But: "I'm a stay-at-home father of three young kids," he notes, "so my day starts with dirty diapers at seven o'clock and ends after baths at nine. I write on Mondays and Fridays for five hours at a spell, on the weekends, and whenever I can squeeze in the odd hour of work. It's not ideal, but staying at home with the kids is a different kind of reward."

Geye has revealed that one of the subplots of Safe from the Sea, infertility, arose from his wife and his struggle to have children. It's a surprising and provocative thread in a novel with a compacted style and man vs. nature conflict recalling Hemingway and Cormac McCarthy, whom Geye mentions as favorites. But he's also a fan of Margaret Atwood's Surfacing, a feminist reading of madness as a response to social oppression. Indeed Safe from the Sea can be seen as a subtle meditation on changing gender roles, especially in terms of occupation: the son with his job as a purveyor of expensive antique maps, his wife a successful professional; the father a veteran of decades of ship labor. The son drinks in his father's work tales with wonder. "Noah has the same boyish enthusiasm for the boats that I myself do," admits Geye. "And though I wouldn't say that I mythologize the trade in the way that Noah does, I understand that myth as an English major."

He also understands that myth as a son: "My father is retired now, but he was up and out the door at five in the morning when I was a kid," relates Geye. "He worked as a building superintendent for the YMCA, so his days were spent fixing boilers and patching leaky roofs. And though I've had my share of jobs that made me sweat, mostly I've lived a charmed life. To sit at a desk and do what I love best seems in a way like cheating. I think Noah feels the same way about the life that he's fallen into, which is supremely upper middle-class. And just as surely, Olaf is suspicious of his son's life."

As Olaf slowly narrates to Noah the tale of the shipwreck and its aftermath, the reader discovers with Noah the emotional burden this tough man has never before admitted carrying. Yet the story of the sinking is still a thriller. "I love great adventure writing," Geye declares. "It's my opinion that literary writing and adventure writing are not mutually exclusive. My favorite books are adventure books. [McCarthy's] Blood Meridian, Moby Dick, [Bruce Machart's] The Wake of Forgiveness, Hemingway's stories, they're all driven as much by action as language."

Geye has said elsewhere, "Stories are the great heroes, not individuals"--spoken like an English major. But he still appreciates the encouragement and guidance he received at the University of Minnesota. "[Regents Professor] Patricia Hampl was very kind to me, and her wisdom is beyond measure." He also cites the influence of Scandinavian Professor Goran Stockenstrom. "But the truth is," he states, "I never had a class or professor--in the English department or anywhere else--that didn't exceed my expectations. By the time I got around to finishing college I was a very eager learner. That helps."

He's still a motivated learner--and writer: At press time, he emailed to say that his second novel will be published in fall 2012. The setting came first: the North Shore . . . .

Sheila O'Connor (BA 1982) has been a teacher almost as long as she has been a writer. She's an assistant professor of Creative Writing at Hamline University, and for many years she participated in the COMPASS program Artists and Writers in the Schools. But her writing and teaching lives have perhaps never been more so entwined than in her third novel Sparrow Road (Putnam, 2011). Imagine If You Want to Write re-envisioned as a story about a crabby 12-year-old girl stuck in the country with no TV and no other children.

The girl's name is Raine, and her mother has mysteriously taken a summer job as a cook at an isolated artists' colony--one with a day-time silence policy. Raine sulks, but soon a friendly collagist whispers a secret in the form of a question: "What if?" And her whole world tilts. That same question, states O'Connor in an email from her Twin Cities home, "is the beginning of every work of fiction that I write. What if?

"And it's the 'what if' that keeps me going from one page to the next," O'Connor continues, "the mystery of what could happen. I write to see how the story will unfold."

What's enchanting about Sparrow Road is how O'Connor shows multiple and various ways people might imagine and then fashion a creative possibility. Yes, Raine begins to write a story, but she also witnesses what might happen if, say, a bent spoon is collaged with a battered bottle cap, or a few scraps of fabric meet up with the history of an old building, or a good cook is let loose in the kitchen. "[The novel] is a celebration of the arts across the disciplines," O'Connor affirms, "and the power of art-making in our lives regardless of the form."

In the book's back pages, the author thanks visual and musical artists. "I studied visual art at the University of Minnesota," she remembers, "and was terrifically inspired by the painter David Feinberg. In our house it's common to do all kinds of art--music, dance, drawing, acting, singing, writing. We may not be practitioners of every form, but we are definitely admirers of what others can create."

And, as Raine learns in Sparrow Road, the coming together of different disciplines can encourage innovation. Indeed, it was in the midst of the gathering of writers, scholars, and artists at the Anderson Center residency program that O'Connor first thought: What if a child came to an artists' colony?

"Both Clare's Well [in Little Falls] and the Anderson Center are slices of heaven for me," O'Connor reveals. "I do my best work at such places--and I am grateful for all I have accomplished in their quiet.

"[B]ut more they represent the transformative power of vision and generosity. That such places even exist is evidence of tremendous goodwill in our world, of how much good people can accomplish, and I hope Sparrow Road is a testament to that."

Raine's creative investigations lead her to the history of the colony's main building, which was once an orphanage. Raine, like the 12-year-old at the heart of O'Connor's Minnesota Book Award-winning novel Where No Gods Came (2003), has herself suffered a parental abandonment. In writing a story that is both hers and the building's, she makes connections past her immediate community, connections that identify and ease a hurt that includes but is greater than her own.

"Sparrow Road isn't a book that desires to take a stand--it's a book about wonder," claims O'Connor. "It asks everyone to wonder about many things--including me. I wonder about family, separation, and forgiveness. I wonder what it means to live without a parent."

On her website, O'Connor writes about her parents' divorce, about bouncing around between elementary schools. She started writing in fourth grade, in part to remember what was happening to her, to make it solid. What if--after such a start--you went to the University of Minnesota and a teacher encouraged you to write?

"I am indebted to Michael Dennis Browne for nudging me toward graduate school [in poetry]," O'Connor observes, "and Trish Hampl for telling me she hoped I wouldn't quit writing stories, and Alan Burns for seeing whatever raw gifts I had inside the first time I wrote fiction. All of them expected me to take my writing seriously, and so I did. I have tried to do them honor in my own mentorship of students."

She certainly does them honor in this effervescent and earthy mentor of a story.

The vibrancy of a literary community depends in part on how well it encourages and nurtures beginning writers. One sign that the Twin Cities is in the midst of a literary heyday lies in the rapidly expanding group of novelists writing for middle-graders to young adults, whose pioneers--including Alison McGhee (MA 1992) and Julie Schumacher (Professor and Director of the Creative Writing Program)--are active participants in seeding and watering their "field." Case in point: Schumacher's and McGhee's praise on the back of Susan Niz's debut novel for young adults, Kara, Lost (North Star Press of St. Cloud, 2011).

Niz (BA 1997) didn't meet Schumacher or McGhee at the University. "I knew I wanted to be a writer back when I was an undergraduate," confesses Niz in an email, "in fact, long before that. [But] at the time, I wasn't ready to tell the stories that I was meant to tell, and I wasn't prepared for critique and revision--essential elements of fiction writing."

She did take a class with poet and professor Michael Dennis Browne. And, like all English majors, she learned to write better by exploring the reading lists of every required literature course. In a few years she was ready to tell a gritty story about a runaway who struggles to find a secure place for herself in the rapidly changing landscape of early Nineties Minneapolis. "I didn't set out to write a young adult novel," Niz relates, "but I knew very clearly that the voice of my protagonist was a 16-year-old."

She met local mystery novelist David Housewright when he taught a novel-writing class at the Loft. After the course, he gave her a positive manuscript critique. Niz worked six years on Kara, Lost, drafting and revising, letting it sit, revising and editing. "I did not give up," she describes, "because I knew that my story was worthwhile, because David Housewright had told me it was good. I would tell new writers to find a published writer who believes in your work."

In a way, Kara, Lost itself is about finding help--and figuring out who you can trust. Niz's protagonist, having followed her sister in fleeing their suburban parents, is left homeless when her sister's roommate and lover refuses shelter. Kara falls in with outliers of the fabled mid-eighties to early nineties Minneapolis music scene, including punks hanging out at the Uptown McDonald's, but they're either equally desperate or threatening. Instead, she finds both employment and assistance via a Vietnamese immigrant couple running a restaurant on Lake Street. "I actually did work at a Vietnamese restaurant," Niz reveals, "which created specific memories that I wanted to incorporate into my book.

"Immigrants have been an important part of my life," she explains. "I suppose that I feel affinity to people who feel misplaced and who search for home and identity. Kara is in a position where she is humbled by her circumstances. Tam and Binh, as owners of a restaurant, are able to provide her stability and financial means by employing her. In addition, they are caring, good people who want the best for her, even when they are just getting by."

The life Kara makes for herself in her cheap South Minneapolis apartment may be rickety (and does eventually fall apart), but it's also hard-won, commendable, and described with great texture and weight. Niz was inspired by detail-oriented writers such as Wally Lamb and Frank McCourt: "I enjoy minute detail when I am reading and really wanted to bring the readers that close to Kara's experience," she notes.

"Kara is isolated, and her existence is meager, yet she is able to earn an income that allows her to pay her rent and acquire her dollar store plastic tumblers for powdered lemonade and cheap saucepan for cooking ramen noodles. This is quite an accomplishment for a 16-year-old runaway. I lived in apartments like this! Where you just say to yourself, How am I going to make this work?"

For all its realism, Kara, Lost may be read too as a grim fairy tale, complete with a homicidal goat under a bridge. The protagonist must brave the dangers (and emotional costs) of establishing her independence and become the hero of her own life, along the way finding like-minded traveling companions.

Niz plans to continue writing for young adults, although she may bring her next protagonist into the present time. "I am definitely drawn to exploring the emotional world of teenagers," the author allows, "especially those struggling with chaos, trauma, or instability. I am able to access that voice."

From its title, doctoral candidate Elissa Hansen's dissertation project--"Signs of the Time: Temporality in Fourteenth-Century English Contemplative Writing"--doesn't sound like it will venture into the dangerous waters of heresy. But complicating orthodoxy is both its subject and its method: Hansen shows how three contemplatives do an end-run around Catholic hierarchy by herself dismantling accepted historical theories about medieval thinking on time.

"There's a sort of flattening narrative of the Middle Ages," says Hansen, interviewed this fall in Lind Hall, "which involves the pre-Reformation idea: everybody was Catholic, and that's just how it was. To borrow from William James, I got interested in the 'varieties of religious experience' in the Middle Ages, seeing what that looked like in different writers. I'm excited about heresy, so I started thinking about what it means to claim authority in different ways as someone who is affiliated with orthodoxy."

Hansen argues that medieval contemplative writers--whether hermits or the anchorites, mostly women, who were walled up within a church--claimed authority by modeling to lay readers ways to understand and communicate with God, particularly via ideas about time.

Hansen's adviser, associate professor Rebecca Krug, calls the dissertation project "a strikingly original study" which "demonstrates the ways traditional scholars of mystical devotion have resisted historicizing the subject of temporality." Indeed, the project won a 2011-12 Graduate School Dissertation Fellowship, which allows Hansen to focus on writing.

Time became a fluid concept during the Middle Ages. "In the fourteenth century," explains Hansen, "you have 76 public clocks installed in England. So there's this huge shift in how people think about public time." Historicists have tended to sum up the shift as a movement from church to mercantile time. Meanwhile, scholarship on contemplative writing has aligned contemplation with a linear Christian "end-of-days" narrative and/or a sort of eternal bliss outside of time. Hansen's investigation uncovers more complex and nuanced narratives which don't necessarily fall into these binaries.

Focusing on the anchorite Julian of Norwich, the hermit Richard Rolle, and the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing, Hansen describes how the works create a "rhetoric of time" to give structure to how readers think about temporality. These writers "mold the abstract idea of time into concrete tools with which believers can access God and gain knowledge of their own souls," Hansen writes, while also illustrating how contemplative practice can act as a personal path to God.

That Hansen believes these narratives were pitched to lay audiences as well as the monastic readership is a theory only recently becoming less heretical. Professor Krug was a pioneer in this area with her 2002 book Reading Families: Women's Literate Practice in Late Medieval England. Hansen's professors at the University of Wyoming, where she earned her MA, introduced her to Krug's work. "Becky has been an amazing, supportive adviser," enthuses Hansen, who is hoping to graduate next spring, in what will be a quick five years.

Krug has also been an inspiration in terms of teaching practice, along with another medievalist, Lianna Farber. "They have really different teaching styles," Hansen says, "but they were both informative to my own teaching. Becky runs things more like a conversation--asking what we'd be interested in and how it informs our research. Lianna has a really great Socratic method, where she leads people through very complicated texts--and that kind of precision was really inspiring."

Because her project connects intellectual and social history, Hansen has benefited from the range of University students involved with the Medieval & Early Modern Research Group (MEMRG). "It's been great to run ideas by each other," she says. "I feel like I've learned so much in the past four years here."

A good fit goes both ways, and Hansen has played an integral part in the graduate program at Minnesota. She served as vice president and president of MEMRG and as president of the Graduate Student Organization in English. She has presented several papers locally, including an invited presentation within the University's Center for Medieval Studies workshop series, a rare opportunity for a graduate student. She organized biweekly reading groups focused on sight-translations of Latin and Old English texts and Middle English pronunciation.

All this from a student who started out at Cal Poly as an Economics major. One general survey course on Medieval Literature, and she was hooked. "Often we get this narrative about the Middle Ages as kind of backward," she points out. "My professor made it much more richly textured. She and the faculty there modeled excitement about literature and about teaching. So I got excited about being a professor."

To that end, Hansen has contributed a chapter to a book to be published next spring, Reading Memory and Identity in the Texts of Medieval European Holy Women (Palgrave-MacMillan), edited by Margaret Cotter-Lynch and Bradley Herzog. Even while occupied with her dissertation, she has been generating ideas for scholarship beyond its scope, for example, modern-day "end of history" narratives. "I feel like it could be one of those projects that opens doors for more research," she says with relish, exhibiting the same (in these times, heretical?) enthusiasm about literature that led her here.

PhD candidate Elissa Hansen is not the only English graduate student who has been compelled to write about the relationship of literature and time. Adam Barrows (PhD 2006) wrote his dissertation on the introduction of a global standardized time in 1884, investigating the impact of this remarkable moment in terms of modern literature and imperialism. His adviser was Professor Timothy Brennan. Last year he published The Cosmic Time of Empire: Modern Britain and World Literature with the University of California Press, which focuses on representations of human temporality in works by James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, H. Rider Haggard, Bram Stoker, Rudyard Kipling, and Joseph Conrad. Barrows is Assistant Professor of English Language and Literature at Carleton University in Ontario. We poached on his time with a few questions.

How are these events in time related?
I would agree with Elissa that the installation of public clocks in the fourteenth century and then the mass distribution of the pocket watch later in the eighteenth century are the great moments for transforming time consciousness. What is unique about the later development of global standardized time, though, is that it takes (at least theoretically) the "ownership" of time measurement and management out of the hands of localities and nations. The public clocks were often objects of local pride, many of them engraved or decorated with events and figures of purely local significance. Similarly, pocket watches were popular because people would often publically and ostentatiously check or set them against those public clocks. It was a way of carrying the national time with you and feeling like a participant in the public act of helping to manage and maintain the proper time. With Greenwich Mean Time, those local or national clocks are in fact no longer valid representations of accurate time. Time is now dictated first by the Observatory at Greenwich and then transmitted to every other clock, and then later is determined by coordinating observatories around the globe (Universal Coordinated Time--which is just GMT as determined by multiple observatories). Since none of us read the "correct" time by our own locality's measurement of the sun's position, we no longer think of time as something that is in our hands to maintain and utilize--it's dictated to us from authorities.

How did you become interested in the concept of time?
It goes farther back than I am able to trace, I guess. I was a big Doctor Who fan growing up. Reading Proust's Remembrance of Things Past at about 22 years old was a huge influence on me. As far as this particular subject, the Greenwich idea arose out of a paper I was writing on Dracula for Lois Cucullu's graduate class at Minnesota on British masculinity and grew from there.

How did modernist writers experiment with representing human time after the establishment of a world clock?
When I talk about experimentation, I mean not necessarily the avant-garde experimentation with time that you get in Virginia Woolf's The Waves (which arguably challenges the tenets of standard time) but also writers experimenting with the notion of standard time in their fiction in ways that enforce and uphold the new system. This is where Dracula comes in: I show how that novel reveals a new sensitivity to the notion of time measurement as a tool of global management, that clocks help us to manipulate and neutralize exotic times and spaces--the clock as a vampire-killing weapon!

It was different back then
The first thing that comes to mind is how very different today's department is from the one I joined in 1968. I could begin with the way I was hired--by letter. There was no campus interview. I was a graduate student working on my dissertation in Taiwan. I did have a chance to meet and talk with Romeyn Taylor, the first Chinese history specialist in the department, who was in Taiwan on a sabbatical. But our conversations were mostly about our research interests in the Ming Dynasty and certainly did not constitute a formal interview process.

When the white male faculty convened in the Ford Room there was so much cigarette and pipe smoke that you could hardly breathe. There was a good deal of tension in the atmosphere as well. The front office, under the strict control of Marlowe, the department secretary, was not a pleasant place to be unless you were a very senior member of the faculty.

The faculty was deeply divided between a more conservative European wing and a more liberal American wing. Those like myself, who belonged to neither camp, were referred to dismissively as "feathers." The great men of that time included Harold Deutsch, who had created a successful undergraduate curriculum of courses about World War II that enrolled hundreds of students, and Tom Jones, a Regents Professor of ancient history who commanded the largest body of graduate students. Thanks to his expertise in ancient languages, Jones had worked at code breaking during the war; he kept classified materials in a safe in his office and offered graduate instruction in cryptography on the side. Information about salaries, tenure, promotion, and appointments was closely held by the full professors who made all the decisions and felt no need to justify their actions to junior colleagues.

There was tension, too, about the direction of the department. This manifested itself in the struggles to control the most precious resource available to us: new position money. The 1960s were a time of growth and the way forward was unclear. The old guard tended to like things the way they were and viewed vacancies as opportunities to replace retirees with new recruits who did the same thing; usually the national history of one of the great powers. There was a vague apprehension that the discipline might be headed (mistakenly) in some other direction, perhaps toward some kind of quantifiable history, what later became known as "Cliometrics."

As an idealistic and imprudent assistant professor, I had my own ideas along these lines--to me it was obvious that we needed more Asian history. But how to do that? Lacking any influence or many allies I sought to persuade colleagues of the correctness of my views. My solution was to open up questions of priorities to public discussion. This was not something I could openly advocate as a junior member so I asked David Noble to introduce the proposition on my behalf. It went absolutely nowhere. David was a popular teacher with a towering international reputation but he was neither comfortable nor successful in the give and take of departmental politics and eventually moved to the American studies department.

A revolution develops
Despite my frustrations, the department was on the cusp of a major transformation in both its governance and its composition. Change in governance came in the form a peaceful constitutional revolution. Stuart Hoyt, who had succeeded Harold Deutsch as chairman of the department, was an ardent student of English legal history and liked the idea of constitutional reform so he let the revolution go forward. Junior faculty members were dissatisfied with the undemocratic way decisions were made and demanded change. In the transition period David Keift and I were selected to sit in with the full professors on the promotion meetings. It was an eye opening experience. What we witnessed was outright horse trading between the Europeanists and the Americanists--"If you promote A then we will promote B"--with no reference whatsoever to the person's qualifications.

We had heard that the political science department used a committee system to recommend pay increases. Frank Sorauf, a respected and trusted member of that department, was invited to explain what they did. After his presentation, we adopted a far more radical set of procedures. Not just merit, but tenure, promotion, and hiring were all opened to participation and voting by members at all ranks. Information about salaries and merit recommendations was openly shared. Even where the college constitution required votes only of those senior in rank for tenure and promotion, the departmental constitution now required a separate vote of all ranks. Lest a discrepancy occur between the two sets of ballots, the chair was required to report both votes to the faculty. The political empowerment of junior faculty, which some had predicted would lead to a decline in standards, had just the opposite effect. Standards rose as favoritism and bargaining declined dramatically.

Another major element in the transformation of the department was the move of Sue Cave, later Sue Haskins, to the front office. For some years Sue had worked in the Graduate Studies Office and typed manuscripts on the side. After she took over the front office she proved to be a masterful administrator. Year by year the administration of the department's affairs became smoother, the hiring and assignment of staff more professional, and the atmosphere more collegial. Her fairness and concern for every individual helped to create a sense of community. The History Department became known as one of the best places in CLA to work.

Struggling to diversify
The diversification of the department's composition had begun before I came to Minnesota. The changes mirrored what was happening in other parts of American life. I believe that Hyman Berman and Josef Altholz were the first Jewish members of the faculty. When Romeyn Taylor was hired the position was first offered to a Chinese scholar who turned it down. The same thing happened when I was hired. In neither case do I know the motives of those two persons who declined to join our faculty. But it would not have been easy to be the first non-white member of the department. Even as white males, Romeyn and I often found ourselves referred to as "exotics" and, when talking in the hall, might be accused by those passing by of hatching an "oriental conspiracy." Such remarks, while offered in jest, served to convey the message that we were isolates and what we studied was marginal.

In response to the civil rights movement, we voted to set aside four positions in the graduate program for African American students. Al Jones, who taught U.S. history, made a tour of black colleges in the South to recruit students. Some of those recruits are today leading figures in African American history. The civil rights movement could cut both ways, however. Allan Spear, who had written an important book, Black Chicago, found it increasingly uncomfortable to teach African American history as a white instructor. Marginalized in the historical profession, he ran for the state legislature where he became the president of the senate. He was one of the first gay legislators to come out of the closet. His experiences are recounted in his autobiography, Crossing the Barriers, which was posthumously published by the University of Minnesota Press last year.

The first black person to join the faculty was Lansine Kaba, an aristocratic African with a French education. The first American Indian was Roger Buffalohead; he did not stay long. In a very competitive job market it was hard to hire and keep African American historians.

The arrival of women faculty
The most important change, I think, in making the department more diverse, more open, and more welcoming was the arrival of women members in the 1970s and 1980s. There is a great story to be told about how women worked together to support each other and change the culture of the department. I am not the person to tell that story but I can make a few observations. It was not all sunshine and roses. Carol Gold, an assistant professor who had the temerity to suggest that smoking be prohibited in department meetings, got her wish. But the next year she was brought up early for promotion and denied tenure. Sara Evans was one of the pioneers of the new field of women's history. She and her colleagues worked to create a women's studies department at the undergraduate level and the Center for Advanced Feminist Studies, at the graduate level. This entailed building connections and alliances across departments and disciplines in ways that transformed the culture of the college as well as the department. But Sara did not stop at that level; she was involved in heroic efforts at the university level to fight discrimination and bring about pay equity. These were local battles in what were larger national and international struggles. Sara went on to become department chair and a Regents Professor in the course of her career.

The introduction of women's studies was one of a number of changes that opened up the department and the profession to new approaches. Over time, women's studies broadened out into gender studies. African American studies got a foothold at Minnesota after a group of students staged a sit-in in Morrill Hall. Comparable political action was not a possibility for other minority groups but American Indian studies, Chicano studies, and Asian American studies came along in due course, each adding a new element and new connections to our department.

History expands
Many other developments grew from the old European and U.S. core constituencies. Demography is a good example. What started under Steve Ruggles as a center to foster U.S. population studies using census data, has blossomed into the Minnesota Population Center, a university-level institute that includes the whole world within its compass. Thanks to some unplanned hires, the medieval section of the department expanded and came to play a leading role in the Center for Medieval Studies, one of the most active interdisciplinary communities in the college. Jim Tracy, a specialist on the Netherlands, came up with the idea of a Center for Early Modern History that has linked colleagues across the department and the college and, through its conferences, established a global presence. Outside the department Allen Isaacman created the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change, which spans all the colleges in the university and links to other universities both domestically and internationally. The list goes on.

Asianists like me
My own training was not in a history department but in graduate programs in East Asian regional studies and history and Far Eastern languages. In the history department in Minnesota I interacted most closely with other Asianists--Romeyn Taylor in Chinese history, Byron Marshall in Japanese history, David Kopf and David Lelyveld in South Asian history. I have written elsewhere about how our interaction and collaboration on a comparative survey course on the history of civilizations in Asia transformed me into a dedicated comparativist (See "How comparison led me to World History and Globalization" online in The Middle Ground Journal). During my first three decades at Minnesota, I expended an enormous amount of time and effort to reproduce the kind of area studies I had experienced as a graduate student. This included forming an East Asian studies major; participating in and chairing an East Asian studies department; organizing an East Asian master's program; serving as director of graduate studies for Chinese, East Asian studies, Japanese, and Russian area studies; acting as the last director of the Institute for International Studies; and working outside the University on the Midwest China Center. Suffice it to say that none of those institutions or programs survived. At some point in the 1980s it dawned on me that I was wasting my time: the University of Minnesota was not congenial to area studies in the form that existed elsewhere, and the College of Liberal Arts was partial to disciplinary departments. While I was struggling to promote East Asian area studies in a hostile environment, the History Department and the history profession were undergoing a transformation away from the "silos" of national history to embrace a range of new perspectives. Happily for me, I belonged to this unit which had become one of the largest, most cosmopolitan, and best run departments in the college.

Looking back, I marvel at my own good fortune in Chinese history. As an undergraduate I fled the biological sciences (and chemistry labs) for history and philosophy. Looking for something different, foreign, and far away, I chose a course on China from the catalogue. I got hooked. When I took up the study of China in the mid-1950's Americans could not go there. In graduate school at Harvard, I picked a dissertation topic on the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) in part because it was so little studied. How slim were the chances that I would land a job at a university with another Ming specialist (Romeyn Taylor) or that the college would hire a third Ming specialist (Ann Waltner)? In the 1970s I started the journal Ming Studies that gave me and the department added visibility in the field of Chinese history both here and abroad. Ming history turned out to be a growth field and the journal soon spawned a Society for Ming Studies as well as a Ming Studies Research Series published in the department and now housed in the Center for Early Modern History.

I was 40 before I got to mainland China for the first time. It was 1975 and the Cultural Revolution still made any meaningful scholarship there unthinkable. Within five years, Mao was gone and China opened up to the west. Again I was lucky: the University of Minnesota had some of the strongest China ties of any school in North America. Before long there were more than a thousand mainland Chinese on our campus and being from the U of M provided entree to any institution in China. By the sheerest chance, it turned out that the person in charge of the Ming History Section of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in Beijing had written her dissertation at Peking University on the same topic as my dissertation and first book. Needless to say, I found a warm welcome there. And although I always believed that China would one day resume its former role as one of the leading societies on earth, I had no idea that it would happen in my lifetime. Who could have predicted that the stultified and paranoid People's Republic of China I first visited in 1975 would undergo the most rapid industrialization and economic development in human history? It was also my luck to be linked to a country with one of the world's greatest culinary traditions and a country in which students are taught to honor their teachers. There is much to like about the study of China.

Finally, a global home
My last two decades of teaching were colored by the way globalization was transforming our world. At the end of the 1980s I proposed that the department offer a course on world history. A team of faculty members spent a year planning the course, and I spent two summers in workshops devoted to shaping its curriculum and selecting teaching materials. Once the course was launched, I taught in all three quarters of the year-long survey; when we went to semesters at the turn of the century, I spun off the third quarter as a one semester course on global history of the information age. Along the way I had the opportunity to co-teach in this course with Wim Phillips, Romeyn Taylor, Stuart Schwartz, Lary May, Sara Evans, Bob McCaa, Tom Wolfe, Pat McNamara, and Carol Hakim. After decades of searching for an academic home I had found it where I had begun - in the Department of History.

March 2011

Continuously Rich: Dance Revolutions 2010, Winter 2010
Jawole Willa Jo Zollar's Walking with Pearl...Southern Diaries
PHOTOGRAPH: V. PAUL VIRTUCIO

Upcoming Cowles highlights for Spring 2011 include a faculty residency exchange with the University of Illinois. Carl Flink was in residence in Urbana in January, and Linda Lehovec joined us as a Cowles Visiting Artist for two weeks in February, teaching and setting a work for the Spring Concert (which took place March 4 and 5). Also the recognized composer and dance accompanist Scott Killian was in residence for one week in February to work with students in Dance Composition courses, accompany classes, and connect with students, faculty, staff and the community. Planning for next year's visiting artists and scholars is underway, and it has been decided that the Cowles residencies will include at least one masterwork or work by a master teacher, as well as duets from the Dance faculty.

Several dance faculty members were honored for their work during the past year. Joanie Smith was recently named by City Pages as one of their 2010 Artists of the Year. Dance Program Director Ananya Chatterjea, Theatre Arts and Dance Chair Carl Flink, and dance faculty member Toni Pierce-Sands (co-artistic director with her partner Uri Sands of TU Dance) were all featured during 2010 on segments of Twin Cities Public Television's new arts series, Minnesota Original. And The Woyzeck Project, co-directed by Flink, and featuring his company, Black Label Movement (joined by several current Theatre Arts and Dance students and recent alums), made Star Tribune theater critic Graydon Royce's top five list for 2010.

Lance Brockman's Scenic Painting course
PHOTOGRAPH: LEIAH STEVERMER

We were also fortunate to have Andrew Saboe, who returned to teach a topics class in Computer Aided Design, and Andrea Moriarity, who taught a year-long class in Wig and Hair Design and Production. Andrew is an alum of the program and has worked for countless theater companies in the Twin Cities area as well as for VEE Corporation. Andrea is a Wig and Makeup Master and Instructor. Currently she is a Wig Assistant at the Guthrie Theater, where she has worked on numerous productions, most recently Caroline, or Change and Little House on the Prairie.

The Design/Tech program, in conjunction with the Guthrie Theater, hosted the fall workshop for the Northern Boundaries Section of United States Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT) in September. Workshops were presented by members of our faculty as well as professionals from the community, including the following. "Lighting and Sound at the Guthrie," presented by Tom Mays, Guthrie Theater Lighting Supervisor and Scott Edwards, Guthrie Theater Sound Supervisor; "Costume Design and Realization for The Importance Of Being Earnest and When We Are Married at the Guthrie Theater," presented by dj gramann II, lead draper at the Guthrie Theater, and Mathew J. LeFebvre, designer (and UM faculty member); "Scene Painting the Brockman Way," presented by MFA student Carla Sandoval; and "A Hands-on DL3 Projector and VL Workshop," presented by UM faculty members Martin Gwinup and Bill Healey. In addition, a number of our faculty members and students attended the national USITT Conference in Kansas City, Missouri in March 2010. Examples of student and faculty designs were featured in the Design Expo exhibit.

We had another successful MFA Design/Tech Showcase at the end of the last academic year. A gallery-style exhibit of student work was presented on the Proscenium stage on May 9 and 10, 2010. It was an opportunity for professional Directors, Artistic Directors, Designers, and Technicians to see the extensive work of our design students. It was also a wonderful opportunity for the students to get feedback and advice from a wide range of theater artists and practitioners. This year's Showcase is scheduled for May 9, 2011. Please check the departmental webpage for updates (http://theatre.umn.edu/).
Last summers production of The Triumph Of Love on the Minnesota Centennial Showboat featured the design work of several MFA students. Amanda Wambach was scenic designer, Annie Cady designed costumes and Mark Larson designed the lighting.

Applause: Can you talk a bit about your background: what got you interested in theater, particularly theater management, and how and why you made the journey from the Signature Theatre Company in New York, to the Guthrie and State Arts Board in Minneapolis, to the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, and now back to Minneapolis to join the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance as our new Producing Director?

Proehl: My father was a music teacher and a theater director in a high school when I was a kid, so I got my first exposure to theater by going to shows he directed. I didn't personally get involved in theater until my senior year in High School when a friend of mine asked me to audition for the melodrama, Gold in the Hills. I auditioned, got cast, and it changed my life. The experience lit a passion in me that I didn't know existed. I began college as an accounting major which I switched halfway through to a theater major. After college I moved directly to New York to be, I thought, an actor. After auditioning for a number of shows, I realized that, though I was cast in college, I had a lot more competition in New York. This is when I began to think of other ways to work in the theater - I didn't necessarily have to be onstage. I started thinking about arts administration as a career.

Applause: So you grew up in Minnesota, and your high school experience was in Minnesota?

Proehl: Yes, Moorhead, Minnesota. I was born in Hastings, grew up in Moorhead. So a true Minnesotan. When I got to New York, I ran an off-Broadway ticket office where I discovered that I really enjoyed understanding the different ways I could support what's onstage. After working at many theater jobs in New York, I was hired by the Dramatists Guild. With the support of the Executive Director, I was allowed to pursue my masters degree, which I did at Brooklyn College under Stephen Langley, who was the then-guru of Theater Management. During my time in that program - one of the first Theater Management programs in the country - I met Jim Houghton, who was just starting to work on Signature Theatre Company as the Founding Artistic Director. I was instantly inspired by Jim's vision for Signature and told him that if he needed any help with the company to just let me know. He called me the next day, and that was the beginning of my career with Signature. The first season featured playwright Romulus Linney. From that point on, the company began to grow - rapidly. I was at Signature for eight years, the first five on a "volunteer" basis" as the company didn't have the resources to support a fulltime staff. We were very fortunate to have playwrights who lent their names to actually help establish that theater. We spent three years in a small 80-seat theater way off-off Broadway, then we were hosted by the Public Theater for two years, and finally we built our own space on 42nd Street. That was the first theater that I got to build, both as a company and a building. After that, I said, OK, what's next?

Applause: So, even with all that success you left Signature?

Proehl: I'm a firm believer in the idea that when the time is right to leave, one must leave. . My journey in theater has been the result of pursuing opportunities as they come, and not being afraid of them. That's when a job at the Guthrie came across my desk and I decided to pursue it. I began as General Manager working closely with then-managing director, David Hawkanson. This was at the very beginning of the planning process for the new building on the river. David was (and still is) a great mentor to me and one that I really appreciated having in the theater management field. He taught me a great deal and when he left, I stepped into the role of Managing Director. The challenge at the Guthrie was obviously overseeing, planning and then building the new Guthrie on the River while still producing a full season. The entire process took about nine years and I was fortunate to have been at the Guthrie for all of those years. After the new building opened I decided that it was time for me to leave -- someone else should take this and run with it to the next level. I had planned to take a year off and do nothing. Alas, that did not happen. I was called by the Minnesota State Arts Board and asked to serve as interim Executive Director, which I did for a year. What I enjoyed most about that experience was meeting with the artists - actually observing the work and talking to artists. But my real passion is in the theater, so when the ACT job came up, I thought that it would be a great opportunity - I could live in San Francisco! I took the job, working as Director of Administration and Operations for two and one-half years. What I found exciting at ACT was the combination of the graduate conservatory within the structure of the theater itself. That's when a friend of mine told me about the job at the U of M. I thought that this would be perfect opportunity for me to combine my passions for theatre and education. The students, who give you so much vibrancy and so much energy, are remarkable and truly provide endless inspiration. To be back in Minneapolis with such a vibrant theater and arts community made me think that this was a perfect time and a perfect opportunity to re-establish myself in Minnesota. And that's why I pursued the Producing Director position at the University of Minnesota Department of Theatre Arts and Dance.

Applause: What besides your interest in education and wanting to re-establish yourself in Minnesota attracted you about the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance?

Proehl: I've always known of the department, and when I was at the Guthrie, I got to work with some of the students in the BFA Program. But I also really enjoy the diversity of the department in that the BA Program in theater is about new and experimental work on the cutting edge, while the BFA Actor Training Program in theater focuses more on classical training. Additionally, the dance program has a reputation for exciting new work. Add the MFA and the MA/PhD program and this dichotomy offers great diversity in both talent and exposure--practical and academically. Also, given the University's history and reputation, this was a really interesting opportunity and a great time for me to come in, especially with the RiCAP Program, which is one of the main activities that I was brought in to develop further.

Applause: Your position as Producing Director emerged as a result of departmental discussions we had during the year prior to your arrival - discussions that reaffirmed the centrality of theater and dance production to the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance. These discussions also inspired us to began a process of reimagining what our production season might look like in the future, and rethinking the relationship of production to our pedagogy, creative research and scholarship. Can you talk about the idea of an "integrated production season?" In particular, how will the integrated season address the changing relationship of theater and dance production to our other departmental programs, and what will be your role in making the new ways we think about production function in practice?

Proehl: Since I'm relatively new to this position and the U, I'm doing a lot of observation, trying to understand what a totally integrated production season would look like, and what it means. I have actually posed the question to the departmental leadership committee: what is the purpose of our Mainstage Season? Is it pedagogical or is it audience development? Because we really have to figure out how to frame it so that we can actually give it exposure and celebrate it for what it is - what's unique. I think what we really have to understand is that, in my opinion, the performance opportunities for students are some of the most important parts of their training because that's where they actually get to do the work or experience the work. And the audience is a very important part of that. So looking at how we prioritize and schedule projects and shows so that we're sharing spaces and that we're actually creating work that can celebrate all the different programs is going to be our biggest challenge - and also our biggest opportunity. And we must understand that we need significant resources - human, financial, etc.-- to do this.

Applause: One of the ideas to emerge from our past discussions about theater and dance production is RiCAP, or Reimagining Community Arts Partnerships, a new way of thinking about community-engaged teaching and creative research that involves integrating production at the University with production in the very active Twin Cities arts community. Can you describe your own vision for RiCAP - and steps we can begin to take immediately to pursue the goals of this exciting project?

Proehl: RiCAP was one of the determining factors that led me to take this position. I thought it was a really great idea. There is such a vibrant community here, and we should be working cooperatively with them someway, somehow. We are starting the process - we're identifying some partners right now, and we're talking to them about what it would mean to be a RiCAP partner. I think we need to understand what the roles and responsibilities are from both sides, specifically, when a company takes on students in a mentoring role, there really has to be a mentorship component. We're trying to figure out what those pieces are. One of the things that really stood out for me about RiCAP was that there was one word missing in its name. I am actually looking at it as not just the arts community, but the community in which we live, and the communities that make up the Twin Cities. As I'm envisioning it and approaching it, it is reimagining community and arts partnerships, so that we can look at both of these and serve more than one constituency. I've actually been accepted into the Creative Community Leadership Institute, run by Intermedia Arts and supported by the Bush Foundation, which will give me tools to reach into communities and figure out how we can serve them - and how they can serve us. I'm trying to make RiCAP a much more embracing idea that includes not just the arts community, but also the communities in which we live and work. I would like to see a vibrant and interesting and useful project for all. It is on its way and, as I have been saying, we just have to do it...we have to try it...we can't figure out all of the issues that may arise...we just have to start it and address the challenges as they arise. We have a number of RiCAP projects in progress and planned for the future. That's where we are now.

Applause: What do you see as the department's main challenges in the area of production, and what do you hope to accomplish to meet these challenges as we look toward the future of production at the University of Minnesota?

Proehl: If we look at production from the point of view of how we produce plays and dance pieces, I think our biggest challenge right now is resources. We need significant improvement within our facilities so that we can actually be a Tier I, top 10 school when it comes to theater and dance. Our facilities are adequate, but they're not state-of-the-art anymore. We really need to update our facilities so that we can actually provide the resources to the students that they will be using in their professional lives. In a time of fiscal belt-tightening around the University this is hard to justify in a lot of people's minds, but I think that upgrading our current facilities is going to be our number one priority and biggest challenge. Secondly, we have to identify what our purpose is for our production season - and how we market it. It is going to take some time for us to understand how to target our desired audience -- we are in a campus community of 60,000 people, and we need to tap into them - they're right here on campus. So for me it's about providing the resources to support the artistic vision, and then getting audiences to see it. Those are our biggest challenges right now, and I think they are the biggest challenges in for all arts organizations.

Applause: Do you think the vision might have to be altered to suit the audience?

Proehl: I think that depends on what we identify as the priority. If our priority is audience development, then more-popular programming would have to be chosen so that larger audiences would come. But if it's about educating an audience, which is ultimately what we are - an educational institution - then we need to determine who our audiences should be and invite them in. That's cultivation and engagement!

The Spring Semester X Season kicked off on January 22, 2011 with 24 Hour Theatre, a festival of shows that are written, rehearsed and performed within 24 hours. Next up is How the Other Half Loves written by Alan Ayckbourn and directed by Krystle Igbo-Ogbonna, which will run February 24-27.

In April Mark Larson and Monica Rojas will direct an adaptation of the viral online musical, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog...the Musical! Running April 7-10 and April 14-17, the show is sure to be a hit as freeze-rays and superheroes abound in this sometimes silly, sometimes profound adaptation of one of the internet's biggest hits. And to cap off the season, Katrina Zahradka will direct May Morning, which will run April 28-May 1, and be performed outdoors in the Ferguson amphitheatre.

It is worth repeating that our performances are always free, so bring a friend. If you would like more information about the Xperimental Theatre or would like to place reservations for any of our shows, please contact us via email at thex@umn.edu or by phone at 612.625.1876.

How could I possibly quantify all the positive benefits that Jack (and our family, his school and the wider community) has received from theater? We have watched him evolve from a shy boy in the chorus to a confident young man playing a leading role. In addition to the many public skills that theater has developed in him, Jack's personal life has also grown tremendously through the development of lasting friendships with other actors, musicians and dancers.

I would venture that Jack's story is similar to your own experience or that it mirrors the story of many others you know. Theater changes people for the good. It is a form of human expression that is second to none. It helps us feel fully alive.

Perhaps that is why there are currently 360 undergraduate majors and minors enrolled in the U of M Department of Theatre Arts and Dance, and 35 graduate students. Nothing else, for many of our students, is quite as life-giving and sustaining.

Not that a college education has ever been an easy road to take. In the past, many middle income families made it work by getting a second job, taking out a second mortgage, taking out a line of credit, or even by putting the tuition bill on a credit card. But today jobs are scarce and credit is tight. The average debt load for students graduating from the U of M is nearly $25,000. According to a recent article in the Star Tribune, more sticker shock is ahead because many public colleges and universities have relied on federal stimulus money that won't be there in future years.

Philanthropic support is even more critical than ever. If you have been thinking about doing something to make a difference for our students, consider making a gift now! The need is so great. You can make a difference because your gift will have a real impact on today's theater and dance students.

Thanks again to all of you who support the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance students and faculty through your gifts to the annual fund and our endowed funds.

We are deeply grateful for your generosity.
612-624-8573; jmsulliv@umn.edu

Back row, L to R: Wayne A. Pederson, Ronald "Ron" J. Leaf, Linda R. Finley, Dr. Lance R. Wilson, Hon. William J. Garvelink, Michael J. Phillips, James "Jim" W. Burke, Jr., William "Billy" J. Golfus, Priscilla Williams, Wendy Williams Blackshaw

Not pictured, Eileen M. Lach and Raymond J. Tarleton

The CLA Alumni of Notable Achievement (ANA) program was created in 1994 as part of CLA's 125th anniversary to celebrate and honor the significant achievements and contributions of college alumni. All ANA honorees have been nominated by CLA alumni, faculty, and staff.

Of the College's 120,000 living graduates, approximately 1,300 have been selected as recipients. By honoring its alumni, CLA recognizes and celebrates not only their singular accomplishments but also the collective depth and breadth of their interests, talents, career paths and achievements in all sectors of society.

See a list of all CLA Alumni of Notable Achievment.

• Roberta J. Berner (M.A. '77, American studies), dedicated non-profit leader and advocate for senior citizens
• Wendy Williams Blackshaw (B.A. '82, speech communication), esteemed Twin Cities marketing and public relations leader
• James "Jim" W. Burke, Jr. (B.A. '82, speech communication), successful film and television producer

• Robert E. Engstrom (B.A. '55, interdepartmental), nationally recognized leader in sustainable residential development

• Linda R. Finley (B.A. '83, speech communication), skilled expert in organizational leadership and governance

• Hon. William J. Garvelink (M.A. '74, history), career diplomat and U.S. Ambassador
• William "Billy" J. Golfus (A.L.A. '68; B.A. '71, humanities; M.A. '89, speech communication), esteemed journalist, filmmaker, and nationally recognized advocate for disabled individuals

• Ronald "Ron" J. Leaf (B.S. '81, economics), innovative investor and leader in the Midwestern venture capital sector

• Gail E. Marks-Jarvis (B.A. '73, journalism), venerated journalist, author, and nationally recognized expert on economics and personal finance
• Eileen M. Lach (B.A. '77, international relations), respected attorney in the fields of international corporate and commercial law
• Marianne Muellerleile (M.F.A. '79, theatre arts), accomplished character actress of stage, television, and film

• Kimberly L. Olson (B.A., '88, journalism), veteran public relations professional and corporate executive
• Wayne A. Pederson (Bachelor '69, psychology), successful broadcasting leader and media ministry expert
• Michael J. Phillips (B.A. '84, theatre arts and journalism), nationally respected theater, arts, and film journalist
• John Risdall (B.A. '68, speech communication and humanities), exemplar of advertising, public relations, and corporate and community leadership
• 
Judith "Judy" McCartin-Scheide (M.A. '62, English), respected development professional and civic volunteer
• 
Raymond J. Tarleton (B.A. '48, chemistry; M.A. '52, mass communication), outstanding leader in the fields of plant chemistry and communications
• Joe W. Trotter, Jr. (M.A. '78, history; Ph.D. '80, history), distinguished scholar in urban, labor, and African American history and champion of public history
• Priscilla Williams (Bachelor '71, child psychology), successful entrepreneur and Twin Cities child care industry leader
• Lance R. Wilson (M.A. '72, sociology; Ph.D. '74, sociology), respected information technology executive




18316|18054 Wed, 18 May 2011 11:42:51 -0600

In this Murphy Reporter, we report on the work of our National Student Advertising Competition Team (NSAC) solving an important and complex campaign challenge presented by the American Advertising Federation. The NSAC campaign process begins with a case study from a corporate sponsor and a real-world problem. Many campuses around North America make this part of a senior campaigns course, but not at Minnesota – students here take on this challenge as an extracurricular commitment. We provide a faculty adviser, but the achievement belongs entirely to the students.

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Photo by Tom Foley

More than 150 teams compete across 15 districts. They come from business schools, design schools, advertising departments and strategic communication programs, such as ours. Competition is fierce and in recent years Minnesota has landed in the national finals more frequently than any other program.

The NSAC competition has tremendous value as an educational opportunity because it requires sophisticated situation analysis; original research, both qualitative and quantitative; deep analysis of the communication environment and the target audience; clearly defined media strategy; strategic insight coupled with a carefully defined creative execution; and detailed budgeting, evaluation and superb presentation skills.

In 2009, our students came up with a brilliant campaign and demonstrated their capacities to work effectively in close collaboration against tight time constraints. The caliber of their work led to an unprecedented opportunity to actually launch the campaign in 2010 with funding from The Century Council, the sponsoring organization. I think you'll agree the work done by our students is groundbreaking. You can experience the campaign in more detail at theotherhangover.sjmc.umn.edu.

Elsewhere in this issue we highlight another of our except-ional student opportunities. Imagine walking into a class with 30 other students not knowing the backgrounds, inter-
ests and capabilities of your classmates but knowing that in the course of the next 15 weeks you'll develop a new magazine concept, organize yourselves into all the roles necessary to create and edit a magazine and bring it to production both for a print platform and for the Web. I invite you to see for yourself how our students are meeting this challenge by logging onto refuge.umn.edu and blur-mag.com. These sites include PDF versions of the print publications and offer opportunities to experience Web-only content. I believe it is important to acknowledge that our students are able to take on projects allowing them to develop these sophisticated managerial, planning and storytelling capabilities because of the production funding provided by the Milton L. Kaplan Memorial Fund, a permanent endowment supporting magazine editing and production in the school. This is an excellent example of how gifts to the school directly enrich the learning environment and help students launch their careers.

We are very proud of our students' accomplishments and continue to look for ways to provide them with the mix of academic and professional opportunities to prepare them for their futures. If you glance at the Alumni Notes section, you will see ample evidence of our recent grads' successes in starting their careers or entering a graduate program for further study.

Best,

ALBERT R. TIMS, Director

18034|18032|18030|33626 Tue, 05 Apr 2011 10:30:00 -0600

By Peggy J. Rader


An SJMC student ad campaign hones in on the social cost of binge drinking

Michelle Gross doesn't remember the exact details, but the School of Journalism and Mass Communication graduate student knows there was an electric moment when someone said, "That's it! The other hangover!"

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The SJMC's 2009 campaign entry for the National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC) was starting to come together after months of research, surveys and focus groups, but did not yet have its hook. The NSAC client, The Century Council, wanted an anti-binge drinking campaign aimed at college students.

Everyone on the student team, including Gross, had been using "the other hangover" as a shorthand phrase reflecting that their research found students aren't deterred by the idea that heavy drinking can lead to a physical hangover but also really don't like the idea that heavy drinking could have a social cost—another kind of "hangover."

Once they realized their shorthand was the hook, The Other Hangover campaign found its focus. Last fall, the campaign became reality and proceeded to sweep through the University of Minnesota campus as an actual campaign against binge drinking.

When The Other Hangover was submitted as a NSAC entry, it went all the way to national finals but lost out on an award because of technicalities during the presentation. But it earned recognition more impressive than a trophy when The Century Council contacted the university in late 2009 with the offer of a $75,000 grant to develop and implement the proposed campaign for the university's Twin Cities campus.


Student models—including NSAC members Laura Rask, Lauren Fink and Fiona Severson—pose for photographs shot by NSAC's creative director, Lauren Sudbrink. The photos ran in promotional materials ranging from bus shelter ads and billboards to smaller posters and bar coasters. Photo by Michelle Gross.

While evaluation on the effectiveness of this innovative, "disruptive" ad campaign won't be completed until late winter, all indications are that the focus has found its mark. It created such a buzz on campus that the campaign team was dealing with disappearing collateral that, according to anecdotal reports, was ending up on apartment and dorm room walls.

The campaign launched in September 2010 and immediately began to garner local media attention that spread to national media coverage. The campaign used a billboard in Stadium Village, bus stop ads, sidewalk clings, mirror clings for public bathrooms and dormitories, giveaways at football games, newspaper ads and even coasters for local bars and restaurants. In addition, a vigorous social media campaign played out on Facebook.

The billboard featured a man with a pitcher of beer in one hand, grabbing for a woman with the other. Disgust is clear on the woman's face. "Before you got wasted you weren't known as The Creep," the billboard message read. "Humiliation: The Other Hangover." In a similar vein, one of the posters showed a woman who clearly has had too much to drink slumped on the floor as a party goes on around her. The headline read: "A few drinks before, they thought you were fabulous. Shame: The Other Hangover."

When the ads were tested with focus groups, 91 percent agreed that the message was more "relatable" than other ads promoting responsible drinking, and 89 percent agreed the campaign was better designed for college students than other messages. Almost 80 percent said they think less of people who display negative behaviors because of excessive drinking.


Danielle Ouellette, president of the National Student Advertising Club's 2008-09 team, left, presents the idea for The Other Hangover with NSAC member Alex Regner. Photo by Michelle Gross

The concept was born from the thorough marketing research by the NSAC team that took much of the academic year. What the team discovered was that previous public service campaigns aimed at college-age drinkers were missing the mark -- either because they warned against the physical impacts of drunkenness that were easy to brush off by 20-somethings or they focused on extreme consequences that students thought seemed unlikely to occur.

"The Other Hangover is a unique public service campaign for two reasons," says Nathan Gilkerson, a Ph.D. student in mass communication who, along with Gross, led the implementation team of eight undergraduates. "First, it is a student-driven campaign, and second, it was a completely different approach to reducing binge drinking. Students see it as honest. It's supposed to trigger self-reflection."

Gross, now an M.A. student in mass communication, is the only one from the original team to continue her involvement through the campaign's implementation last fall, mainly because other members of the team graduated and left campus. She found it rewarding to see the campaign come full circle.

"It was great to have been in on it at the beginning and then to help with the launch and the evaluation," she says. "It's been an excellent experience. It's also been great because we have received overwhelming support from the university administration and the faculty."

The students on the implementation team earned one credit for their work as part of a summer internship course.

Two of the undergrad students who were involved said that everyone who helped pull the campaign together feels like it's going to be an important part of their portfolios. Dan Lans decided to get involved because of his interest in public health and a desire to see how an ad campaign involving public health issues would work.


NSAC Adviser Howard Liszt, left, celebrates with 2008-2009 NSAC co-presidents Danielle Ouellette, Erin Lamberty and Jeanine Lilke following their first place win at district competition.

"The biggest thing I learned is how organized you have to be to make everything work," he says. "This was a first time for everybody, and a lot of the time we were just scrambling to get things done. It was a lot of responsibility."

Lauren Fink, another undergrad involved in launching the campaign, wanted the opportunity to make a theoretical student campaign into reality. "I knew that the internship would provide invaluable real-world experience that classes could not match," she says. The opportunity, she says, "came with far more responsibility than I would have ever been given as an intern at an advertising agency. I am so proud to have helped such a great campaign come to life."

Lans agrees.

"I just want to say that the 2009 NSAC team did a great job with the project and coming up with the strategy and concept for the campaign. Our group carried out the campaign on their behalf. It's really cool to see the work out there and have people comment on it. One of my friend's Facebook profiles quoted The Other Hangover, and I saw some other people admiring our bus shelter ads. That's probably the part I enjoy the most -- sitting back and watching people react to the campaign."


Undergraduate student Serena Maruko admires a campaign poster as launch team members Daniel Lans and Zach Stern look on at the fall 2010 Gopherfest on Northrup Mall. Photo by Michelle Gross


A student picks up one of the posters created by The Other Hangover's campaign team during Gopherfest. Members of the University of Minnesota's National Student Advertising Competition team said posters placed around campus disappeared, possibly indicating the popularity of the campaign and how well it resonated with the university community. Photo by Michelle Gross

The Other Hangover: The Teams

Nathan Gilkerson, graduate instructor and project adviser Michelle Gross, graduate student and project co-adviser

The Launch Leam

• Rachel Armstrong
• Lauren Fink
• Hope Horstmann
• Daniel Lans
• Laura Rask
• Fiona Severson
• Zach Stern
• James Wakely

University of Minnesota 2008-2009 NSAC team

• Adviser: Howard Liszt

2008-2009 Presidents:

• Erin Lamberty
• Jeanine Lilke
• Danielle Ouellette

2008-2009 NSAC Team Members

• Jake Achterhoff
• Stephanie Bakkum
• Rochelle Berentson
• Brian Bernier
• Kellie Coit
• Daniel Paul Davis
• Alex DeNuccio
• Alyssa Diamond
• Jessi Eikos
• Sarah Eslyn
• Abby Faust
• Susan Garcia (leader)
• Michelle Gross
• Jim Hagen
• Tanner Hall
• Meredith Harper
• Hillary Heinz
• Becky Hirn
• Alicia Houselog (leader)
• Robyn Kennedy
• Olga Lobasenko
• Corinne Long
• Russell Mantione
• Joe Mischo
• Christina Newman
• Shaina Novotny
• Sarah Poluha
• Alex Regner
• Lauren Sudbrink (leader)

'The Other Hangover' great opportunity for professional growth
'Other Hangover' proved to be valuable learning experience

18034|18030|33626 Tue, 05 Apr 2011 10:29:00 -0600

I joined the National Student Advertising Competition team in fall 2008, hopeful it would provide me with a real-world advertising experience I desperately needed. Looking back, it trumped every expectation I ever had. Along the way, I've had the privilege of working with more than 30 talented NSAC students in generating the core insights that led to The Other Hangover, co-advised eight undergraduate students in implementing the campaign, and developed and led a large-scale quantitative campaign evaluation. To sum up my involvement with The Other Hangover as a "learning experience" would not encapsulate the impact or degree to which this project has strengthened me as a professional and individual.

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2011/04/the-other-hangover-great-oppor.html 284450

Each phase of the campaign brought new challenges and transformed me in different ways. Campaign development showed me the importance of team synergy in promoting a productive atmosphere. Camaraderie, commitment and perseverance were key ingredients that held the team together and led to us creating a successful campaign strategy. A special shout-out must be given to the three NSAC presidents - Jeanine Lilke, Erin Lamberty and Danielle Ouellette - who were each dedicated to pushing our team harder, compelling us to be superior in every regard.

While my team members graduated and secured jobs in advertising, I opted to pursue a master's degree through the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. I was exhilarated when we unexpectedly won a grant to implement The Other Hangover on campus. Even more, I was among the only original campaign members still hanging around Murphy Hall; as a graduate student, I was in a unique position to help advise a new team of students in bringing the strategy to life.

Transferring the intensity and connection of the campaign strategy to a new generation of future advertisers and adapting the campaign to match the environment and budget was a battle in itself. Waist-high in media contracts, printing vendors, creative specs, financial transactions and legal documents, we all quickly learned the power and importance of leveraging networks and resources to accomplish goals.

It is difficult to pinpoint the most rewarding part of this experience; giving media pitches and live interviews certainly top the charts. The real moments of satisfaction have been watching students not only react to our messages, but also interact with and seek out our campaign.

While the process has been long, intense, and at some points downright overwhelming, I am thankful I had the opportunity in the end. It provided me with confidence that I can leverage my skills and accomplish anything with desire and hard work. -- Michelle Gross

18034|18030|33687|33626 Tue, 05 Apr 2011 10:28:00 -0600

As a Ph.D. student here in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, I was uncertain exactly what to think fall 2009 when I was asked if I would be willing to help manage a grant-funded project to implement and evaluate an advertising campaign designed by undergraduates.

I have had some professional experience as an account executive in advertising and public relations before starting graduate school, but managing an entire campaign was something I'd never done.

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Workers from the University of Minnesota install "sidewalk clings" around campus to promote responsible drinking. The tactic was one of many employed by the School of Journalism and Mass Communication's National Student Advertising Competition team for "The Other Hangover" campaign.

When I first saw the materials for "The Other Hangover" campaign, created by the U's 2009 National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC) team, I was impressed by how savvy and professional the advertisements were. Clearly, a ton of research and effort had gone into the development of the campaign strategy.

Knowing I would need lots of help, I recruited fellow graduate student Michelle Gross to be a project co-adviser. As an undergrad, Michelle had been part of the original NSAC team that developed the campaign. Michelle's background knowledge and excellent organizational skills frequently proved invaluable. To staff the project, Michelle and I adopted the mentality that we were creating a small start-up advertising agency within the SJMC.

Serving as "management," we solicited and accepted applications from undergraduate students interested in working on the campaign and held interviews. In the end, we had eight dedicated students who completed a one-credit summer internship-style course, working on various elements of the campaign, ranging from graphic design and website creation to coordinating printing orders with vendors to negotiating media buys for advertising space.

When the team faced a challenge, I would emphasize how similar these types of issues were to those encountered daily within a professional agency. I also stressed that the project would provide them with useful experience for entering the job market.

I know working with the students in implementing the campaign was a great teaching opportunity and learning experience for me. I gained new insights into motivating students, and learned about the benefits and pitfalls of managing an unstructured, project-focused course.

Seeing the various elements of the project appear on campus this past semester was extremely gratifying, and all of the students who had been involved from both 2009 and 2010 were excited to see their hard work on display in front of their peers and the university community.

The Other Hangover campaign received great feedback from students and the strong support of university administrators, who saw the value of an anti-binge drinking campaign that could resonate with a campus population, since students themselves designed it.

As we gather and analyze survey data related to the campaign, we'll learn whether it was successful in shifting student attitudes about the risks of binge drinking. I think everyone on the team would agree that while it was often a challenge, The Other Hangover campaign was a unique and great experience to be a part of.

-- Nathan Gilkerson

18034|18030|33687|33626 Tue, 05 Apr 2011 10:27:00 -0600

By Amy Olson and Peggy J. Rader


Magazine Production Class Gives Writers and Editors Hands-On Experience

Misplaced commas, beware: Ellen Burkhardt's eagle eye will find you.

"I take great satisfaction in seeing a sentence go from dysfunctional to functional with the right punctuation," says Burkhardt, who began her job as an assistant editor at Minnesota Monthly magazine in November.

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2011/04/like-working-in-a-true-newsroo.html 284455

The Burnsville, Minn., native and spring 2010 graduate of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication credits the experience she gained serving as editor in the SJMC's magazine editing and production course, Journalism 5174, in spring 2010. Under her leadership, the class produced a magazine titled refuge {shelter from the storm}.

"As editor-in-chief of refuge, I got the opportunity to put everything I'd been taught in classrooms and internships into use. The chance to build a publication from scratch was priceless," Burkhardt says.

Every spring and fall, the students in the class choose a theme and build a magazine and website around it. Both provide valuable additions to student portfolios. Adjunct instructors Jeanne Schacht and Elizabeth Larsen teach the course.

This is not a class exercise. It's the real deal.

Students apply for roles in the class in much the same way they would apply for a job. They list their skills, talents and experiences. Larsen and Schacht name editors and art directors. Students debate, reject and finally accept themes by votes.

Sometimes those themes arise through class conversations. In spring semester 2010 as classmates tossed around theme ideas including examining how people live richly in tough times, one student made an impassioned pitch that swayed the group to explore the concept of sanctuary.


Yuridia Ramirez, Larry Gandy, Matt Carlson and Ken Nelson proof the cover of Blur magazine. The four students said the process of producing a magazine from concept to finished product was invaluable to building experience and portfolios.

Refuge is about finding shelter of all kinds. The stories ranged from a profile of a young woman who decided to become a Catholic nun to a piece about efforts to make rooms at a local children's hospital more welcoming.

"Our only rules about the theme is that it should be a topic that matters, that allows for a diverse set of stories -- humorous, serious, that make a difference," Larsen says. The Milton L. Kaplan Memorial Fund provides money to pay for printing.

The concept for the fall 2010 semester's magazine, Blur: the art of undefining, focuses on the "culture of global ambiguity," according to its website.

Reporting on an enterprising couple who opened La Loma Tamales in the Midtown Global Market and how soccer helped recent immigrants to the United States from Myanmar find senses of self and community was eye-opening for staff writer Yuridia Ramirez. Ramirez herself is the daughter of Mexican immigrants.

"I got to step back a little bit from the reality that is our... college experience in this little microcosm we have here and look at the real world and what people outside the United States are exper-iencing," she said in the video posted on Blur's website.


Ellen Burkhardt, B.A., spring 2010, examines a proof of Blur, produced by students in the fall 2010 magazine editing and production course. Burkhardt served as editor of the publication, refuge {shelter from the storm}, produced during the spring 2010 semester. She spoke to students taking the class during the fall 2010 term about how she's applied what she learned.

That ability to examine issues through in-depth reporting and writing is what drew Burkhardt to magazines in the first place, she told students in the fall 2010 class during a visit. It was something she appreciated more after working at The Minnesota Daily and interning with WCCO-TV, where time and space constraints limited in-depth storytelling.

Magazines lend themselves well to examining stereotypes and less mainstream topics that otherwise go unexplored, Burkhardt adds. Consider refuge's piece on role playing games, such as "World of Warcraft." People in mainstream culture might perceive the online role-playing game as the violent pastime of choice among social misfits.

For players, however, it serves as an escape from the pressures of work or school, and it connects them with new friends across town or across the globe. One couple featured in refuge's article married after meeting through playing the game.

"They're regular people with regular lives. This is their outlet," Burkardt says.

The class usually is made up of second-semester seniors preparing to graduate and find jobs. It offers students chances to experience all the angst of putting out a real magazine in a relatively safe environment.

"We swoop in when needed," Larsen says, "but our goal is for them to actually put the magazine together themselves. They learn a lot of practical skills, but they also learn a lot of soft skills about getting along, learning to take criticism, learning how to offer criticism. It can be really hard to take an edit and it's better to experience it first here."

The class also teaches creative problem solving to work around typical snafus that occur before publication. Rewrit-ing a cutline can salvage a photograph that otherwise would poorly illustrate a story, for instance.

"What they get is working on a team that is hierarchical. Managing is a tough skill to learn, and being managed by people who are learning to manage isn't always easy," Larsen says. "Plus, Jeanne and I are not academics. We work in our fields. And we don't budge on expectations."

Those real-world expectations and experiences such as working on the website are what made the class valuable for senior Larry Gandy.

"It was like working in a true newsroom," says Gandy, whose dream job is working for the New York Times or Rolling Stone. Plus, the printed magazine and website will give him and his classmates important contributions to their print and online portfolios. "It's something to show them my experience... that I'm not just a greenhorn."

Burkhardt agrees.

"There were a lot of long nights when Elizabeth had to rip the copy out of my hands... It hit home when it was my magazine going to press that errors would reflect badly on me and my staff."

The attention to detail -- innate and learned -- helped Burkhardt land her job as assistant editor at Minnesota Monthly, where she edits stories at all phases of production.

"I literally have my fingerprints on everything" in each edition, says the self-described writer at heart, adding that experience combined with shepherding refuge's publication will help her write those in-depth features some day.

Many SJMC graduates who took the course now work at local, regional and national publications.

"We're always so impressed at how competent and skilled they are," Schacht says.

Burkhardt urges students who take the class to treat their work for the course just like they would treat a real job.

"It really is your chance to put into use what you're learning," Burkhardt says. "If you treat yourself like a professional, the people you interview will treat you like a professional."

Find Refuge or Blur the Lines

Want to read the students' work? Log onto blurmagazine.sjmc.umn.edu to read Blur or check out Refuge {shelter from the storm.}





18034|18030|33626 Tue, 05 Apr 2011 10:26:00 -0600



Chuck Porter, B.A., '67, was set to start a legal career (twice) before he jumped ship in law school to put his quick wit and way with words to work in advertising. After 16 years as a freelance copywriter he joined a feisty Miami creative shop in the late 1980s that became Crispin Porter + Bogusky, one of the most successful and sought-after advertising agencies of the last decade, where he is now chairman. Porter, a Presidents Club member who funds a student award in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, returns often to his home state, most recently to receive an Award for Excellence from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication Alumni Society Board and the school.


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Sara Jorde/For Murphy Reporter Over the last four decades, Chuck Porter, (B.A., '67) has made his mark on the local and national advertising scene.

Congrats on the alumni award.
Isn't that sweet? It's a wonderful honor. Minnesota and the University of Minnesota have produced a lot of well-known, successful advertising people, so it's very surprising they would give it to me. Maybe they've been reading stuff I haven't.

You've also been named the ad exec of the decade by Adweek readers ...
Yeah, the decade ... Wow. Agency peer awards are humbling and wonderful to get, but you can't pay very much attention to them because the business is new every day. You never are who you were yesterday; as soon as you start thinking that way, you're in trouble.

What's the most outrageous idea you've been a part of
at the agency?
We've done some pretty interesting things. I can't talk about the most outrageous, because I'd probably go to jail, so I'll talk about the most daring. We created an anti-teen smoking brand called Truth around the time of the big tobacco settlements in the 1990s. One of teenagers' fundamental motivations is to rebel, and they essentially want to rebel against white guys in blue suits, so we decided to set up the tobacco executives as people they can rebel against--because they were marketing a product that will kill these kids. We took on big tobacco in a very aggressive way. People got sued. But it was enormously successful. For the nine years we handled it, middle-school smoking was down 50 percent, and high school smoking was down 26 percent. But it was scary at times. They are very big, very powerful companies, and there was a lot of money at stake. We took them on, and they hated us a lot for it.

Where do your best creative ideas come from?
I don't know. A long time ago a reporter asked Bob Dylan what his songs were about, and he said, "Some are about four minutes and some are about five," which is kind of the way I feel about creativity. What I do think is that it's very hard to teach someone to be good at it. I think you can teach someone to be competent, but I think the people who are really good at it are just really good at it. I could spend 50 years at Julliard and I still couldn't play the piano, 'cause whatever that is, I don't have it.

Do you still do some writing now and then?
Once in awhile I'll do some pro bono stuff. I don't really work on advertising campaigns anymore because I think you have to do it every day to really be prolific. I've learned to let the people I put my faith in do their work. We hire the smartest, best, most curious, most passionate, most talented people we can find and then get out of the way.

Why did you start the award for U of M advertising students?
I just thought it would be cool. I've had a chance to meet a few of the students, and that's been great. I've been very, very lucky and have had some financial success. This is definitely one of the institutions I believe in and want to support. I spent a lot of great years here. I'm still very connected to this part of the world and to this school. I'm even a football fan again.

Have you been to TCF Bank Stadium?
All the years the Gophers played in the Dome I never went to a game. Then one of my friends I went to school with, who is a big Gopher supporter, said, "You gotta come see this new stadium. I'll give you tickets for opening day." So I came up last fall for the first game and it was so great, the stadium was so beautiful. It was like the old days of Memorial Stadium. I fell in love with it and went to four more games. Where I sit, which is where a lot of alumni sit, at least half the people are older than me, so I like that part too.

18030|33687|33626 Tue, 05 Apr 2011 10:25:00 -0600

By Neal Karlen

Suppose "Murphy Hall" was a category on "Jeopardy!," the brain-busting quiz show that requires answers to be posed in the form of questions. The opening answer would be something easy:

"Murphy Hall for $200," says emcee Alex Trebek. "God."

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Quick buzzer. The correct response? "Who is Professor Mitchell Charnley?" Or:

"Murphy Hall for $400. In 1935, the same year he graduated from Murphy Hall, he published the classic adventure yarn, 'Canoeing with the Cree.' Later he was one of Edward R. Murrow's 'boys' covering World War II in Europe and later offered commentary while sitting next to Walter Cronkite on the 'CBS Evening News.'"


Bob Fransen celebrates the silver anniversary of WTCN-TV. During his tenure, WTCN—also known as Channel 11—became the top-rated independent station in the United States. Fransen later convinced NBC to snap up the station; its call letters later became KARE.

All three contestants would probably buzz instantaneously and respond, "Who is Eric Sevareid?"

At the bottom of the Murphy Hall category would be the $2,000 stumper:


During his five decades in broadcasting, Bob Fransen worked at several television stations including channels 4, 9, 11 and 29 in the Twin Cities. During that time, he held positions ranging from on-air weatherman and local kiddie show king to managing newsrooms and stations.

"After skipping down Murphy Hall's steps for the last time as a student in 1943, he invented Harry Reasoner as an anchorman and sent him on to New York. On Channel 4, he rose from kiddie show star Cowboy Bob of the X Bar 4 Ranch to become a major force in local television who, at various times, managed newsrooms at channels 9 and 11, was a general manager at Channel 29, and even did the weather on Channel 4. Later on in life, he had a hefty hand in the development of the digital news gathering epoch."

Only a media savant would know the correct question would be, "Who is Robert Fransen?"

So who is Bob Fransen?

"He is a very lucky man," says Fransen. "For 50 years I was always happy to go to work to a job I loved. I tell kids today that if you're going to go into the media, you have to love your job."

Fransen is a man who exists perhaps one footnote below some of his more famous fellow graduates of Murphy Hall, which is a reflection of his personal style, not of his accomplishments. A plainspoken, likable and self-effacing man, he eventually found his place not behind a microphone, but behind entire stations.

After brief forays into anchoring the news, hosting a variety show, serving as WCCO's on-air weatherman and serving as short-term king of a local kiddie show, Fransen helped shape local television journalism from the early days in the 1940s -- when people would watch the news through appliance store windows -- to the late 1980s, when he worked briefly at Hubbard Broadcasting on programming for a satellite project that was later sold.

Fransen's demeanor is spry and his analysis of the news industry is as cogent as today's edition of mediabistro.com. He understands how the journalism landscape has changed since he pounded out copy on carbon paper via a battered manual Smith Corona.

"Nowadays you could never do what we all did back then, which was everybody doing everything," Fransen says. "You'd be pigeonholed today, whereas I could go from variety show host to weatherman to floor director for the news to cuing actors for local shows to doing commercials to editing two-hour movies down to an hour and a half to fit the time slot. Mostly I was a senior director and production manager. Over the years I did everything but build a station tower. In the beginning, we'd come in at nine in the morning and leave at 11 at night, seven days a week. Everybody complained a lot, but we loved it."

Fransen also understands just how much things have stayed the same.

"Broadcasting is about news and entertainment," he says. "What I learned in Murphy Hall was how to find the truth when presenting information, and the comradeship of journalism. What Mitchell Charnley taught us about finding the truth and providing accuracy are what is still needed now."

It was no easier getting a job then than it is now. "I remember when Ralph Casey, the head of the journalism school, had all of us gather in this auditorium," Fransen says. "He informed us that 'the job market is very tight now. Some of you will have to go out of town. Some of you will have to go to St. Paul.'"

Thanks to the U.S. Army Air Forces, Sioux Falls was Fransen's out-of-town destination. He was a reservist activated straight from Murphy Hall and from his position as a columnist at The Minnesota Daily, and stationed in South Dakota in radio communications school. Soon he was announcing the news on the base radio. He'd also do radio shows in town, where he produced and emceed a program called "G.I. Breakfast Club" and served as the quizmaster known as "Dr. I.Q."

After the war, he was rescued via his journalism connections at Murphy Hall.

"Sig Mickelson, one of my professors at the journalism school, was now the news director at WCCO radio" in Minneapolis, Fransen says. "He gave me a shot, and soon I was writing news for Cedric Adams."



It was a big gig for a 25-year-old. The name Cedric Adams might mean little to a generation of graduates weaned on blogs and social networking. In mid-20th century Minnesota, however, Adams was the biggest show in town. As a gossip columnist for daily papers, Adams was to the Twin Cities what longtime columnist Herb Caen was to San Francisco. As a radio news host, Adams presided over a station with a 56 percent share of the audience. Adams, Fransen says, "was larger than life. He'd broadcast from his yacht. He substituted as the host for 'Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts,'" the "American Idol" of its day.

By 1948, KSTP (Channel 5) became the Twin City's first local television station, followed closely by an alphabet soup of stations that eventually evolved into WCCO (Channel 4), KMSP (9) and WTCN (11).

Fransen went to WCCO TV in 1949 before leaving to work for Kerr-McGee Corp., filing TV license applications for stations in Peoria, Ill., and Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Okla. He designed the studio and office building, hired the staff and programmed the areas not filled by the network for the Peoria NBC affiliate. He later returned to Minneapolis to put Channel 9 on the air. It was the area's first independent television station.

At Channel 9, he hired Harry Reasoner, another Murphy Hall alumnus, as news director and anchor of the station's 9:30 p.m. newscast. Meanwhile, Sig Mickelson -- who had graduated from WCCO to news director and vice president for the CBS network in New York -- offered Reasoner a position as a newsman there.

"He didn't know whether to take the job," Fransen recalls. "He'd actually make less money with the job in New York, and he had three kids. I told him to give it a try. And the rest is history."

Fransen spent the major portion of his career with WTCN, as Channel 11 was known at that time. "After Channel 9, I migrated to WTCN as an account executive," he says. "I was promoted to national sales manager, then general sales manager, and then VP and general manager, a post I held for 18 years."


During television's infancy, the "talent' often worked on news and entertainment shows. In addition to being the weatherman on Channel 4, Bob Fransen also played Cowboy Bob of the X Bar Four Ranch, as seen here in this photo from 1950.

During his tenure, Channel 11 was the top-rated independent station in the United States. When NBC sought a new affiliate for the Twin Cities market, it was Fransen who sold the network on adding Channel 11 to its group of stations, which it retains to this day.

No matter how much he is prodded to reminisce, the octogenarian -- who looks 15 years younger -- always returns to the present. Right now he's noodling over how the technology of the brave new world of broadband broadcasting will impact how audiences are monitored and thus how advertising dollars get allocated.

"People are getting their pictures off their computers and cell phones. Now the question is, how can you measure that audience? And how will that affect advertising?"

Take those questions, Alex Trebek -- they're the right ones.

Neal Karlen (M.A., 2009) served as an associate editor at Newsweek and as contributing editor for Rolling Stone. A long-time contributor to The New York Times, Karlen also has authored seven books including 2008's "The Story of Yiddish."

18034|18030|33626 Tue, 05 Apr 2011 10:02:01 -0600

Foreign journalists say they have a better appreciation of American life and the challenges United States media face following a weeklong visit to the Twin Cities.

The School of Journalism and Mass Communication played host to 21 journalists from East Asia and the Pacific region from Oct. 28 through Nov. 3. The visit was part of the fifth annual Edward R. Murrow Program for Journalists, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, The Aspen Institute and 10 journalism schools including the SJMC.

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The 23-day program, which also took the group to Washington, D.C., and Pensacola, Fla., helps foreign journalists examine the rights and responsibilities of a free press in a democracy. International participants are nominated by the U.S. embassies in their home countries. The Murrow program is part of the State Department's International Visitor Leadership Program, which has a goal of increasing understanding between people of the United States and other countries.



During their stay, fellows got to take part in a discussion of topics including trade, public safety and public health, and toured Twin Cities Public Television and the Pioneer Press in St. Paul. Among the participants' favorite professional components were visiting newsrooms and a discussion with SJMC Professor Heather LaMarre on political communication. The participants also observed activities at the polls on Election Day and visited then gubernatorial candidate Mark Dayton's campaign headquarters.

"SJMC organized a series of productive workshops, round table discussions and site visits that explored the craft of journalism," says Charlie Kellett, program officer for the State Department's Office of International Visitors. Observing local media institutions and learning standards and operational practices helped participants understand the rights and responsibilities of a free press in a democracy.

Fellows expressed feelings of surprise and relief to see American journalists struggle with many of the same hurdles they face, including changing media landscapes and battles to make news industries profitable.

"It was also comforting to know during our visits to the various media institutions and briefings with media experts that we share the same challenges and solutions," says Claude Vitug, head of news administration and futures at ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp. in the Philippines. By interacting and learning from one another, perhaps journalists throughout the world can find new, viable business models.


SJMC Professor Chris Ison addresses the 21 participants of the Edward R. Murrow Program for Journalists Oct. 29 during a round table discussion at the McNamara Alumni Center.

For Sera Janine, chief of staff at the Fiji Sun, the chance to experience life in the United States helped dispel views widely held in her homeland about what American life is like.

Janine recalls standing on the corner of Washington Avenue and Harvard Street Southeast during Halloween, marveling at the sight of people walking down the street in costumes. Just then, a man walked up to her.

"It was only to ask if I needed help with getting somewhere," Janine says. "That was a real surprise for me as I had been told prior to my trip that Americans live a very fast-paced life and do not worry about other people."

While the program gives the university and the SJMC a chance to shine, the program
benefits the university community, too.

"The Murrow Program offers an opportunity for us to highlight the University of Minnesota and the School of Journalism and Mass Communication," says Albert Tims, director of the SJMC. "The president of the university is enthusiastic about our participation in this program and the value of working with other communicators from around the world."

The group also visited Stillwater; took in a Minnesota Wild hockey game; attended a reception hosted by the SJMC, Minnesota International Center and the Asian American Journalists Association; and sat in on a class led by Professor Larry Jacobs at the university's Humphrey School of Public Affairs.

Janine says her only regret was not seeing snow during her visit. Three weeks later as she watched the news, she was shocked to see pictures of the Mall of America in a story about blizzards plaguing the Upper Midwest.

"My short stay in Minnesota was just that: too short," Janine says, adding she plans to return and hopes to visit some of the people she befriended during her stay.

See the participants' experiences

To learn more about the participants' experiences, log onto http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs-sE4gX9VM or go to youtube.com and search for Murrow 2010. You also can log onto http://ussc.edu.au and click on the newsroom link. Then, click on December 2010 under the archives and scroll to Dec. 17 to read thoughts shared by Australian fellow Justin Stevens, a producer of the Australian Broadcasting Corp.'s 7:30 Report. 18034|18030|33626 Tue, 05 Apr 2011 09:44:08 -0600

Despite fluctuations in enrollment, the Professional Master of Arts in Strategic Communication program is gaining traction through the Twin Cities business community.

Now in its sixth year, the program seems to have gained a "critical mass" of graduates in the Twin Cities business community, which raised the program's visibility, says Gordon Leighton, program coordinator and lecturer.

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"There are about 80 alumni of the program," Leighton says. A number of agencies such as Campbell Mithun, Carmichael Lynch Spong, Colle + McVoy and Fallon all employ multiple graduates, as do Amerprise Financial Inc., Cargill Inc., Iconoculture and Target Corp.

The program also is drawing public relations and marketing professionals from non-profit organizations, Leighton says, noting a number of school district communications managers have graduated from the program, too.

"All of their organizations have communications needs. We teach them to be better communicators," Leighton says.

At 14 students, the 2010-2011 cohort is the smallest enrolled since the program's inception, Leighton says. In 2009, the school admitted 28, its biggest cohort; 20 enrolled.

"We have the lowest attrition rate of any graduate program on campus," Leighton says, a fact he attributes to the personalized attention potential applicants receive before they even apply. That meeting can help make sure the program is a good fit with prospective students' work and home lives; most work full time.

Mid-semester surveys suggest students are happy with the quality of the program.

"We hear they apply the next day what they've learned in class," Leighton says. Guest speaker visits such as the one made by Celeste Bottorff, Coca Cola North America's vice president for Living Well, add to learning opportunities.

The company -- which has the No. 1 brand in the world -- must address all sorts of communications issues, from regulatory to business development strategy.

"She really gave the students a live demonstration of strategic communication," Leighton says.

-- Amy Olson

The School of Journalism and Mass Communication will accept applications for its 2011-2012 cohort of Professional Master of Arts in Strategic Communication through June 15 for admission in September. Log onto sjmc.umn.edu, click on graduate studies and scroll down to Professional M.A. in Strategic Communication to learn more.

18034|18030|33626 Fri, 01 Apr 2011 16:50:25 -0600

School welcomes journalism, journalism history and mass communication professors. Three new professors have joined the School of Journalism and Mass Communication's faculty.

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Heather LaMarre joined the SJMC in 2009 as an assistant professor in mass communication. With her background in Fortune 100 government and corporate relations, LaMarre witnessed the increasing use of alternative media in politics and public debate. Its rise to prominence sparked her curiosity and led to academic-based exploration of issues related to alternatives to mainstream news delivery and what amounts to a redefinition of news media.

"My research lies at the crossroads of strategic communication, politics, and social-psychology," LaMarre says. "I investigate questions of social influence and persuasion, with a focus of the uses and effects of media on attitudes, behaviors and opinions regarding social and political issues. I also research public relations, public opinion and public communications, with an interest in how social and entertainment media influences one's attitudes, emotions, behaviors and opinions about such topics."

She received both an M.A. in communications and an M.B.A. in public administration before completing a Ph.D. in communication, all at The Ohio State University. Her current research focuses on social media and public opinions.

"I am especially interested in how and why social and entertainment media are changing public relations, politics and news," she says.

Changes in the news industry -- including use of social media -- also spark the curiosity of Seth C. Lewis.

Lewis was appointed to the faculty in fall 2010 as an assistant professor in new media journalism. He completed a Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin. Previously he received an M.B.A. from Barry University and a bachelor of arts in communications from Brigham Young University.

Lewis was assistant sports editor at the Miami Herald and his writing has appeared in more than a dozen magazines and newspapers. For Lewis, studying journalistic practice and professionalism in the context of digital-age technology can help the industry understand where it is heading.

"My research is focused on the innovation of journalism: how it's happening, who's catalyzing it, and with what kind of implications for journalism's role in society," Lewis says. "That begins with understanding how journalism works--the gathering, the filtering and the sharing of information--is changing in a networked, socially driven media environment. That also means taking an interest in what these changes are doing to the very DNA of journalism: its ethics, norms and values. For example, to what extent is user participation becoming integrated as a taken-for-granted expectation of journalism, and what is the implication of that shift?"

Lewis's dissertation, "Journalism Innovation and the Ethic of Participation: A Case Study of the Knight Foundation and Its News Challenge," explored media sociology, participatory culture and innovation in journalism.

"In trying to understand journalism innovation, my research is moving toward studying the 'boundary-spanning' spaces where different professions and their identities intersect," Lewis says, adding one example is looking at where journalists and computer programmers come together to form a new kind of network of culture and practice.

Looking to the past can help journalists and mass communicators understand the future of both industry and even international relations, says Giovanna Dell'Orto.

Dell'Orto joined the SJMC faculty as an assistant professor in fall 2010. During the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 academic years, she served as a contract faculty member at the SJMC.

Dell'Orto draws on her experience as a reporter and editor for the Associated Press in Atlanta, Phoenix and Minneapolis.

"My main research interest is in the history of the role of mass communication in international relations, because I believe that an essential factor in how nations interact is what they understand of each other, an understanding that is often formed through the news media," Dell'Orto says. "I am currently studying the history of American foreign correspondence, looking both at how it intersected with U.S. foreign policies and what it might predict for the future of international news gathering at a time of great financial stress for the industry, and professional soul-searching for journalists." Media also play a role in the formation of identities across geopolitical boundaries, Dell'Orto says.

"Because of my interest in the role of the media in shaping identities across national boundaries, I am also looking into the history of the Latino press in the United States and what part mass communication has played in the immigration debate here and in Europe."

Dell'Orto is the author of two books, "The Hidden Power of the American Dream: Why Europe's Shaken Confidence in the United States Threatens the Future of U.S. Influence" and "Giving Meanings to the World: The First U.S. Foreign Correspondents, 1838-1859." She coauthored "Hated Ideas and the American Civil War Press" with SJMC professor emeritus Hazel Dicken-Garcia.

Dell'Orto received her doctorate in mass communication from the University of Minnesota in 2004. She earned a master of arts in mass communication from the university in 2000 and her bachelor of arts in journalism and art history from the university in 1998.

SJMC's Kucera earns CLA's Outstanding Service Award.
The College of Liberal Arts presented Jean Kucera, the SJMC's unit administrator, with its Outstanding Service Award Dec. 14. In an e-mail message sent to college staff members, CLA Dean James A. Parente Jr. wrote the award was "richly deserved recognition of her exceptional performance and contributions" to the school.

Investigative reporting grant awarded

The School of Journalism and Mass Communications and MinnPost.com received an $80,000 grant from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation that will fund a joint program to help students identify, research and write investigative reporting projects.

Chris Ison, associate professor, a Pulitzer Prize winner and former Star Tribune investigative reporter and editor, coordinated the program with Jeff Severns Guntzel, a MinnPost reporter whose work focuses on investigative and data-driven projects.

One group of students examined the impact underfunding the state's public defender system has on defendants' abilities to get adequate representation.

Another group examined whether the recession truly had hit men harder than women, and what the impact had been on Minnesotans.

Journalist Edith Kinney Gaylord, whose father was editor and publisher of The Oklahoman and The Oklahoma City Times, created the Oklahoma City-based Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation in 1982. The grant to SJMC and MinnPost was part of $2 million in grants to 22 journalism organizations across the United States announced in October 2010.

18039|18030|33626 Fri, 01 Apr 2011 15:16:06 -0600

Associate professor Mark Pedelty has signed an advance contract with Temple University Press to publish a book about popular music as environmental communication. Temple's "Sound Matters" series is one of the leading resources for ethnomusicology, in particular sociological studies of popular music. The book will be the culmination of seven years of mixed-methods research, including survey, quantitative analysis, archival research and ethnographic fieldwork.

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Kudos


SJMC Professor Dona Schwartz was one of 10 artists selected for the Discoveries of Meeting Place exhibition in April at FotoFest 2010 Biennial.

Several prestigious organizations have selected photography by associate professor Dona Schwartz for exhibitions in the past several months. One of her photos is included in the 2010 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London through February 2011. It is Schwartz's second time in the exhibition, which has an acceptance rate of about 1 percent.

Schwartz was one of 10 artists selected for the Discoveries of the Meeting Place exhibition at the FotoFest Biennial in Houston in April.

Schwartz's photos from her "On the Nest" portrait series were included in the Domestic exhibition in Barcelona, Spain, that ran from April through June 2010, organized by Photographic Social Vision, a foundation that supports photographic and audio-visual arts and sponsors the World Press Photo exhibition, and Obra Social Caja Madrid, an organization that has supported social, cultural, educational and environmental projects for more than 300 years.

Presentations, publications and research

Professor and director of undergraduate studies Kathleen Hansen and Nora Paul, instructor and director of the Minnesota Journalism Center, co-authored an article for The Newspaper Guild's national website about the successful conclusion of a state training grant for the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press newsroom and advertising sales staff. The grant, for $238,000, was provided to the SJMC and the university through the Minnesota Job Skills Partnership (MJSP), sponsored by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development. State funds flow directly to the educational institution providing the training, and participating businesses must agree to pay their employees during the usual workday for their training time. The proposal was presented to and approved by the MJSP in late 2008 for implementation between February 2009 and June 2010. The program gained some notoriety when radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh accused the participating newspapers of "suckling at the welfare teat." The Duluth (Minn.) News Tribune withdrew from the program.

Instructors Gordon Leighton and Nora Paul were featured in the September 2010 issue of Minnesota Business magazine in a story on higher education's digital divide.

Jane E. Kirtley, Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law and director of the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law, recently made news. Kirtley was quoted in the New York Times in February 2010 regarding a privacy case in the Italian courts involving Google. Europeans, Kirtley says in the story, regard privacy as a fundamental human right and place a much higher priority on it than Americans.

Kirtley was a panelist for a discussion in March at the Center for Citizenship and Community at Butler University in Indianapolis on "Rights & Wrongs: Achieving Civil Discourse." She served on another panel, "LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Oh My! The Ethical Dangers of Social Networking for Attorneys," at the 23rd Annual Media and the Law Seminar in Kansas City in April; the event was co-sponsored by the University of Kansas School of Law. Kirtley also was a guest on "Access Minnesota," a weekly public affairs radio and television show produced by the Minnesota Broadcasters Association, to discuss the federal journalists' shield law bill.

In April, Kirtley lectured on "Near v. Minnesota: How Far Have We Come?" as part of the Minnesota History Center's History Lounge series; delivered a speech, "Retiring to 'Tee' and Scandal: Do Today's Media Trivialize the News?" at the Minneapolis chapter of American Association of University Women; and gave a lecture, "Impact of Internet-Based Sites Such as Facebook, MySpace and YouTube on Teacher Privacy and Related Rights in the Classroom," at the American Federation of Teachers' Lawyers Conference.

Kirtley also was a guest on CBC television's "Connect with Mark Kelley," where she discussed celebrities' expectations of privacy following actor Mel Gibson's publicized "meltdown" in the news. She also participated in "Access Denied: Navigating the Legal Challenges to Newsgathering," a roundtable discussion on how journalists can obtain access to information. That discussion was recorded for a two-hour DVD produced by Indiana University's Maurer School of Law and School of Journalism, Elon University and Indiana University's public television station WTIU. Free copies are being sent to journalism and law schools, state media associations and state public access groups.

Kirtley was a guest on "Almanac" on Twin Cities Public Television, discussing the controversy over a cover story in Lavender magazine that involved deceptive newsgathering techniques. Shayla Thiel-Stern, assistant professor, also was on the show as part of the media panel segment.

Thiel-Stern served on a panel about cyber-aggression Oct. 21 at Augsburg College in Minneapolis; the panel was moderated by U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Thiel-Stern appeared on TPT's Almanac show in July, August, October and November; was quoted by WCCO-TV's Jason DeRusha in his "Good Question" segment on how common sexting is in October; and appeared on Access Minnesota with Jim du Bois in November.

In August, Thiel-Stern also presented "Up or Out: Shifting Identity, Shifting Cultural Capital and the Narratives of Women Online Journalists from 2000 to 2010" in the Critical Students Scholar-to-Scholar session at the Association of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication in Denver. And in November, Thiel-Stern presented "Ethnography of Three Emerging Online Publications: Understanding the Role of User-Generated Content in a New Journalistic Culture," at a panel session at the National Communication Association conference in San Francisco.

Assistant professor Heather LaMarre and two students from her strategic communications class were featured on the show "Spark" on CBC to discuss her media fasting project, which encouraged students in her class to spend five days without any technology created after 1984. The Minnesota Daily and the Star Tribune both published articles about LaMarre's media fasting assignment. ABC.com quoted LaMarre about the advent of social media use in political campaigning.

Assistant professor Amy Kristin Sanders was featured on the weekly public affairs program Access Minnesota in an interview regarding net neutrality and the regulation of broadcast indecency. She also participated in a panel discussion, "Building and Managing Online Communities," at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society conference "Media Law in the Digital Age: The Rules Have Changed, Have You?" in Atlanta. She discussed the role of anonymous commenters, provided guidance on drafting website user agreements and privacy policies, and explained legal protections for online publishers.

"The Obama Effect: Multidisciplinary Renderings of the 2008 Campaign," a book recounting the proceedings of the 2008 Obama Effect Conference, was published this fall by SUNY Press. The three-day conference, sponsored by the SJMC in October 2008, featured three keynote speakers, local political representatives and a roundtable discussion featuring local journalists. Catherine Squires, Cowles Professor of Journalism, Diversity and Equality and lead organizer of the event, served as one of three editors for the book. Squires credited many factors in the success of the conference and the book's publication. Funding from the Cowles Chair of Journalism, Diversity, and Equality, along with contributions from multiple departments in the College of Liberal Arts, made the event possible.

TRANSITIONS

New program associate joins SJMC

Ada Walton, who has a degree in communications from Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa, is the SJMC's new events manager and program associate for the Minnesota Journalism Center. Before coming to the SJMC, Walton planned and produced social media marketing campaigns and local promotional events with Clear Channel Communications.

New communications manager joins SJMC

Amy E. Olson (M.A. in health journalism '04; B.A. '99) is the School of Journalism and Mass Communication's new communications manager. Olson spent 10 years as a reporter and editor at newspapers in Minnesota and Wisconsin; she most recently served as health editor at Gannett Central Wisconsin Media and assistant features editor at the Daily Herald in Wausau, Wis. She previously worked as marketing and communications manager for the Association of Health Care Journalists.

Brian Southwell, associate professor and director of graduate studies, left the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the end of the fall 2010 term. He has accepted a position as a senior research scientist with RTI International's Health Communication Program. He has a joint appointment as a research professor with the University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill's School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

18039|18030|33626 Fri, 01 Apr 2011 14:17:17 -0600

By Karen Kloser

After a combined 41 years of programming and service, the Minnesota Journalism Center and the Institute for New Media Studies are merging. The new entity will retain the name Minnesota Journalism Center but will have a new, broader mission and will serve both the journalism and academic communities.

The Minnesota Journalism Center was established in 1979 through a gift from the late John Cowles, Sr., chairman of the Minneapolis Star and Tribune Co. and his wife, the late Elizabeth Bates Cowles.

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The center's mission was to improve the practice of journalism, promote interaction between media professionals and the academy, and serve as the outreach arm of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Through hundreds of programs, events, lectures and partnerships, the MJC played a critical role in the Twin Cities and beyond, providing early and mid-career professional development opportunities and celebrating journalistic achievement and career contributions. (Some highlights of the center's work are detailed in the accompanying timeline.)

The Institute for New Media Studies was established as part of then-University of Minnesota President Mark Yudof's New Media Initiative in 1998. Its mission was to serve as a center for creation, innovation and examination of media content and messages and the effects of new media technologies and techniques on message forms and functions. Nora Paul arrived in 2000 to lead the institute, which hosted more than 100 leading-edge programs, seminars and workshops during its 10-year span of work. (Highlights of the institute's work are detailed in the accom-panying timeline.)

The new Minnesota Journalism Center will be led by Paul, who consulted with the MJC advisory board members (leaders from the Minnesota media community) in fall 2010 to define the updated mission for the center. Combining the service mission of the center and the innovation and cross-disciplinary collaboration approach of the institute will provide the MJC with a new direction.

"The MJC's programming and research mission will focus on news organizations and their need to understand the new news audience, discover new ways to tell stories, and develop strategies to strengthen their business models," Paul says. "I look forward to building on the strong foundation of programming and outreach conducted by the MJC over the years and adding exciting new elements in the coming years."

Minnesota Journalism Center

The 1980s - the early years of this decade featured many well-known and world-famous figures as guest lecturers, speakers or panelists: Lewis Lapham, editor of Harper's magazine; Erwin Knoll, editor of The Progressive magazine; Leonard Silk, The New York Times economics columnist; Samuel Segev, political commentator for Maariv, Israel's largest newspaper; Yuan Xian-Lu, Washington, D.C., bureau chief for People's Daily from the Republic of China; Harrison Salisbury, Moscow correspondent for The New York Times; Alexander Ginzburg, writer, journalist and human rights activist; Joe Adamov, voice of Radio-Moscow; Esteban Lopez-Escobar, scholar and journalism professor from Pamplona, Spain; Peter Brook and Pamela Creighton, BBC World Service news editors; Muriel G. Cantor, sociology professor at The American University; Stanley Hubbard, Hubbard Broadcasting; and many more.

18037|18030|18035|33626 Thu, 31 Mar 2011 16:55:32 -0600 http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2011/03/through-the-years.html 284271

1980

MJC officially is launched. Fred Friendly, Edward R. Murrow professor from Columbia University, spoke to a standing room-only crowd of more than 500 people for his lecture, "The Media -- Message, Mediator, Monster."

1981

American Association of Advertising Agencies: Institute of Advanced Advertising Studies - Twin Cities advertising professionals returned to school in Murphy Hall for a 17-week program covering industry topics.

The MJC is named the institutional home of the Frank Premack Public Affairs Journalism Awards competition and program. The Premack Awards would later develop into the premier recognition of the work of public affairs journalists in the state and
become the "Minnesota Pulitzer."

1982

Intellectual Life in the Soviet Union: A Look at Contemporary Soviet Culture

SJMC Director F. Gerald Kline moderated "The Communication of Political Symbolism" program, which explored the Soviet Union's mass media.

Betty Rollin and Jane Brody

Shift Modes: You and the New Technology seminar was co-sponsored with the National Federation of Press Women and featured Betty Rollin, ABC News Nightline orrespondent and author of "First, You Cry," and Jane Brody, personal health columnist for The New York Times.

Economics and Media Management Lecture Series produced five events from 1982 through 1983 and featured top executives from Knight-Ridder Newspapers, Inc., the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post.

1985

Visual Communication 25th anniversary celebration

1986

MJC held "Working More Effectively with Your Creative Employees: Goals and Strategies for Media Managers" and "Targets of the Media Talk Back."

1987

Professional Writing Conference This workshop was one of the earliest professional develop-ment outreach efforts for the center and was co-sponsored with the Society of Professional Journalists, the Minnesota Newspaper Foundation and the National Conference of Editorial Writers.

1990s

1991

Fifteen reporters from newspapers and television stations throughout Minnesota gathered in Minneapolis Nov. 15 for the MJC-sponsored workshop "Concerning Schools: The Legislative Agenda." The event included Minnesota's education commissioner, an expert from the university's Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs and a Wisconsin legislator, who discussed education reform.

1995

Norman Orenstein, university alumnus and American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research resident scholar, addressed the ramifications of the 1994 elections at the 18th Frank Premack Memorial Lecture and Awards program.

1996

Overuse of anonymous sources and growth of the "punditocracy" undermine journalism and democracy, said David Broder, nationally syndicated Washington Post columnist. Broder made the remarks during his Premack Lecture keynote address.

1997

Kathleen Hansen was named the new director for the MJC.

The first of three workshops titled "A Conversation Among Crafts" brought together journalists and other professionals to talk about common skills in interviewing, investigating and visualizing information. The interviewing conversation featured Ray Suarez, host of National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation."

1998

To Whom are Journalists Accountable?

"To Whom Are Journalists Accountable?" was a daylong discussion for the National Forum on Media Accountability, sponsored with the Washington, D.C.-based Committee of Concerned Journalists and Minnesota media organizations.

Creating Your Own Assignments: Enterprise Photo-journalism More than 50 regional photojournalists attended this workshop where SJMC alumnus Annie Griffiths Belt and Brad Clift presented.

1999

The James K. Batten Symposium and Awards for Excellence in Civic Journalism, co-sponsored with the D.C.-based Pew Center for Civic Journalism and Minnesota media organizations, were presented in the Twin Cities.

The new millennium: 2000-2010

2000

Alan Greenspan

"Supply, Demand and Deadlines: A Workshop on Economics for Journalists" was launched with the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. The inaugural offering, held at the Wye Conference Center in Maryland, featured an off-the-record conversation between then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and 20 of the nation's top economic journalists.

Visiting lecturer/professor in residence Jon Katz spent October at the SJMC following publication of his book, "Geeks." His course on culture and technology titled "Mary Shelley, Frankenstein and the Unabomber" drew students from around the university.

2001

Terror! Media Coverage of Sept. 11 and the Aftermath

Following in the wake of the terrorism attacks, the Twin Cities journalism community discussed the events' effects on local and national media at a public forum.

Journalism and Bioterrorism

The MJC hosted news organizations and health and safety officials following 9/11 for discussion on the ethical and accuracy issues of reporting on bioterrorism.

Full Court Press: A Sportswriting Seminar and Scholarship Program

MJC broke new ground with the U.S. Basketball Writers Association during the Final Four when it held a student journalism workshop for aspiring sportswriters. An added incentive was a $1,000 scholarship from the USBWA for each of six students. This event put the wheels in motion for more journalism workshops at future Final Four sites.

2002

The Frank Premack Public Affairs Journalism Awards competition celebrated 25 years.

2004

MJC co-sponsored two workshops with the American Press Institute's Reynolds Center for Business Reporting that provided regional journalists with skills and strategies for covering important business stories.

2006

The first of two annual workshops co-sponsored by the MJC and the university's Ecosystem Science and Sustainability Initiative. The first workshop was titled "Feeding Ourselves in the Future: A Journalist's Workshop on the Science and Policy of Food."

2008

The MJC co-sponsored "The Obama Effect," a conference organized by SJMC Professor Catherine Squires to reflect on the effects of the soon-to-be-elected president's campaign on race, gender and class issues in America.

2009

The MJC co-sponsored "New Economic Models for the News Industry" with the national Newspaper Guild. Speakers included the president of the Newspaper Association of America, Guild representatives and legal/regulatory experts exploring new models for generating revenue in the news industry.

2010

See Change conference

The MJC, the SJMC and the Minnesota Chapter of AIGA held the first "See Change: The Power of Visual Communication" conference to bring creative professionals together to share thoughts and inspirations about visual communication. 18037|18030|33626 Thu, 31 Mar 2011 16:07:47 -0600



http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2011/03/inms-timeline.html 284015

2000

The Institute for New Media Studies was one of four key components of the U's New Media Initiative, which started in 1998 to take the journalism school into the 21st century. The institute's mission was to be a center for creation, innovation and examination of content and messages and the effects of new media technologies and techniques on their forms and functions.

Nora Paul

Nora Paul arrived in July 2000 to establish the institute as a cross-departmental, interdisciplinary center intended to be "internationally recognized for innovation, experimentation and creativity in new media and a focal point for building partnerships with the communications industry."

Paul initiated more than 100 leading-edge programs, seminars, lectures and workshops over the 10-year span of the institute's exploration of new media impacts. Her expertise was sought across the country and around the world, leading to travel in 13 countries in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and South America.

2001

Digital Storytelling

The first key research project the institute undertook was the Elements of Digital Storytelling, which defined the taxonomy of terms and "elements" that make up digital stories: Media, action, relationship, context and communication.




New Media Research Breakfast


The New Media Research Breakfast series was launched as a gathering of industry professionals, U students and scholars interested in current new media research. These popular breakfasts ran through the duration of the institute's programming.




2002

The Geo Wall

Often a technology gets developed before an application for its use is entirely clear, as was the case for the Geo Wall. The wall was developed for presentation of three-dimensional images and virtual site visits of topographical maps in the geology and geophysics department. The institute was awarded two grants for further development of wall technology and for addressing the creation of content. The Joy of Wall summit created a content cookbook with "recipes" for taking 2D content and converting it for display in a 3D wall presentation.




Top 10 Wired Women


Paul was named one of the Top Ten Wired Women by ABCNews.com and was featured in the Last Word column of the Mpls.St.Paul magazine in 2002.




Emerging Digerati


This popular monthly series was produced from 2002 to 2008 and showcased student and faculty "digerati" using new digital tools and techniques to do old things in new ways. The Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum co-sponsored the event at the museum and drew from such diverse disciplines as visual art and game design to architectural and scientific simulations.




2003

New Research for New Media

This conference series addressed the current state of and future trends in research methods used to examine new media. The 2004 conference was held in Spain in collaboration with the University of Tarragona. Each fall the New Research for New Media conference brought together researchers from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds to talk about their research approaches.

Gravel

The Game Research and Virtual Environment Laboratory (Gravel) was a joint project between the institute and the Digital Technology Center. Founding members included people from colleges and departments across campus exploring the implications of the game environment on various social science, design and technology questions.




2005

Digital Think

This anthology of essays by 22 multi-media producers and innovative thinkers from around the world and across disciplines was published.

DiSEL Project

In follow-up to the Elements of Digital Storytelling research findings, Paul proposed the DiSEL project (The Digital Storytelling Effects Lab) with co-researcher Laura Ruel of the University of North Carolina.




2006

Multimedia News Producers Workshop

The institute co-hosted the Multi-media News Producers Workshop with the Minnesota Journalism Center and invited online news producers from across the U.S. The three-day workshop provided instruction and hands-on training to improve audio, video and Flash storytelling skills.




2007

Playing the News

Paul and Professor Kathleen Hansen received a $250,000 grant from the Knight Foundation 21st Century News Challenge program to test an interactive news game against traditional news methods for complicated, on-going news issues. Their virtual game environment project, "Playing the News," allowed citizens to "play" through a news story to see how it impacted understanding of and engagement in the news topic.




2008

DiSEL consortium

Paul and Ruel published their Digital Storytelling Effects Lab research findings and embarked on a new round of studies. A consortium of 12 United States news organizations helped develop the research agenda.




2009

MN Job Skills Partnership

The institute and the SJMC received a $238,000 grant from the state of Minnesota to train newsrooms and advertising staffs at the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press in digital age skills.




2010

Eyetracking Research project

An examination of the New York Times Topics Pages provided insights into how students engage with "curated" news content.




18037|18030|33626 Thu, 31 Mar 2011 13:49:29 -0600

By Patrick File

'Doctrine of obscenity' not applicable to violence, lawyer tells audience at 25th Silha lecture

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2011/03/attorney-calls-efforts-to-regu.html 283978


Attorney Paul Smith discussed the First Amendment implications of laws prohibiting the sale of violent video games to minors during the 25th annual Silha Lecture.

Silha lecturer Paul Smith said he was in "full advocate mode" at the University of Minnesota's Cowles Auditorium on Oct. 18, 2010, while discussing a case he was 15 days away from arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court. He jokingly asked the overflow crowd to "relax your usual standards of objectivity" during the lecture, titled "Not Child's Play: The Misguided Effort to Regulate Violent Video Games."

The lecture and the case, Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association, raised the question of whether the First Amendment right to free speech trumps the state of California's ability to ban the sale of violent video games to minors. Smith, who represented the international trade association challenging the law, explained why he thought it is unconstitutional and why he hopes the Supreme Court justices will agree.

Beyond hope, Smith has experience to rely on: The case will mark his 14th appearance before the high court. A partner with Jenner & Block's office in Washington, D.C., Smith specializes in the First Amendment, commercial and telecommunications litigation, intellectual property, antitrust and election law. Among his best-known cases are Lawrence v. Texas and United States v. American Library Association. Smith clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell from 1980 to 1981. He was named one of the National Law Journal's 40 Most Influential Lawyers of the Decade in 2010.

The California law Smith opposes is similar to other state laws that courts have struck down around the country, including in Minnesota.

"In First Amendment terms," Smith said, legislators "have tried to take the doctrine of obscenity for minors ... and apply it to violence in video games."

Smith said the Supreme Court should find the law unconstitutional because it has never "recogniz(ed) the existence of a violence exception" to the First Amendment when it has had the opportunity to do so, in part because of the problem of clearly defining what should or should not be restricted. Smith said the vagueness problem is symptomatic of the difficulty of defining the type of violence children should be restricted from seeing.

"(Violence) is a part of minors' lives in a way that explicit sexuality is not a part of their lives," Smith said, "and so, because of that reality, it is difficult to figure out how you could draw a statute that says (the films) 'Star Wars' and 'Lord of the Rings' are over here, but (the game) 'Grand Theft Auto' is over here."

Research that is intended to support restricting minors' access to video games does not provide enough evidence to "draw a law that is workable," Smith said. Experiments that sought to demonstrate that violent video games make young people more aggressive "don't really begin to show any serious or long-term effects of playing these games," he added. Research that has found "a tiny correlation" between playing violent video games and aggressive tendencies has not proven that it is the games themselves that cause those tendencies.

Rather than banning the games com-pletely, the California law ostensibly is aimed at empowering parents to decide whether violent games are appropriate for their children, Smith said, adding he believes the problem with that approach is that statistics show that it is parents who mostly purchase violent video games for their children. This occurs because the industry already voluntarily rates games according to violence and many retailers will not sell violent games to minors without a parent present.


Supporters of the Silha Lecture gather with guest speaker attorney Paul Smith following the event. Top row, from left: John Reimann, David Reimann, Johnny Reimann, Paul Smith and Stephen Silha. Bottom row, from left: Helen Silha, Mark Silha, Alice Reimann and School of Journalism and Mass Communication Professor Jane Kirtley.

"There is no great secret to what the kids are being exposed to; the parents have made these choices and are already essentially in control," Smith said.

Smith said he hopes the court will over-turn the California law. Although the U.S. Supreme Court has grown increas-ingly conservative in many respects over the last 15 years, it has not "done much cutting back on First Amendment rights," Smith said. He attributes this in part to more traditionally conservative justices such as Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito Jr. and John Roberts "becoming the strongest advocates of First Amendment rights." Smith cited the example of U.S. v. Stephens -- a decision striking down a federal law that banned possession and sale of media depicting animal cruelty -- in which Roberts wrote a majority opinion "that could've easily been written by Justice Brennan, the famous advocate of First Amendment rights."

Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association is pending.

Video and audio of the full lecture are available on the Silha Center website. The Silha Center is based at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota. Silha Center activities, including the 25th annual lecture, are made possible by a generous endowment from the late Otto Silha and his wife, Helen.

18034|18030|33626 Thu, 31 Mar 2011 11:44:02 -0600

In the administrative division, we try to find ways of improving The Minnesota Daily, inside and out. Fall semester, we worked toward that goal by undertaking a wide array of projects from philanthropy to employee development in each department.

Digital tools are reshaping the ways that the newspaper industry operates, and this includes the Daily. Our online and information systems departments strive to keep up with change and give our staff members the resources they need to tell a more engaging story. We updated our online story budget and constantly work to make our website more dynamic and easier to use.

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2011/03/update.html 283969


Minnesota Daily Leadership
From left, Christian Santacana, business operations manager; Thomas Johnson, chairman of the board; and Devin Henry, editor-in-chief.

In such a difficult job market—especially for journalists—our human resources department has worked aggressively to connect our staff members with work opportunities in the professional world and to provide the training necessary to be competitive. HR also has been hard at work providing more opportunities for Daily employees to interact across departments through events and our internal newsletter, the Daily Insider.

The most recent adoptee of the administrative division, the marketing and communications department, developed its approach to marketing and outreach to include business promotions, recruitment and philanthropy. We've made efforts to set up programs directed at prospective writers in high schools and we are working with other campus organizations on an ambitious project to address sexual assault at the U.

-- Thomas Johnson, chairman of the board


The Minnesota Daily and its journalists won 15 first place awards and seven second place awards in the Minnesota Newspaper Association's 2009-2010 Better Newspapers Contest. The awards were presented in January.

Business update

We at the business division worked hard during the fall undertaking initiatives and managing daily operations. If you haven't heard, we launched the new mndailydeal.com website. Mndailydeal.com offers a great deal every day, Monday through Friday, for the University of Minnesota community. Coupons offered range from 50 percent to 90 percent off on restaurants, retail stores, activities and more. Check it out and visit the Daily Facebook and Twitter pages. Also during the fall semester, we introduced the new Bar and Beer Guide with information on local bars to visit and beers to try. Keep your eye open for those Daily deals and any new special issues coming out.

-- Christian Santacana, business operations manager

Editorial update

During the fall semester, the editorial division focused on putting out the strongest newspaper among college newspapers. We ran at least one long-form project story every week, focusing on topics such as first-year students' first weeks on campus, issues in the Somali community and what it's like to spend an evening at the Dinkytown McDonald's. We followed the biggest stories at the University of Minnesota for the semester, such as the controversy surrounding the "Troubled Waters" documentary, the crimes reported at university fraternities and the struggles of the Golden Gophers football team.

We put a greater focus on our online product. The newsroom now is tasked with updating mndaily.com on a daily basis, ensuring we have coverage of breaking news stories that affect the university community. The Daily offers a cadre of blogs, many of which are updated every day. We put a greater emphasis on multimedia content, too. The Daily's produced some great video reports and photo slideshows. If you haven't checked out mndaily.com, now's the time.

While the editorial division is fully staffed, there are opportunities to get involved. If you want to work at the Daily or create freelance content, get in touch with me. We're always happy to get more people involved.

Thank you, and thanks for reading the Daily!

-- Devin Henry, editor-in-chief

18030|18038|33626 Thu, 31 Mar 2011 10:56:27 -0600

Anthony Maggio
For Murphy Reporter

If you've been away from The Minnesota Daily for more than a decade, you might remember a time when the Minnesota Daily Alumni Association published a newsletter to help alumni connect with the newspaper that initiated their careers and many lifelong relationships.

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2011/03/minnesota-daily-alumni-associa-1.html 283955

I'm proud to announce the newsletter is back. The inaugural Beyond the Daily was distributed Nov. 1 via e-mail and can be found at www.mndailyalumni.com. New editions every quarter will include updates on the endeavors of Daily alumni, mentorship oppor-tunities, networking resources and event details.

The newsletter is part of a renewed mission to build an alumni community that helps support the professional aspirations of past, present and future Daily employees. The ongoing improvements stem from organizational structural changes developed by former association president, Michelle Fure, which were implemented this fall.

Now at full capacity, the MDAA board of directors is driven to accomplish two main objectives for 2010-2011: consistent communication with alumni and reaching the broader Daily community.

I have firsthand knowledge of the board's past failure to communicate consistently, if at all, and more recently, its sporadic correspondence. I apologize if you felt ignored or simply didn't know the MDAA existed. Admittedly, the board lacked the solid organizational base needed to accomplish even small tasks. Now, it's prepared to tackle the goal of cultivating a robust group of Daily alumni unified by past experience, current philanthropy and the future success of today's student-employees who are working to sustain the Daily's good name and quality—just as you left it.

We board members want to reconnect you professionally and socially with the Daily, campus and your peers. We want to use your experiences to mentor students, speak at career sessions and offer invaluable professional guidance. We hope to gather at homecoming parades, be merry at pub crawls, network with students nearing graduation and celebrate each spring at our MDAA Annual Mixer.

This year's MDAA Annual Mixer will be held the evening of April 16 at TCF Bank Stadium's Indoor Club Room. This fun event offers alumni and students the chance to mingle, reconnect and network over tasty food and drinks, and more—including a stadium tour! Purchase tickets through the MDAA website or contact me at amaggio17@gmail.com.

Connect with the MDAA by submitting your contact information to boardmember@mn-dailyalumni.com and by joining us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. These steps will ensure you receive MDAA communications, including Beyond the Daily, mentorship details, presentation opportunities and invitations to events.

I welcome your comments, critiques or suggestions on how to make the MDAA a more productive and successful institution. Each member of the board is excited about the future of the MDAA—I hope you're excited to reconnect with us. Anthony Maggio is president of the Minnesota Daily Alumni Association. He works as a Mystic Lake Casino Hotel copywriter and FoxSportsNorth.com reporter covering the Minnesota Twins and Minnesota Timberwolves. Maggio was a Minnesota Daily sports reporter from 2001 to 2003.

18030|18038|33626 Thu, 31 Mar 2011 10:38:41 -0600

Amy Landa, Ph.D. student, received a grant from the university's Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment & the Life Sciences for her project, "The Role of Investigative Journalism in the History of Bioethics."

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Contributed photo
Members of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication's master of arts in strategic communication graduating class of 2010 pose with Professor John Eighmey, center, and lecturer Gordon Leighton, far right.

Graduate

Sada Reed, M.A. student in the mass communication track, presented a paper, "Sports Media's Maintenance of Gender Hierarchy: Ideologies of Femininity Portrayed as 'Common Sense' in Women's Olympic Coverage," at the European Association for Sociology of Sport conference in May 2010, in Porto, Portugal.

Yoshikazu Suzuki, M.A. student in the mass communication track, presented two papers in October 2010. The first was "Participatory Influence of Active Audiences: Supercell and Miku Hatsune Transgressing the Boundary of Japanese Popular Culture" at the annual conference of the Midwest Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association in Minneapolis. The second was "The Courage to Pursue User-Generated Content Creation: A Case Study of Website Management by a Popular Japanese Video Sharing Website" at MediaAsia 2010, the Asian Conference on Media and Mass
Communication in Osaka, Japan.

Nangyal Tsering, M.A. student in the mass communication track, presented at the 94th annual national conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication in August 2010 in Denver. His presentation in the Top Papers Session: Media Constructions of Multicultural Realities, "Welcome to America: The Star Tribune's Coverage of Tibetan Americans in Minnesota," was the top student paper.

Undergraduate

Adam Giorgi, senior honors student in the strategic communications track, conducted a research survey over the spring and summer for his honors thesis, which focuses on the relevance of writing guidelines, including the usefulness of AP style. He gathered input from communications professionals in journalism, public relations and corporate communications.

Ibrahim Hirsi, a junior in the professional journalism track and former Minnesota Daily staffer, spent the summer working for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Kenya. He worked on a training program to prevent cholera outbreaks and produced a documentary for an organization, FilmAid, about conflict between Somali and Sudanese refugees at a camp in Dabaad. Hirsi, who is an alumnus of the ThreeSixty Journalism program at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn., also tried to replicate the program by teaching journalism, news ethics and interviewing skills to eight refugees.

The Minnesota Daily and its staff members won numerous awards in the 2009 Region 6 Mark of Excellence competition, sponsored by the Society of Professional Journalists. Recognition included:

• Best affiliated website, first place
• Best all-around daily student newspaper, first place
• Daily editorial board, editorial writing, first place
• Daily staff, breaking news reporting, second place
• SJMC student Jules Ameel, feature photography, first place
• Briana Bierschbach (B.A, '09), online news reporting, first; breaking news reporting, first; feature writing, third place
• Emma Carew (B.A., '09) and Jake Grovum (B.A., '09), general news reporting, first
• SJMC student Robert Downs, feature writing, first place
• McKenna Ewen (B.A., '09), television sports reporting, first place (for work done during a summer internship at the Star Tribune)
• SJMC student Josh Katzenstein, sports column writing, first place
• Andy Mannix (B.A., '09), in-depth reporting, first place
18030|18040|33626 Thu, 31 Mar 2011 10:23:42 -0600

"A camera full of my photos from Kenya!" says Kiya Edwards, class of '11.

From dirt roads in Nakuru to the bustling streets of Nairobi, Edwards recorded many memorable experiences while studying abroad in fall 2009. A multitalented theater and broadcast journalism major in the College of Liberal Arts, Edwards attends the U with full-ride scholarships and a determination to do it all.

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2011/03/whats-in-your-backpack.html 283684





"I wanted to connect international studies with theater and journalism, so I looked for a Third World country offering a program that included theater," Edwards says.

After a safari in Nakuru and classes in Nairobi, Edwards headed to Kisumu, the city of President Barack Obama's family.

"I worked with a group called Changez that focuses on youth development using theater as a tool for social change," she explains.

Edwards acted, wrote scripts, participated in peer education, and
edited and wrote articles.

"My greatest accomplishment was writing the Changez song, which I taught to high school students," Edwards says. "It's based on their problems and issues. The final verse is about how change can help them."

To hear her song and see her photos of Kenya, go to giving.umn.edu, scroll through the slideshow and click on "Kiya Goes to Kenya."

Reprinted courtesy of Legacy magazine, published by the University of Minnesota Foundation.

18030|18040|33626 Tue, 29 Mar 2011 16:16:20 -0600

In the whir of activity around us, especially in these challenging economic times, it's easy to forget that one relatively small act of kindness can have a profound impact and create a deep and lasting legacy.

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2011/03/development-update-7.html 283654

Hilma L. Eckstrand created such a legacy when, on July 18, 1978, she signed her last will and testament, bequeathing the remains of a trust fund to the SJMC for the sole purpose of supporting "worthy and needy students in the University of Minnesota, School of Journalism." She created the fund out of gratitude for and in recognition of Herbert Berridge Elliston, her distinguished employer, mentor and friend.

Mary Hicks
Director of External Relations
College of Liberal Arts
612-625-5031
hicks002@umn.edu

First, a little background: Elliston directed the Washington Post's editorial pages from 1940 through 1953 and played a key role in modeling the Post into one of the coun-try's pre-eminent newspapers. Eckstrand, who was born in North Branch, Minn., moved in 1941 to Washington, D.C., where she became governess to Elliston's children. When he had a stroke in 1952, she added nursing care to her household duties. She later became the governess and housekeeper for Philip and Katharine Graham, who then were publishers of the Washington Post.

When ill health forced Eckstrand to return to Minnesota in 1978, one of her last wishes was to honor Elliston. Given the SJMC's international stature, she felt this was the perfect place for that honor to take root.

Today, her initial of gift of $350,000 has grown to a $1 million endowment. But that's only part of the story. Since the gift came to the SJMC in 1979, 479 students have received support with awards totaling slightly more than $905,000!

The skeptics among you might say, "Sure, but you'd never get those kinds of returns in today's market." This endowment has endured and grown through a number of volatile and bearish economic times, including a few recess-ions. Today, the endowment continues to support students as it has for 31 years.

Of course, impact isn't just about numbers. It's about the accomplishments and experiences of students and alumni. Let's check in with just a few:

"My scholarship came at a critical time in my career when I was paying my own way through grad school, managing the newsroom of the Minnesota Daily and serving as an editorial intern at an off-campus magazine called Community Television Review. Those were lean years for me, and patching together pots of money to continue my studies was always a problem. The Elliston scholarship was part of the solution."--Kevin Diaz, '85, 1983-84 recipient, reporter and Washington correspondent for the Star Tribune

"The [Elliston] scholarship was a huge factor in my being able to move to Washington, D.C., where I held post-graduate internships at the Washington Post and The Chronicle of Higher Education. Without the year of experience I gained in Washington, I would not have been able to land a job as prestigious as working at the Star Tribune, just one year out of college."
--Emma Carew '09, 2008-09 recipient

"The Elliston scholarship--combined with other scholarships, grants and part-time work (plus a bit of help from Mom)--helped me do the impossible: graduate in four years with no debt!"
--Carl Hamm '06, 2005-06 recipient

We all know how much the industry is changing and what a tough market journalists face. Yet these testimonials remind us that especially in such times the greatest gift any of us can give our students is an opportunity to graduate without crippling debt, as many graduates of earlier generations were able to do. Our joy in graduating wasn't dampened by the prospect of a giant student loan bill coming due in 12 months. Wouldn't it be great if current SJMC students could have the same experience?

If your answer is yes, I would be very happy to talk with you about possibilities.

18041|18030|33626 Tue, 29 Mar 2011 14:58:39 -0600 http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2011/03/alumni-notes-8.html 283648

2000s

Kelley Amunrud (B.A. '09) is a marketing research assistant at the marketing research firm Anderson, Niebuhr and Associates in Arden Hills, Minn.

Benjamin Anderson (B.A. '08) works at the United States Census Bureau in Minneapolis as a census enumerator.

Karrah Anderson (B.A. '09) works as a production and design specialist at Redstamp.com, an online retailer in St. Louis Park, Minn.

Scott Anderson (B.A. '06) graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Pharmacy. He will continue his graduate studies with a two-year pharmacy administration residency at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Sarah Arendt (B.A. '09) is studying law at the University of Chicago.

Jeff Bakken (B.A. '00) is the public relations and communications manager for the Minneapolis law firm of Gray Plant Mooty. Bakken and his wife, Kirsten, are the proud parents of twin boys. They live in Maple Grove, Minn.

Carla Ballecer (B.S. '07) was part of a team from digital advertising firm R/GA that became one of four teams to represent the United States in the 2010 international Young Lions competition; 200 teams competed. The contest is part of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. She and her partner won the U.S. cyber entry and received an all-expenses paid trip to France.

Elisa Becker (B.A. '09) works as a receptionist at Target Corporation in Minneapolis.

Anne Bowen (B.A. '09) works as an administrative assistant at O'Hara, Lindsay and Associates, a government relations firm in Lincoln, Neb.

Molly Broman (B.A. '05) was hired in February 2010 as the editor of Lake Minnetonka Magazine, a monthly publication serving the communities in the Minnetonka, Minn., area. She continues to work as an associate photographer for Jan Kentala Photography in Burnsville, Minn.

Kelsey Buckley (B.A. '09) works as a paraplanner at Jack Buckley Financial, a financial adviser/investments company in Lake Elmo, Minn.

Anne Catherine Bunkers (B.A. '09) is a search specialist at Nina Hale Consulting, a search engine marketing agency in Minneapolis. She previously worked as an interactive search coordinator at TMP Directional Marketing in Eden Prairie, Minn.

Caitlin Butler (B.A. '09) is a teacher with Teach for America in Clarendon, Ark. She is pursuing a master's degree in education at Delta State University.

Rachel Camann (B.A. '08) is a consumer-marketing intern at the Weber Shandwick public relations firm in Bloomington, Minn.

Emma Carew (B.A. '09) has joined the news staff of the Star Tribune in Minneapolis.

Amanda Champion (B.A. '09) works as a sales and design consultant at California Closets in Bloomington, Minn.

Andrew Cummins (B.A. '09) now writes for his hometown newspaper, The Torrington Telegram, in Wyoming.

Rachel Desjarlais (B.A. '09) works as an assistant interactive media planner at MRM Worldwide, a digital advertising agency in Minneapolis.

Hilary Dickinson (B.A. '08) is a reporter for the Beloit Daily News, in Beloit, Wis.

Rachel Drewelow (B.A. '08) works as a community reporter for the Austin Daily Herald and Southern Minnesota Magazine in Austin, Minn.

Emme Drews (B.A. '05) is a manager in engagement management at Organic Inc., a digital communications agency in New York City.

Mohan J. Dutta (Ph.D. '01) has been appointed associate dean for research and graduate education in the College of Liberal Arts at Purdue University. He also has been appointed the Lim Chong Yah Professor of Communication & New Media at the National University of Singapore.

Zach Eisendrath (B.A. '09) works as the assistant director of communications at the Mountain West Conference of the NCAA in Colorado Springs, Colo. His communications internship with the Denver Broncos during the 2009-10 football season first exposed him to the world of sports communications.

Anna Ewart (B.A. '09) works as a business analyst for i-metrics and communications at H.B. Fuller in St. Paul, Minn.

McKenna Ewen (B.A. '09) placed seventh with a $500 award in the television division of the 2009-10 Hearst Journalism Awards Program. The competitions are open to 110 member colleges and universities with undergraduate journalism programs accredited by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Ewen completed his senior thesis project, "Rubbed Out," in collaboration with reporter James Shiffer of the Star Tribune.

Kristen Fellows (B.A. '09) works for Red Bull North America in St. Paul, Minn., as a Wiiings team member.

Santiago Fernandez-Gimenez (M.A. '09) works at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities as a Web project manager/information architect.

Michael D. Fibison (M.A. '08) is vice president of Media General, an independent communications company in Richmond, Va. Previously, he was a reporter for the Post-Bulletin in Rochester, Minn.

Eli Flasher (B.A. '09) now holds the job of booking assistant at the First Avenue concert venue in Minneapolis.

Victoria Fuhrman (B.A. '09) is an assistant teacher at St. Andrew Early Childhood Center in Eden Prairie, Minn. She plans to complete a master's degree in early childhood and elementary education.

Matt Guth (B.A. '09) works as a data manager at Professional Meters Inc., a construction company in Morris, Ill. Previously, he worked as a freelance writer for the Star Tribune in Minneapolis.

Heidi Hanse (B.A. '09) works as editor for her hometown newspaper, the Lake County Leader, in Polson, Mont. She previously held the position of sports editor.

Natalie Harnson (B.A. '08) works as an assistant media planner for the Haworth Marketing + Media advertising agency in Minneapolis.

Rachel Hemsey (B.A. '09) is a teacher for Teach For America in New York City. She received a master's degree in education at Hunter College.

Marlys Huismann (B.A. '09) is an intake specialist at Community Action Program, a nonprofit organization in Rosemount, Minn.

Jennifer Hulke (B.A. '09) works as a product specialist for Best Buy Inc., in Richfield, Minn.

Megan Ireland (B.A. '09) works as a pro-duction manager at Well & Lighthouse LLC., an Internet and new media political consulting firm in Washington, D.C.

Shadetra Johnson (M.A. '08) works as a marketing manager at Vision-Ease Lens in Ramsey, Minn. Previously, she worked as a recruiting specialist for the University of Minnesota men's basketball team. She now is pursuing a master's in mass communications at the University of North Carolina.

Emily Jolly (B.A. '09) is an interactive project manager at Preston Kelly, a Minneapolis marketing communications agency.

Courtney Keller (B.A. '09) works at TMP Directional Marketing in Des Plaines, Ill., as a search engine marketing product coordinator.

Lisa Kalis (B.A. '09) is an administrative assistant for Minneapolis Financial Group-MassMutual in Minneapolis.

Mackenzie Kelley (B.A. '09) works at the Better Business Bureau in St. Paul, Minn., as an accredited business services representative and event coordinator.

Kevin Keen (B.A. '09) is a reporter for WQOW-TV, the ABC affiliate in Eau Claire, Wis.

Bethany Ann Khan (B.A. '09) is a freelance multimedia journalist at Khan Photography in Brooklyn Park, Minn. Her previous communications job was as an event planner for Waterford Manor in Minneapolis.

Anthony Kiekow (B.A. '09) works as a reporter for KSAX News, the ABC affiliate in Alexandria, Minn.


Jacob Kittilstad (B.A., '10), and former student Taja West both were nominated for the 2010 Midwest Regional Emmys while still students at the SJMC. Kittilstad's entry was on "iPhone Text Security," and West's was on "Art Shanty Projects." Kittilstad now works as a reporter at Fox 21 News in Duluth, Minn.

Jenna Langer (B.A. '08) is an account exec-utive for the public relations firm Powell Tate/Weber Shandwick in Washington, D.C. She previously interned at Padilla Speer Beardsley in Minneapolis.

Phoebe Larson (M.A. '08) works as an editorial director at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn. Previously, she worked as a staff writer at Greenspring Media Group in Minneapolis.

Katelyn Latawiec (B.A. '09) works as a communications specialist for Chet's Shoes, a safety shoe retail business in Circle Pines, Minn.

Rebecca Lechner (B.A., '00) joined Weber Shandwick's health care group. She previously worked in the firm's financial services group.

Douachee Lee (B.A. '09) works at Admission Possible, a nonprofit college access program in St. Paul, Minn., as a college coach.

Brice Lehner (B.A. '09) works at the Morrison County Record in Little Falls, Minn., as a sports editor.

Kirsten Lesak-Greenberg (B.A. '09) is an assistant account executive at Padilla Speer Beardsley in Minneapolis.

Ashleigh Lincoln (B.A. '09) works as a marketing generalist at Ultralingua, a software company in Minneapolis.

Brandi Alicia Marie Linderman (B.A. '04) has been awarded a fellowship from The Consortium for Graduate Study in Management. Linderman is using the fellowship to pursue a master's in business administration at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H.

Sara Loca (B.A. '09) interns at Axiom Marketing Communications, a public relations agency in Bloomington, Minn.

Kelly Mangus (B.A. '09) works as a public relations associate at Weber Shandwick in Chicago.

Melissa Matthews (B.A. '09) now attends Miami Ad School in Minneapolis.

Whitney McIntosh (B.A. '08) works as an assistant account executive at Strother Communications Group, a public relations/marketing firm in Minneapolis.

Lucas Middendorf (B.A. '09) works on the field staff in St. Cloud, Minn., for Campus Crusade for Christ, a Christian ministry.

Emily Miller (B.A. '09) is attending graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh, pursuing a degree in library and information science.


Michele Norris (B.A. '05) host of National Public Radio's All Things Considered, made a presentation at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota in October 2010, discussing her newest book, "The Grace of Silence: A Memoir."

Emma Naegeli (B.A. '08) is a project manager at Visions Inc., a print and graphic design company in Brooklyn Park, Minn.

Kelly O'Connor (B.A. '09) works as a com-munications associate at the University of Minnesota's Academic Health Center in Minneapolis. She previously worked as a reception area supervisor and special events support staffer at the University of Minnesota's College of Education and Human Development.

Amy E. Olson (M.A. in health journalism '04; B.A. '99) joined the staff of the University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication as the school's communications manager in November, after spending 10 years as a reporter and editor at newspapers in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Joy Peterson (B.A. '09) is an editorial intern at MSP Communications in Minneapolis. She is pursuing an advanced degree in divinity and religious studies at Bethel Seminary in St. Paul, Minn.

Kyle Pleggenkuhle (B.A. '08) works as a digital media analyst at Olson, a Minneapolis advertising agency. Previously, he worked as a Web analytics specialist at the Minneapolis office of MRM Worldwide, a digital advertising agency.

Aimee Prasek (M.A. '10) made it to fourth place in votes for her audition with the Oprah Winfrey Network, pitching the concept of a program focusing on wellness. Prasek is enrolled in the University of Minnesota's doctorate in nursing program.

Sada Reed (B.A. '03) is entering her second year of master's studies at the University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication. She presented a paper, "Sports Media's Maintenance of Gender Hierarchy: Ideologies of Femininity Portrayed as 'Common Sense' in Women's Olympic Coverage," at the European Association for Sociology of Sport conference in Porto, Portugal, in May 2010.

Melissa Ritter (B.A. '09) works as a business development representative at Epicor, a software company in Minneapolis.

Danielle Schumann (B.A. '09) works as a public relations coordinator at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in St. Paul, Minn.

Cassandra Shaver (B.A. '09) works in account services at Olson, an advertising agency in Minneapolis. She previously held the position of marketing coordinator at Advanced Web in Minneapolis.

Courtney Sinner (B.A. '09) works as an online editor/multimedia producer for the Bismarck Tribune in Bismarck, N.D. Her interest in newspapers started when she worked as a reporter intern for Detroit Lakes Newspapers/Forum Communi-cations in Detroit Lakes, Minn.

Sara Snyder (B.A. '09) works as a graphic designer at Motivation, a marketing agency in Minneapolis.

Joe Sonka (B.A. '07) has taken a job with Ackmann & Dickenson, a Minneapolis-based company focusing on interactive strategy, Web and application development and Internet marketing. Sonka is an account manager responsible for a wide range of clients.

Carly Sparpana (B.A. '09) is a marketing coordinator for Anchor Plastics Inc. in Golden Valley, Minn. The company specializes in plastic injection molding and engineering.

Mikel J. Sporer (B.A. '09) continued his education by completing a law degree.

Emily Stickler (B.A. '09) works at Zywave Inc., an insurance marketing technology company in Milwaukee, as a communications writer.

Kelly Stolpa (B.A. '09) now attends the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point to pursue a bachelor of arts in English and secondary education.

Connor Stowe (B.A. '09) is the country director for India at Rustic Pathways, a teen travel camp in Willoughby, Ohio.

Tony Tellijohn (B.A. '01) is an Internet marketing director at Ackmann & Dickenson, an application and Web development company in Minneapolis. He develops and executes strategies for search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, social media and other online marketing.

Alissa Thielman (B.A. '08) works at Canterbury Park in Shakopee, Minn.,
as a marketing intern.

Julie Thomas (B.A. '09) is the sports information director at Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato, Minn. She coordinates athletic communication and events.

Stephanie Trow (B.A. '10) has been promoted to account executive with Tunheim Partners in Minneapolis. Trow joined Tunheim as an intern in June 2010. Trow was a recipient of the Dr. Willard Thompson Scholarship and the PRSA President's Award in 2010.

Allison Troyer (B.A. '08) works as a para-legal specialist at the office of chief counsel at the Internal Revenue Service in Laguna Niguel, Calif.

Scott B. Tuska (B.A. '09) works as a Web editor for Twin Cities Metro Magazine at Tiger Oak Publications in Minneapolis.

Allison Wickler (B.A. '09) works at the Herald Times Reporter in Manitowoc, Wis., as an education reporter and online copy editor.

Lori Wolter (B.A. '09) works with the AmeriCorps Minnesota Reading Corps as an elementary reading tutor in St. Cloud, Minn.

Marie Zhuikov (M.A. '05, B.A. '86) was appointed to a three-year term as communications adviser to the Environmental Protection Agency's national Board of Scientific Counselors, a 15-member board of scientists and engineers who are experts in their fields. She will be reviewing the communications components of EPA research proposals.

1990s

The Health Communications Divisions of the National Communication Association and the International Communications association named K. "Vish" Viswanath (Ph.D., '90) as their outstanding health communication scholar for 2010. Viswanath is an associate professor at the Harvard School of Public Health.

1980s

Sam Richter's (B.A. '89) book, "Take the Cold Out of Cold Calling," has won three sales book of the year awards and is in its fifth edition.

Karen Wright (B.A. '87) is the operations director and host of "Minnesota Morning" at KMSU/KMSK radio. She received first-place honors from the Minnesota Associated Press for a special broadcast on autism awareness at the 2010 Midwest Journalism Conference in Bloomington, Minn., in April. Wright resides in Mankato, Minn., with her husband, Jeff Pribyl, and sons Grant, 6, and Blake, 3.

1970s

Michael H. Anderson (M.A. '74; B.A. '68), a senior foreign service officer with the U.S. State Department, recently returned from four years in Jakarta, Indonesia, where he served as counselor for public affairs at the U.S. Embassy. He now is living in Washington, D.C.

Jim Bowden (Ph.D. American studies '70; B.A. '55) has published a novel, "Rêve Américain," under his pen name, Greenfield Jones.

Everette E. Dennis (Ph.D., '75) will join Northwestern University in Qatar June 1 as its dean. Dennis serves as chairman of the Communication and Media Management department and as director of the Center for Communications at Fordham University's Graduate School of Business. Dennis previously worked with Ambassador Richard Holbrooke and Henry Kissinger as the founding president of the American Academy in Berlin, led the Media Studies Center at Columbia University and served as director of graduate studies for the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota.

Greg Gordon (B.A. '73), along with colleagues Kevin G. Hall and Chris Adams of McClatchy Newspapers, were finalists for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in reporting on national affairs for their examination of the nation's financial collapse and notably a powerful series on the involvement of Goldman Sachs, leading to federal inquiries into Goldman's practices. Gordon was featured in the spring 2010 issue of the Murphy Reporter.

Michael J. Strauss (B.A., '75) is the author of "The Viability of Territorial Leases in Resolving International Sovereignty Disputes," published by Editions L'Harmattan in Paris. The book is the first examination of this rarely used method of settling sovereignty conflicts, and assesses the few existing cases to identify conditions that can lead to its successful application elsewhere.

1950s

Philip C. Meyer (B.A. '59) co-authored "Senseless Panic: How Washington Failed America" with former FDIC chairman William M. Isaac. The book, which includes a foreword by former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker, compares regulatory agency actions during the banking and savings and loan crisis of the 1980s with the government's response to the 2008 meltdown that allowed the failure of a comparative handful of institutions to nearly shut down the world's financial system. John Wiley & Sons published the book in June 2010. A financial journalist, Meyer spent most of his career at Washington, D.C.-based Golembe Associates, Inc., and The Secura Group (now LECG Global Financial Services), specializing in public policy governing banking and financial services. For many years, he was a columnist for the U.S. Banker and Bank Marketing magazines and a contributing editor to The Golembe Reports. He also served as editor-in-chief of Banking Policy Report from 1989 to 1998. His other book credits include editor of "But I Never Made A Loan" (2009), a memoir by Carter H. Golembe, a leading authority on the banking business and the way it is regulated, and co-author of "Key Banking Issues Entering the New Millennium" (1999).

1940s

Margaret Fornell Maunder (B.A. '41) has published a book, "Those Darn Lawyers," through xlibris.com. It recounts her experiences with lawyers and judges as an award-winning journalist.

Let us know what you're doing.
Keep in touch with the University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication and your fellow alumni by e-mailing us at sjmc@umn.edu. Include your name, degree, graduation year, street address, city, state, zip code and phone number.

18042|18030|33626 Tue, 29 Mar 2011 14:25:37 -0600 http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2011/03/in-memoriam-7.html 282708

Brian Anderson (B.A. '66), editor of Mpls.St.Paul Magazine for 33 years, died March 16, 2010, after a nine-month struggle with leukemia. He was 65. Anderson played a key role in shaping the careers of many journalists in the Twin Cities and beyond during the longest tenure of any current city magazine editor in the United States.

He was honored in winter 2010 with the lifetime achievement award from the City and Regional Magazine Association. "The city magazine industry will forever have the indelible mark left by Brian Anderson. He had a significant impact on the entire editorial and content philosophies for the entire city magazine industry," CRMA executive director James Dowden said.

Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty declared Feb. 13, 2010, Brian Anderson Day.

Anderson was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of SJMC and worked as a staff member of The Minnesota Daily while a student. Following graduation, he worked six years as a reporter for the former Minneapolis Tribune, three years in corporate relations, and two years in Washington, D.C., as a writer, researcher and speechwriter for then-U.S. Sen. Walter Mondale. He joined what was then called MPLS magazine in 1970, when its staff consisted of 12 members. He became editor in 1977.

He was an avid cross-country skier and a proud member and former president of the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis. He is survived by his wife, Kari Shannon-Anderson; two children; and two stepchildren.

MPR NewsQ quoted MSP Communications President Gary Johnson as saying Anderson spent "33 years as a journalist without being strident, without being mean-spirited, and without making fun at other people's expense. He was a steady, positive, constructive and enlightened journalist."

Johnson said Anderson will be remembered for his quiet, kind manner.

"He was fairly spare and very level in his temperament and in his output,"Johnson said."I've worked with Brian for the past 32 years and he is a city magazine editor of the highest order -- a superb writer, an empowering manager and he's been a consistent and steady influence in guiding the content mission of the magazine."

Brian Lucas, who described Anderson as a mentor, wrote a tribute to him on www.leadershipandcommunity.com. "He loved Minnesota," Lucas wrote, "and he did his best to shine a light on what makes our community special. His columns in the magazine showed off his sense of humor and his sense of perspective about what makes this a great place to live."

In a Star Tribune story, Burt Cohen, former longtime Mpls. St. Paul publisher, said Anderson "was able to help people lead a better life in this community. That was the whole point of the magazine. He understood that and succeeded at that."

Roy E. Carter, Jr., retired professor of journalism, sociology and Latin American studies at the University of Minnesota, died Oct. 6, 2010, in Minneapolis. He was 88.

After a career as a newspaper reporter, editor and editorial writer in Minnesota, Kansas, Texas and Idaho, Carter earned a master's degree at the University of Minnesota and a doctorate at Stanford University. He was a professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill before joining the University of Minnesota (1958-1990). His research topics included relationships between the press and the medical profession, survey methods, sampling, audience analysis, civil liberties and media and pioneer work in educational television.

Apart from his work at Minnesota and other U.S. universities, Carter also taught at several Caribbean, Central American and South American institutions. Carter held three Fulbright awards in Latin America and received an honorary degree from the University of Chile in recognition of his research in Latin America and his contributions to inter-American understanding.

His Latin American work included youth studies, media use analyses, family planning research, pre-electoral polls and occupational prestige and mobility analyses.

Carter was listed in Who's Who in America from 1976 onward. He is survived by his wife, Monica; three daughters and their mother, Ruby; and his grandson, Brian.

Ken Wisneski (B.A. '75), author of the "Old Liberal" column in the Stillwater Gazette, died Jan. 28, 2010, of congestive heart failure. He was 76.

His column ran for more than 20 years and"had an avid following," according to the Gazette's publisher, Mark Berriman, who was quoted in a Star Tribune obituary. "They waited for his weekly column, which took on a life of its own. It was full of humor, and you know it was his voice coming through his character. Readers had kind words for him and thanked him for his work."

Wisneski was known for his book reviews in the Star Tribune, his work for Minnesota Sun Newspapers and his love of fishing and golfing. He is survived by two children, one stepchild, four grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Wisneski began his career as a reporter for Sun Newspapers, won several awards and rose to executive editor in the 1970s. He also worked as a writing consultant for area businesses and mentored many young writers.

18190|18030|33626 Thu, 24 Mar 2011 13:53:10 -0600



You may remember attending concerts in Northrop's bouncy balcony or perhaps even more memorable for you was your walk across Northrop's stage to receive your diploma.

On February 11 the Board of Regents gave their approval to a financing package that will revitalize this iconic building. Northrop will no longer be just a home for concerts, convocation, and commencements.

The revitalized space will increase the amount of space for public study and collaborative space by 50% as well as providing a world-class, multi-purpose 2,800 seat hall, featuring state-of-the-art acoustics, significantly improved sight-lines, cutting-edge technologies and updated amenities.

Northrop will be a home for:

• The University Honors Program, which helps recruit and supports 2,400 of the most academically-talented undergraduates from across the university;
• The Institute for Advanced Study, an incubator where scholars and artists come together from across the University to develop new solutions to pressing issues; and
• Innovation by Design, a lab where entrepreneurs, industry leaders, and faculty work together to solve big real world problems and bring solutions to market.

Northrop Concerts and Lectures will continue presenting performances at other venues during the revitalization. CLA's commencement ceremonies will be held in Mariucci Arena.

More information
Read the U of M press release
Visit the Northrop Auditorium site

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2011/03/northrop-one-door-closes-anoth.html 279418 Wed, 09 Mar 2011 11:33:51 -0600



Washington Avenue has long been a major hub of campus transportation. Over the next 3 years, it will be the site of major construction that in the end will transform this section of the U of M- Twin Cities campus.

During the construction period, there will be a number of closures and changes that affect how visitors come to the campus. Some changes have already begun. As of March 6, vehicle traffic on the Washington Avenue bridge will be restricted to the north side. Two-way traffic will be maintained. The pedestrian level of the bridge will also be restricted to the north side.

The Metropolitan Council has a website with a number of resources describing the plans and construction schedule along with updates on specific locations along the route.


• Find construction updates for specific sections of the project--including the West Bank and East Bank of the Twin Cities campus
• View renderings of the LRT stations for the West Bank, East Bank, and Stadium Village

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2011/03/lrt-brings-big-changes-to-camp.html 279416 Wed, 09 Mar 2011 11:23:42 -0600

Alumni profile: Jim Burke

Speech-communication, 1982

Producer of Cedar Rapids, The Savages, Election, and other films




"Film producer and speech-communication alum Jim Burke met with CLA students to talk about how a liberal arts degree prepares students for the future. Photo by Kelly MacWilliams."





Alumnus Jim Burke visited the University of Minnesota campus in early February for a screening of his film Cedar Rapids. He met with CLA students to talk about what a liberal arts education can do to shape and prepare them for the future. Burke also took some time to answer some questions for Alma Matters.

It was great fun to learn about his unique profession. In CLA we always appreciate having our alumni come back to campus to share their stories and what they've learned. And our current students appreciate it, too.


Do you think having a liberal arts degree gives you a big picture approach to your life and work?

I tend to have a big picture look at life and my profession. When I was at the U of M, I had to take a class for Spanish on Don Quixote so that whole quarter all I did was read and talk about just that, which sort of mimics my every day life now.

It's one of the first classes I remember, because something about me must lend itself to getting really interested in something. Because if you're going to make a movie, boy, you'd better strap in. It's a long ride. You have to keep it fresh and keep finding ways to keep yourself interested.


Were you ever asked what you are you going to do with that degree?

No, I don't know if I paid any attention to that.

Dealing with the University, which was this massive bureaucracy, was a frustrating event. And I was kind of a baby about it after I graduated. I thought, "Why didn't they take care of me?" But then I realized: "What do you mean they didn't take care of you?" Of course they didn't and neither does the real world.

The lesson I learned that was so valuable is you've got to figure out a way. And it's totally like that in show business. If you want to be an actor you need to be in the Screen Actors Guild, and the only way you can get in the Screen Actors Guild is if you're an actor. There's no way that can happen, but it does. And it's the same with all of the other guilds.

I whined about that then, but now my heart bursts with pride about the University of Minnesota. I really, truly love it. When I was driving down here today on 35W and I saw the U of M exit sign, it was awesome.

Now I really do see what a value this place had for me. It really did. I made so many friends that I still have today.


About his approach as a filmmaker

As I began making films, I saw a pattern. If I like the movie then other people will like it. It just worked out that way. And now I only make movies that I love.

I make human films. Nobody is going to land on Mars or blow up a space station. That's just not going to happen, because I need to be able to feel it. I need to know that at one point or another in my life I could relate to what the characters are going through. I want to see myself in them. And I think if I can--and I'm not that unique a person--then a lot of other people will be able to relate, too.


Is it difficult to ignore the norms and stay true to your way of making films?
You get tempted to leave the island, but we're on a little island, and we're impervious to market forces. We're going to make these kinds of movies over here, and they will pop because they're good.

I know how to make a movie that changes in tone, and that's not something most people can do. By changing tone, I mean, it's like life. You can be laughing at one point in the day and heartbroken at another. And that's not an easy rhythm to create in a movie. Sometimes if you do it wrong an audience will get [angry with] you. You tricked me. You made me think this was funny and now I'm crying.


Will you keep doing filmmaking, or do you see other projects in your future?

If I ever do anything else it will be --and I'm being totally sincere about this--it would be some job like a bag boy at a grocery store or something just real, connecting with other people and a something-to-do job. Like, what am I going to do today? Well, I've got to work from 10 to 4.

But I try to be present and I've got some great pictures in the pipeline. We've got The Descendants coming up and then we've got just an amazing movie that's set here in Minneapolis. It's just the most original picture.


It sounds like you have time to take in a lot of films.

Sure, I watch everything. I don't need to create spare time for it. That's what I do. That's why I make movies, so I can watch them. I also watch the movies I make hundreds of times. I'm in the dark a lot. [laughs]

Films Jim recommends • Exit Through the Gift Shop • Let Me In

• Hear Jim Burke's and Cedar Rapids screenwriter Phil Johnston's interview with Minnesota Public Radio
• Learn more about Burke's currently released film Cedar Rapids

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2011/03/alum-profile-film-cedar-rapids.html 279404 Wed, 09 Mar 2011 10:28:28 -0600

Thomas-Rasset faces million-dollar damages; judge shuts down LimeWire


http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2011/01/updates-punishments-for-music.html 265965

Recording companies won two recent copyright infringement cases in an ongoing battle with online networks that facilitate music sharing and their users. Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear arguments on whether individuals sued for infringement in such cases should be subject to lower damages if they can show they were unaware that their activities violated the law.

In Third Trial, Minnesota Woman Ordered to Pay $1.6 Million for Downloading

On November 3, 2010, a federal jury returned a verdict against Brainerd, Minn. resident Jammie Thomas-Rasset to pay $1.6 million in damages to the companies that own the rights to 24 songs that she downloaded.

The November verdict is the latest installment in a series of three proceedings against Thomas-Rasset, all of which arose out of the same set of facts. In two previous cases, juries returned verdicts against Thomas-Rasset and in favor of the record companies who brought the suit in the amount of $222,000 and $1.9 million respectively. For more on Thomas-Rasset's first two trials, see "Music Industry Wins First Internet Piracy Case" in the Fall 2009 Silha Bulletin.

The first verdict against Thomas-Rasset was overturned because of deficiencies in the jury instructions. The second verdict award was reduced to $54,000--or $2,250 per song-- by Chief U.S. District Judge Michael Davis in January 2010. Davis, calling the damage award "monstrous" and "shocking," wrote that although jury awards are an effective deterrent against people illegally downloading copyrighted music, "the need for deterrence cannot justify a $2 million verdict for stealing and illegally distributing 24 songs for the sole purpose of obtaining free music." Capitol Records, Inc., et al v. Thomas-Rasset, No. 06-1497 (D. Minn. Jan. 22, 2010)

Following Davis's reduction in damages, the plaintiff record companies offered Thomas-Rasset a different arrangement: if she accepted a damage award of $25,000 to be paid to a musician's charity, the plaintiffs would not challenge Davis' reduction order, according to a January 27, 2010 post on CNet News.

Thomas-Rasset rejected both the plaintiffs' offer and Davis' reduction, opting instead for a separate re-trial on the issue of damages alone. At her November 1 trial for damages, her attorney, Kiwi Camara, argued that Thomas-Rasset did the plaintiffs no actual harm. According to a November 3 story in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Camara told the jury that although "she may have engaged in the conduct, that doesn't mean they can take her head and stick it up on a pole." Camara also told the jury that his client was selectively targeted for litigation by the music industry, arguing that the case was only pursued by the plaintiffs to prove that suing individuals--and not just the networks they use to download music--can work as a strategy to combat piracy, according to the Star Tribune. Camara told the jury that millions of other people download music exactly as Thomas-Rasset did, but that most of them are not sued; some merely receive letters threatening a lawsuit, Camara said. "The only difference is that they picked her out in order to make headline news," he said.

Neither Thomas-Rasset nor Camara spoke to the press following the November verdict. She has not said whether she will appeal the damage award.

Judge Shuts Down Peer-to-Peer Network LimeWire

On October 26, 2010, U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood issued a permanent injunction against peer-to-peer file sharing client LimeWire, ceasing its operations. The injunction followed a May 11, 2010 order in which Wood ruled against LimeWire in a copyright infringement suit brought by 13 record companies. Wood's May 11 order not only found LimeWire liable for infringement, but held the network's founder personally liable as well.

LimeWire is a program that allows users to search other LimeWire users' computers for digital music, movies, or any other type of file. The case arose when the music companies--who, according to Wood's May 11 order, represent "the vast majority of copyrighted sound recordings sold in the United States"--sued LimeWire and its founder and CEO Mark Gorton in federal district court for the Southern District of New York. The plaintiffs claimed that because LimeWire's users transmitted copyrighted music over the network, the company should be liable for copyright infringement. Arista Records, LLC, etal v. Lime Group LLC, No. 06-CV-5936 (S.D.N.Y. May 11, 2010)

Wood agreed with the plaintiff, and found LimeWire liable for direct infringement on a theory of secondary liability. Wood found that although LimeWire never actually stored and directly distributed copyrighted music, because it distributed "infringement-enabling products [and] services, [it] enable[d] direct infringement on a massive scale, making it impossible to enforce [copyright] protection effectively against all direct infringers."

In addition, Wood wrote that because "in internal communications, [LimeWire employees] regularly discussed the fact that LimeWire users downloaded copyrighted digital recordings through the program, [and] tested [the program] by searching for infringing content" and because the company "marketed LimeWire to users of Napster and similar programs, and promoted LimeWire's infringing capabilities," the company intentionally encouraged people to use its program to infringe. Wood also wrote that the company's failure to take actions to mitigate infringement despite knowing that infringement was occurring was evidence that the company induced copyright violations.

Wood's May 2010 decision relied heavily on MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, 545 U.S. 913 (2005), where the U.S. Supreme Court extended and clarified its rule from Sony Corp. of America v. Universal Cities Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417 (1984). In Sony, the Court held that if technology has "significant, noninfringing uses," the proprietors of that technology could not be held liable for copyright infringement--known as the "Sony Safe Harbor" rule. The Grokster decision concerned peer-to-peer technology similar to LimeWire. There the Court found that although peer-to-peer technology could be used for noninfringing purposes, the vast majority of downloads over the Grokster network were of copyrighted materials, and that Grokster's owners and operators promoted it for that purpose. The Court observed that Grokster had sought to market its services to "former Napster users," which indicated "a principal, if not exclusive, intent ... to bring about infringement" and that it had not "attempted to develop filtering tools or other mechanisms to diminish the infringing activity." Therefore, the court reasoned that "one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties." For more on the Grokster decision, see "U.S. Supreme Court Rules in Grokster" in the Summer 2005 issue of the Silha Bulletin.

In the May 11 ruling, Wood noted that following the Grokster decision LimeWire began requiring users to click a box affirming that they would not use the software for infringement purposes as a condition of downloading the program. "The notice and statement of intent requirements, on their own, do not constitute meaningful efforts to mitigate infringement," Wood wrote, adding that the company's "failure to utilize technology to create meaningful barriers [was] a strong indicator of intent to foster infringement."

Wood also found Gorton personally liable for infringement on the same theories of liability as the corporation. Wood wrote that precedent established that "an individual, acting as a corporate officer, who has the ability to supervise infringing activity and has a financial interest in that activity ... is personally liable for infringement," citing Stumm v. Drive Entertainment, Inc., 2002 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7762 (S.D.N.Y. 2002) (emphasis in original). Wood found that the evidence showed that Gorton was the company's "ultimate decisionmaker," whose approval was required for "any major strategic and design decisions," and that Gorton benefited financially from LimeWire's infringing activities. A preliminary hearing date of May 2011 has been set to determine how much Gorton and LimeWire must pay in damages.

In her October 26 order, Wood noted that in the months since she found LimeWire liable for infringement, millions of songs and videos continued to be shared over LimeWire's network. She permanently enjoined LimeWire from continued existence, writing that "based on the record of both proven intentional inducement of infringement, and continued inducement of infringement even after the Court found [liability], the evidence warrants injunctive relief."

High Court Denies Certiorari in 'Innocent Infringer' Case

The U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari to a case that could have tested whether an individual found guilty in a file sharing infringement case may use an "innocent infringer" defense to limit her damages. Justice Samuel Alito dissented from the Court's denial, arguing that the court should consider the legal viability of the defense.

The case, Maverick Recording Company, et al v. Harper, No. 5:07-CV-026-XR (W.D. Texas, Aug. 8, 2008), arose when a group of record companies sued then-high school student Whitney Harper under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 101 et seq, for downloading 39 copyrighted songs using the peer-to-peer program KaZaa.

The plaintiffs moved for summary judgment, asking the court to enjoin Harper from downloading any more music, and requested damages of $750 per song--the minimum amount under the Copyright Act--for a total of $29,250. Harper argued that "due to her age--sixteen years old at the time of the infringement--and technological experience, she did not intentionally violate Plaintiffs' copyrights and should therefore be considered at most an innocent infringer." Under §  504 (c)(2) of the Copyright Act, "where the infringer ... was not aware and had no reason to believe that his or her acts constituted an infringement of copyright, the court in its discretion may reduce the award of statutory damages to a sum of not less than $200."

The district court agreed with Harper, and found that although she infringed on the plaintiffs' copyrights when she downloaded the music, she was unaware that her actions constituted infringement. The plaintiffs argued that warning labels they placed on compact discs--the common source for music found on to peer-to-peer networks--was sufficient notice to defeat Harper's innocent infringer argument. Even though Harper was aware that compact discs contain labels indicating that the material on them is copyrighted, U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriquez wrote that "a question remains as to whether Defendant knew the warnings on compact discs were applicable in this KaZaA [sic] setting."

The plaintiffs appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where a three-judge panel reversed Rodriquez's ruling. The panel wrote that Harper "cannot rely on her purported legal naivety [sic]" to escape paying damages, and that "one need only have access to [a] CD and see that the recording is subject to copyright" to know that the music is copyrighted. Maverick Recording Company, et al v. Harper, 598 F.3d 193 (5th Cir. 2010)

On November 29 the Supreme Court denied certiorari. In his dissent, Alito wrote, "there is a strong argument that §402(d) does not apply in a case involving the downloading of digital music files. This provision was adopted in 1988, well before digital music files became available on the Internet."

- Geoff Pipoly
Silha Research Assistant

25705|32116|25658 Thu, 06 Jan 2011 16:03:55 -0600

Silha lecturer Paul Smith urges justices to find state law unconstitutional

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2011/01/us-supreme-court-weighs-califo.html 265962

On October 18, 2010, Paul Smith, a veteran of more than a dozen Supreme Court oral arguments, spoke to an overflow crowd at the University of Minnesota's Cowles Auditorium for the 25th Annual Silha Lecture about another case that he was about to argue before the Court. In that case, Schwarzenegger v. Electronic Merchants Ass'n, No. 08-1448 (2010), Smith argued against the State of California, which he said "tried to take the doctrine of obscenity for minors ... and apply it to violence in video games." Smith argued that the Court should not create a new exception to the First Amendment allowing states to prohibit the sale of violent video games.

Currently a partner with Jenner & Block's Washington, D.C. office, Smith specializes in commercial and telecommunications litigation, intellectual property, and election law. Among his best-known Supreme Court cases are Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003) and United States v. American Library Ass'n, 539 U.S. 194 (2003). Smith clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell in 1980-1981. In 2010 he was named one of National Law Journal's "40 Most Influential Lawyers of the Decade."

Smith's most recent Supreme Court case was prompted by California's 2005 passage of California Civil Code § 1746, which prohibited the sale of violent video games to any person under the age of 18. The statute had a two-part definition for "violent video game." First, the game must be one "in which the range of options available to a player includes killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being." Second, those options must be portrayed in the game in a way such that "[a] reasonable person, considering the game as a whole, would find appeals to a deviant or morbid interest of minors ... is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the community as to what is suitable for minors ... [and] as a whole, lack[s] serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors." The definition in the California statute is a reformulation of the rule of law announced in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629 (1968) which upheld a New York statute prohibiting the sale of adult magazines to minors. The Ginsberg test is identical in every respect to the test in §1746, except that Ginsberg bans works that "appeal[ed] to . . . prurient interests," not "deviant or morbid interests of minors." Under the California law, stores which sell prohibited video games to minors would be subject to fines of up to $1,000.

Trade groups representing video game developers challenged the California law in federal district court as facially unconstitutional, and sought a preliminary injunction to prevent its enforcement, arguing that video games are a protected form of expression under the First Amendment. In a 2005 ruling, United States District Judge Ronald Whyte found, as a threshold matter, that "[n]either the Supreme Court nor the Ninth Circuit has ever extended the Ginsberg analysis beyond sexually-obscene material." The state argued that Ginsberg should apply to § 1746 because the rationale in Ginsberg--protecting children from harm that exposure to the material would cause-- also applied to violent video games. For example, Whyte wrote, the state argued that it "could regulate a minor's access to games about embezzling, bomb building, and shoplifting, without violating the First Amendment, if a causal connection with harm to children could be established." Video Software Dealers Ass'n v. Schwarzenegger, 401 F. Supp. 2d 1034 (N.D. Cal. 2005)

Whyte rejected the state's arguments, writing that "[n]o court has previously endorsed such a limited view of minors' First Amendment right," and that therefore § 1746 was a content-based restriction on protected First Amendment expression to which strict scrutiny applied. Under a strict scrutiny analysis, a content-based restriction on expression is constitutional only if the state can justify the regulation by a "compelling state interest" and that the regulation is the "least restrictive means" of achieving that interest. Whyte issued a temporary injunction blocking enforcement of the law until the issue of its constitutionality could be determined.

Two years later, Whyte heard arguments on whether the law withstood strict scrutiny. Whyte found that "prevent[ion of] violent, aggressive and antisocial behavior by minors who play video games," are compelling state interests "except to the extent they intend merely to control a minor's thoughts." Whyte acknowledged that whether these harms are truly compelling is subject to debate. For example, Whyte noted that in the case American Amusement Machine Ass'n v. Kendrick, 244 F.3d 572 (7th Cir. 2001), 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner argued that "[t]o shield children right up to the age of 18 from exposure to violent descriptions and images would not only be quixotic, but deforming; it would leave them unequipped to cope with the world as we know it." Nevertheless, Whyte found that "the government has a compelling interest in protecting the physical and psychological well-being of minors." Video Software Dealers Ass'n v. Schwarzenegger, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 57472 (N.D. Cal. 2007)

However, Whyte found that § 1746 was not the least restrictive means of achieving those interests. Whyte wrote that the definition of "violent video game" in the statute "has no exception for material with some redeeming value, and is therefore too broad. The definition could literally apply to some classic literature if put in the form of a video game." Whyte noted that in borrowing language from Ginsberg in drafting the language of the statute, "there is some precedent for finding the definition sufficiently narrow to meet constitutional standards." But Whyte found that the statute was nonetheless not the least restrictive means because studies submitted to the court showed that early adolescents might react to violent imagery differently than older adolescents. Therefore, Whyte concluded, because the act applies to all people under 18, and not only those who would be adversely affected by violence depicted in video games, the law was not narrowly tailored. Finding that the law failed to pass strict scrutiny, Whyte permanently enjoined the state from enforcing the law.

The state appealed to a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Court noted that the state's attempt to apply Ginsberg's standard outside the bounds of sexually prurient materials was "an invitation to reconsider the boundaries of the legal concept of 'obscenity' under the First Amendment." The appellate panel found that "Ginsberg is specifically rooted in the [Supreme] Court's First Amendment obscenity jurisprudence," which has "consistently addressed obscenity with reference to sex-based material" and not violence-based material. Therefore, the panel "decline[d] the State's invitation to apply the Ginsberg rationale to materials depicting violence, and hold that strict scrutiny remains the applicable review standard." Video Software Dealers Ass'n v. Schwarzenegger, 556 F.3d 950 (9th Cir. 2009)

The panel wrote that although the state submitted myriad psychological testimony on the purported adverse effects of violent video games on children, "[n]one of the research establishes or suggests a causal link between minors playing video games and actual psychological or neurological harm  ... [i]n fact, some of the studies caution against inferring causation." Therefore, "although [the panel] does not require the State to demonstrate a 'scientific certainty,' the State must come forward with more than it has." Concluding that the state had not met its burden, the panel affirmed Whyte, and held the law unconstitutional.

Despite losing twice in lower courts, the State of California appealed § 1746's constitutionality to the U.S. Supreme Court, which granted certiorari on the question of "whether a state regulation for displaying offensive, harmful images to children is invalid if it fails to satisfy the exacting 'strict scrutiny' standard of review."

In addition to the merit briefs in the case, which largely reiterated arguments made in the district and appeals court, several media law advocacy groups filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Electronic Merchants Association. The groups filing the brief included, among others, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, The First Amendment Center, and the Society of Professional Journalists. The brief argued that creating a First Amendment exception for the government to prohibit violent speech is the edge of a dangerous slippery slope towards chilling other protected speech. Reporters may be less apt to report in detail on news stories involving violence out of fear that they would open themselves up to sanctions by the government, the brief argued.

In the November 2 oral arguments, many of the Court's questions to State Assistant Attorney General Zackery Morazzini focused on why the state singled out video games for regulation when other forms of expression also include violent content. Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked Morazzini "Could you get rid of rap music? Have you heard some of the lyrics of some of the rap music ... that have been sung about killing people and about other violence directed to them?" Similarly, Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg asked why not also ban violent movies, books, or music. Morazzini replied that studies have shown negative psychological effects of video games, which is what prompted the law in the first place, whereas the negative effects of rap music, books, or movies have not been proven. Justice Elena Kagan then asked whether, if a new study came out demonstrating the negative effects of violent movies on children, the state could ban those movies. Morazzini declined to answer Kagan's question directly.

Justice Antonin Scalia's questions probed Morazzini on the historical role of violence in Western culture. "Some of the Grimm's fairy tales are quite grim to tell you the truth," Scalia said, "are you going to ban them too?" "Not at all, your honor," Morazzini replied. Later in the argument Scalia expressed concerns about creating a new category of unprotected, violent speech. "I am concerned with the First Amendment, which says Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. ... It has never been understood that the freedom of speech did not include portrayals of violence. What's next after violence? Drinking? Smoking? Movies that show smoking can't be shown to children?" Scalia asked. Before Morazzini could respond, Justice Samuel Alito, poking fun at Scalia's notorious adherence to constitutional originalism, interjected with a question that prompted laughter from the audience: "I think what Justice Scalia wants to know is what James Madison thought about video games. Did he enjoy them?" Scalia replied, "No, I want to know what James Madison thought about violence. Was there any indication that anybody thought, when the First Amendment was adopted, that there ... was an exception to it for speech regarding violence? Anybody?" Morazzini did not offer an answer.

During Smith's argument, the Court focused on whether harm to children might result from exposure to violent video games. Roberts pointed out that in Ginsberg, there was also competing psychological testimony on both sides of the case, and that therefore the Court could rely on its "common sense" as much as on expert testimony in assessing the harm to children. Roberts also asked whether the level of violence depicted in some video games is greater than the kind historically permitted in children's movies, books, and songs. "We do not have a tradition in this country of telling children they should watch people actively hitting schoolgirls over the head with a shovel so they'll beg [for] mercy, being merciless and decapitating them, shooting people in the leg so they fall down," Roberts said. "We protect children from that." Smith responded by noting that it had been parents, not the government, that historically shielded children from that level of violence, and that "[t]he question before this Court is whether you are going to create an entirely new exception under the First Amendment, whether parents need to have such a new exception created, and whether or not if you are going to do it you could possibly figure out what the scope of that exception is."

Smith's arguments before the Supreme Court reflected points made two weeks earlier in his Silha Lecture. In the lecture, Smith said that research that is supposed to support restricting violence in video games does not provide enough evidence to "draw a law that is workable." He added that it is important for the law to distinguish between sexual materials and violent materials, and that there is a principled First Amendment basis for restricting speech based on the former and not the latter. "[Violence] is a part of minors' lives in a way that explicit sexuality is not a part of their lives," Smith said, "and so it is, because of that reality, difficult to figure out how you could draw a statute that says [the films] 'Star Wars' and 'Lord of the Rings' are over here, but [the game] 'Grand Theft Auto' is over here."

In his lecture, Smith did not speculate on how he believed the justices would be inclined to vote, but said that he was optimistic about his chances because of strong First Amendment values on the current Court. Although the Court has become more conservative in the past 15 years, Smith said, it has not "done much cutting back on First Amendment rights." He added that in at least one recent free speech case, United States v. Stevens, 130 S.Ct. 1577 (2010), the majority opinion, written by conservative Chief Justice Roberts "could've easily been written by Justice Brennan, the famous advocate of First Amendment rights." For more on the Stevens Case, see "Supreme Court Strikes Down Law Banning Depictions of Animal Cruelty, Citing 'Alarming Breadth' of Statute" in the Winter/Spring 2010 issue of the Silha Bulletin. A ruling in Schwarzenegger v. Electronic Merchants Ass'n is expected by late June or early July 2011.

The annual Silha Lecture is supported by a generous endowment from the late Otto Silha and his wife, Helen. Video of the lecture is available on the Silha Center's Web site at http://silha.umn.edu/events.

- Geoff Pipoly
Silha Research Assistant

32116|25658|25661 Thu, 06 Jan 2011 15:55:02 -0600

Meanwhile, the Pentagon and the C.I.A. sue authors over books


http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2011/01/the-media-and-the-military-gua.html 265956

At the same time the Pentagon ostensibly relaxed media access restrictions at the military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, it contracted access and transparency in other areas, specifically through new Pentagon-wide policies on dealing with the media, and suppression of an Afghan War memoir by purchasing and destroying the entire first printing.

Guantanamo Bay

On Sept. 10, 2010, the Pentagon released new "Media Ground Rules" for reporters covering military commission trials of suspected terrorists at the military base at Guantanamo Bay. Although they are largely consistent with their predecessors, the new rules no longer punish reporters for publishing protected information that had been independently leaked. However, media outlets covering the base say that the rules are still too restrictive. The new rules are available online at http://www.defense.gov/advisories/advisory.aspx?advisoryid=3260. A version of the old rules is available via the Columbia Journalism Review at www.cjrarchive.org/img/posts/Gitmo_Ground_Rules.pdf.

The new rules include a provision allowing members of the news media to publish "what otherwise would be considered Protected Information, where that information was legitimately obtained in the course of newsgathering independent of any receipt of information while at [Guantanamo], or while transiting to or from [Guantanamo] on transportation provided by DoD." This provision was added in direct response to an incident in May 2010, when four reporters were banned, under the old rules, from covering proceedings at the Guantanamo trial of Omar Khadr, after they revealed the name of a confidential informant. The informant's name had already been publicized in other media outlets, including Wikipedia, according to a September 10 story in The New York Times. On October 29, Kadhr pled guilty to killing an American soldier in Afghanistan when he was 15 years old. For more on the reporters banned from Guantanamo, see "Limits Persist on Access to Guantanamo Proceedings, Records" in the Summer 2010 Silha Bulletin.

The new ground rules are identical to the old rules in some respects. For example, both sets of rules prohibit journalists admitted to Guantanamo from "publish[ing], releas[ing], publicly discuss[ing], or shar[ing] ... Protected Information." Both sets of rules define "Protected Information" as "necessarily" including classified information, but also "information the disclosure of which could reasonably be expected to cause damage to national security, including intelligence or law enforcement sources, methods or activities, or jeopardize the physical safety of individuals." Both rules also restrict photography of detainees, Guantanamo personnel, the coastline at the base, or "panoramic views of ... facilities ... that reveal access roads, facilities layout ... and locations of security checkpoints."

However, the new rules contain procedural safeguards for journalists the old rules did not. For example, both the old and new rules require that all photographs and video images be submitted to Guantanamo personnel for a security review before the media outlets may release the information. The security review panel has the authority to crop photographs and edit videos before their release. However, unlike the old rules, reporters and photographers can now appeal the decision of the security review panel if the reporters do not believe the information meets the definition of "protected." Similarly, they may appeal the decision of the panel with respect to cropped photos if they believe that the cropping exceeds what is permitted under the rules. Appeals will be submitted to the security review panel's superior officer who, within 24 hours of the appeal, must render a judgment agreeing or disagreeing with the panel's judgment about releasing the photographs, videos, or information.

Some reporters cautiously applauded the rules, particularly the new appeals procedure and the "legitimately obtained" provision. John Walcott, the Washington bureau chief of McClatchy News, told the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) on September 14 that the new rules are "a good faith effort by the [Department of Defense] to address the problems that have prevented reporting from Guantanamo to be as complete and accurate as it ought to be." A McClatchy reporter, Carol Rosenberg of The Miami Herald,was among those banned from Guantanamo in May. Rosenberg has since been readmitted.

Walcott also expressed concern, however, over the "legitimately obtained" provision. He told the RCFP that he worried that the broad scope of the term might give the military too much discretion to remove reporters: "Is information that was leaked by someone without authority legally [sic] obtained? My answer is yes, I'm not sure what [the military's] answer will be."

In a September 17 editorial, The New York Times condemned the new rules as not doing enough to facilitate transparency. The rules are "not remotely good enough," the Times wrote, and the Obama Administration betrayed its campaign promise of transparency and openness when it set restrictive rules for press access to military commissions in the first place. The rules "only serve to remind us of the Obama administration's original error, which was to try Mr. Khadr for war crimes allegedly committed when he was a child, based on evidence tainted by torture and abuse," the Times declared.

Military spokespeople praised the new rules. According to Pentagon spokeswoman Tanya Bradsher, the rules are a positive step for both the press and the military, because they set clearly defined parameters for dealing with the press, but are more flexible than previous access rules at Guantanamo. "The old ground rules locked us into a procedure," Bradsher told the RCFP. "These [new rules] give us more levels of control in the appeal process for journalists and organizations." The RCFP story is available online at http://www.rcfp.org/newsitems/index.php?i=11555.

The Pentagon and Leaks

At the same time the Defense Department released the new Guantanamo ground rules, memoranda from high-ranking officials outlined a stricter policy to prevent leaks from members of military to the media.

The first memo, dated July 2, 2010, was titled "Interaction with the Media" and issued by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. The memo states that although Gates recognizes the Department of Defense's obligation to disclose information to media outlets in a "timely, accurate, [and] credible" manner, he is "concerned that the Department has grown lax in how [it] engage[s] with the media, often in contravention of established rules and procedures." According to the memo, the Department of Defense is the sole release authority for official information to news media in Washington, and all media activities must be coordinated through appropriate public affairs channels.

The memo warns that any military member who discloses protected or classified information without going through channels specified in the memo can be punished. "Leaking of classified information is against the law," the memo states, "and will, when proven, lead to the prosecution of those found to be engaged in such activity."

The memo came nine days after Gen. Stanley McChrystal, then-commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, was fired by President Barack Obama for disparaging statements McChrystal made about the administration's war policy in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine. The New York Times reported on July 2 that the memo represented a significant crackdown by the Pentagon against leaks to the media, and was "a reassertion by civilian public affairs specialists of control over the military's contacts with the news media." The Times also reported that although Gates had been planning to institute tighter controls over leaks to the media for several months, the McChrystal incident expedited release of the memo. For more on McChrystal's termination and its impact on reporting on the military, see "A Reporter, a General, and the Ethics of Covering the War" in the Summer 2010 issue of the Silha Bulletin.

Another memo, dated Sept. 2, 2010, issued by Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Doug Wilson, reaffirmed the July 2 Gates memo. Wilson's memo states that the media "is not the enemy" and that "implementation of the Secretary's guidance is not a change of policy but a reaffirmation of existing policy." Wilson wrote that his office would continue to foster positive relationships with members of the media within the bounds of Gates' July 2 memo.

According to a September 10 story by the RCFP, reporters expressed concern that the access restrictions will undermine their ability to report the news accurately. For example, Military Reporters and Editors co-founder Sig Christenson told the RCFP that the memos could deter members of the military from speaking to reporters. As a result, Christenson said, the only information reporters would have would be the official information from the Pentagon. "The bottom line is if you don't know what's really happening, what you have is a story that puts [the Pentagon's] fables into print, and that's not what I'm here for," Christenson said. Christenson cited the 2007 Walter Reed Hospital scandal, which exposed inadequate medical care and facilities at the hospital, as an example of why reporters need access to sources within the military. "If the new policy was in place, would those soldiers have talked withThe Washington Postand would we have learned of the abysmal conditions some of those wounded warriors endured?" he asked. The RCFP story is available online at http://www.rcfp.org/newsitems/index.php?i=11545.

Steven Aftergood, author of the blog Secrecy News, a project of the Federation of American Scientists, criticized the crackdown on leaks as impractical. On September 7, Aftergood wrote that "the degree of control over DoD contacts with the media sought by the Pentagon may be impossible to achieve," given the sheer size and scope of the Pentagon's operations. Aftergood said that the type of unauthorized disclosures the Pentagon is seeking to eliminate "serve a valuable public policy function, at least when they do not trespass on legitimate secrets, because they enable reporters and others to develop an independent account of events and to generate a more complete public record." The Secrecy News post is available online at http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2010/09/coordination.html.

Gates told ABC News on July 8 that the memo's directives had more to do with streamlining information in the name of national security than with suppressing access, and that the memos do not restrict reporters' ability to cover ongoing combat operations. "If you're a captain in a unit that has an embedded reporter, as long as you're within the guidelines and the rules, we expect you to be open with that embedded reporter," Gates said. "On the other hand, if you're a captain in this building, working on budget options, I expect you to keep your mouth shut."

'Operation Dark Heart'

On Sept. 10, 2010 The New York Times reported that the Pentagon had negotiated with former Defense Intelligence officer Anthony Shaffer to purchase the entire first printing of his book, "Operation Dark Heart," and destroy all 10,000 copies to prevent the book's release, at least in an unedited form.

The Pentagon claimed that the book, a memoir of Shaffer's time in Afghanistan which purports to show weaknesses in the United States' policy there, contained classified and other sensitive information the release of which would compromise national security and the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.

According to the Times, Shaffer submitted a manuscript of the book to the U.S. Army for prepublication review in January 2010. Army reviewers initially signed off on the text, saying they had "no objection on legal or operational security grounds" to the book, which at the time was slated for an August 31 release. When Defense Intelligence and CIA analysts saw the manuscript in late July, however, they raised objections. On August 6, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Ronald Burgess released a memo that said the book could "reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to national security," according to a Sept. 15, 2010 post on Secrecy News. The information consists of, among other things, names of intelligence officers with whom Shaffer served, and information about specific wiretaps performed by the National Security Agency, according to the Times.

In early September, Shaffer and the military reached a compromise: the military would purchase the entire first printing of "Operation Dark Heart"and destroy all copies, while simultaneously redacting passages in the manuscript the military objected to. The edited version was re-released on September 24.

On September 10, Aftergood reported on Secrecy News that several copies of the first printing of the book were already in circulation, and criticized the agreement, arguing that "the mere fact that a government official says certain information could damage national security if it were disclosed doesn't necessarily make it so."

Aftergood also criticized the censorship as impractical, given that some copies of the book were already available. Aftergood observed that, given the public's ability to do a side-by-side comparison between the edited and unedited text, the military's action actually revealed what it considers "sensitive" information. "Therefore, as a practical security policy matter, it seems that the Pentagon's best move would be to do nothing and to allow the book to be published without further interference," Aftergood wrote.




CIA Sues Former Agent Over Book

On October 19, the CIA announced that it is suing a former deep cover agent for a book he published in 2008, claiming that he violated his secrecy agreement with the agency.

The book, "The Human Factor: Inside the CIA's Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture," whose author uses the pseudonym Ishmael Jones, is highly critical of the CIA. According to an October 19 post on Politico by Josh Gerstein, Jones said the impetus for the suit was the book's critical nature. Jones told Gerstein that he believes the CIA has a double standard--permitting the publication of books by, for example, CIA Chief Leon Panetta, but rejecting and fighting publication of books that are critical of the agency.

In the book, Jones wrote that the CIA rejected his initial draft without reviewing it. He later sent back a revised copy, of which about half was redacted by the CIA, Gerstein reported. However, Jones disregarded the CIA's redactions, and in 2008 published the book anyway.

The lawsuit, filed in July 2010, alleges that publication of Jones' book violated the secrecy agreement that all CIA agents sign at the beginning of their tenure at the agency. According to the complaint, Jones' privacy agreement provided that he "was required never to disclose information or material obtained in the course of employment or other service with the CIA that is classified or that reveals classifiable Information." Furthermore, Jones agreed "to submit to the CIA for its review all information or materials ... which contain any mention of intelligence data or activities ... which he contemplates disclosing publicly or which he has actually prepared for public disclosure, either during his employment with the CIA or at any time thereafter ... and was further required to receive written permission from the CIA before taking any steps toward public disclosure."

Panetta defended the lawsuit in a statement, according to Gerstein. "CIA officers are duty-bound to observe the terms of their secrecy agreement with the Agency," Panetta said. "This lawsuit clearly reinforces that message."

The CIA has successfully sued former agents in the past over violations of their secrecy agreement. For example, in 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the agency could sue Frank W. Snepp III, and demand royalties he earned, because he failed to submit a book he published about CIA activities in Vietnam to the agency for review. The CIA did not contend that Snepp's book contained any classified information, but nevertheless the Court said that "whether Snepp violated his trust does not depend upon whether his book actually contained classified information."

The Court also rejected Snepp's argument that the agreement constituted a prior restraint on his speech, calling it "an entirely appropriate exercise of the CIA Director's statutory mandate to protect intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure" in light of the government's "compelling interest in protecting both the secrecy of information important to our national security and the appearance of confidentiality so essential to the effective operation of our foreign intelligence service." Snepp v. United States, 444 U.S. 507 (1980)

- Geoff Pipoly
Silha Research Assistant

25838|32116|25658 Thu, 06 Jan 2011 15:34:54 -0600

Righthaven pursues bloggers and other Internet users who republish content


http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2011/01/law-firms-approach-to-protecti.html 265949

In a series of lawsuits that have drawn nationwide attention and controversy, law firm Righthaven and the Las Vegas Review-Journal have set out to aggressively pursue bloggers and other Internet users who copy and republish Review-Journal stories online. The Review-Journal has claimed it has a legal right and an economic responsibility to protect its copyrighted content from unauthorized republication, but some have criticized the legal approach as heavy handed.

Righthaven: Locating and Suing Infringers

According to an October 19, 2010 story by the Bureau of National Affairs (BNA) Media Law Reporter, Righthaven is funded by an affiliate of the Review-Journal's parent company, Stephens Media. Former Review-Journal Publisher Sherman Frederick explained in a May 28, 2010 blog post on the Review-Journal website that Stephens Media "grubstaked" Righthaven, using a term common to mining whereby one company supplies money to a venture in return for some of the venture's profits. In the post, titled "Copyright theft: We're not taking it anymore" Frederick said Righthaven's "only job is to protect copyrighted content."

An August 4 story in the Las Vegas Sun, which has closely followed the Righthaven lawsuits, explained that Righthaven employees search the Internet to find websites that have republished portions of Review-Journal stories online. Righthaven then buys the copyright for the republished story from Stephens Media and sues the infringer, typically demanding $75,000 in damages as well as forfeiture of the domain name of the infringer's website. (For more on the early developments of the Righthaven lawsuits, see "News Media Seek Legal Tools to Protect Original Content" in the Summer 2010 Silha Bulletin.)

BNA's Electronic Commerce & Law Report reported on November 2 that Righthaven had filed 167 lawsuits against various online publishers around the country since March 2010. The Sun reported October 20 that some of the suits have been settled out of court while others are in "various stages of litigation." A blog dedicated to tracking the suits has court filings and other documents and is located at http://www.righthavenlawsuits.com.

Defendants Look to 'Fair Use,' Lack of Standing, or 'Implied License'

Few defendants who have challenged the Righthaven copyright lawsuits have prevailed, but one defendant successfully had a suit dismissed. In an October 18 order granting a realtor's motion to dismiss, Judge Larry Hicks of the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada ruled that realtor and blogger Michael Nelson's republication of part of an April 30, 2010 Review-Journal article about a new federal housing program was "fair use" under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 107 et seq.

Applying the standard four-step test for fair use, Hicks examined the "purpose and character" of Nelson's use of the article, "the nature" of the Review-Journal article, the amount Nelson used, and the unauthorized use's "effect on the potential market for the copyrighted work." In his four-page order, Hicks observed that Nelson "reproduced only the first eight sentences of a thirty sentence news article," which contained only the factual information from an article that was "split between factual news reporting and reporter commentary." Hicks ruled that even though the purpose and character of Nelson's use of the article was commercial, it was "likely to have little to no effect on the market for the copyrighted news article" because Nelson's copied portion, which "did not contain the author's commentary ... does not satisfy a reader's desire to view and read the article in its entirety [with] the author's original commentary." Hicks added that Nelson included a link leading readers to the original Review-Journal story. The ruling dismissed Righthaven's suit. Righthaven v. Realty One Group, Inc., et al. 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 111576 (D. Nev. Oct. 18, 2010)

The Sun reported October 20 that Righthaven CEO Steven Gibson said his firm would not appeal Hicks' order dismissing the case because it had reached a confidential settlement with Nelson prior to the ruling. The Sun said Hicks apparently was not aware of the settlement when he made his ruling. Gibson said that if there were no settlement with Nelson, Righthaven would consider appealing the ruling to the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. The Sun also reported that Gibson said that the ruling indicates that fair use would not be a viable defense in the majority of Righthaven's lawsuits, which involve the posting of entire stories without authorization.

Digital rights advocacy group the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) took on two of the Righthaven suits, countersuing the law firm on behalf of a crime blogger interested in "no body" murder cases and a user-driven political satire and commentary website called Democratic Underground.com. In both cases, the EFF has argued that the websites are protected by fair use. In the case involving the crime blog, the EFF supported its fair use claim by stating the website is "non-commercial" and "benefits the public interest" by "assisting prosecutors and homicide investigators in bringing justice to the friends and families of 'no body' murder victims." In the case involving Democratic Underground.com, the EFF claims that the website's use of a portion of an article about Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle was fair use because the user who posted it included only the first five sentences of a story that was 50 sentences long. Righthaven v. DiBiase, 2:10-cv-01343-RLH-PAL (D. Nev. 2010) and Righthaven v. Democratic Underground, 2:10-cv-01356-RLH-RJJ (D. Nev. 2010)

On November 15, Righthaven filed a motion for voluntary dismissal of the suit against Democratic Underground.com with the Nevada District Court. Citing the court's ruling recognizing the fair use defense in the Realty One Group case, and the fact that the user in the Democratic Underground.com suit also only used about 10 percent of a longer article, Righthaven said in its motion that "in this case, it appears to be in the best interests of Righthaven--and in the best interests of the Defendants--to not exhaust judicial resources on the instant lawsuit and instead allow this matter to be voluntarily dismissed." The motion was filed "in the interest of judicial economy," adding that "though Righthaven firmly believes that the Defendants are liable for copyright infringement ... reasonable minds may disagree as to the legitimacy of a fair use defense." The motion also said that "Righthaven does not anticipate filing any future lawsuits founded upon infringements of less than 75% of a copyrighted work, regardless of the outcome of the instant litigation."

Wired magazine blog Threat Level reported October 27 that, as was the case with Democratic Underground.com, many of the Righthaven lawsuits have arisen "not from articles posted by a website's proprietors, but from comments and forum posts by the site's readers." The Digital Millennium Copyright Act's "safe harbor" provision, 17 U.S.C. § 512, generally protects websites from liability for information posted by users if the website quickly removes or disables access to material that is identified in a copyright holder's complaint. However, in order to qualify for the safe harbor provision, websites must meet several criteria, including adopting a copyright policy and notifying users of that policy, having no knowledge of the infringing activity, not benefiting financially from the infringement, and identifying and registering a "designated agent" with the U.S. Copyright Office who can manage copyright "takedown" complaints. Registering a designated agent requires website proprietors to fill out a form and mail it to the Copyright Office along with a $105 fee. Threat Level reported October 27 that "an examination of Righthaven's lawsuits targeting user content suggests it's specifically going after sites that failed to fill out that paperwork."

Courts have also rejected defendants' challenges based on jurisdiction and copyright ownership. On October 28, District Judge Gloria M. Navarro denied a motion to dismiss a Righthaven copyright suit filed by Canadian website Majorwager.com. The website claimed that Navarro should dismiss the suit because Righthaven failed to prove that Majorwager.com had sufficient legal contact with the state for the federal court in Nevada to hear the case, a doctrine known as "personal jurisdiction." The court cited 9th Circuit precedent in copyright infringement as well as a previous Righthaven case in observing that Majorwager.com "willfully infringed copyrights owned by" Righthaven in an article published by the Review-Journal, which it knew is based in Nevada, causing harm to be suffered in Nevada. The court also said that hearing the case in Nevada was "reasonable" because although doing so would place a heavy burden on Majorwager.com in requiring it to litigate a case in a foreign country, that fact was outweighed by the state's interests and the plaintiff's interests. Righthaven v. MajorWager.com, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 115007 (D. Nev. Oct. 28, 2010)

Navarro also rejected Majorwager.com's argument that Righthaven lacked standing to sue because it did not own the copyright to the Review-Journal article when the infringement took place. The article was posted in a forum on the website by a user with the pseudonym "CLEVFAN" on March 18, 2010. Stephens Media assigned ownership of the article, as well as the "right to seek redress for past, present and future infringements of copyright" on March 24, and Righthaven filed suit on April 7.

Navarro said that because Righthaven had rights to sue over "past, present and future infringements," it could sue the website for an infringement that occurred before it owned the copyright to the article. In a footnote, however, Navarro noted that Majorwager.com did not "address the true nature of the transfer or any other possible defects related to Plaintiff's standing. ... if only a right to sue was transferred; Plaintiff may lack standing." Navarro cited ABKCO Music v. Harrisongs Music, 944 F.2d 971 (2nd Cir. 1991), which she said stands for the proposition that the "Copyright Act does not permit copyright holders to choose third parties to bring suits on their behalf."

In its two counterclaims on behalf of Democratic Underground.com and DiBiase, the EFF has claimed that Righthaven solely licenses copyrights from Stephens Media for the purpose of suing infringers, or, in the words of DiBiase's counterclaim: "Righthaven does not have a regular business model of deriving revenue from licensing copyright rights with respect to any information or content other than in connection with litigation, if at all. ... Righthaven's sole revenue is settlements from the copyright infringement cases it has filed."

In a ruling on another Righthaven case, Navarro said the owner of a website devoted to skyscrapers and urban development might be able to assert that the Review-Journal provides an "implied license" to republish its stories. Righthaven v. Klerks, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 105307 (Dist. Nev. 2010)

On September 17, Navarro granted defendant Jan Klerks' motion to set aside a default judgment against him. According to Navarro's order, Righthaven sued Klerks on May 19, 2010, and after he failed to respond to a summons, a clerk's default was entered July 9. However, before a default judgment was entered, Klerks filed a motion to set aside the judgment, claiming that the summons was sent to the wrong address and therefore he never received it, and that the first he learned of the suit was when a Las Vegas Sun reporter called him.

Navarro ruled that Klerks' motion met the standard of "good cause" required to set aside the default judgment. She noted not only that "he promptly retained counsel and filed the instant motion" as soon as he learned of the complaint, but that he provided a "meritorious defense" against the suit. Although not ruling on the merits of the arguments, Navarro said that a "fair use" analysis "weighed in favor" of Klerks, particularly because his blog is a nonprofit venture, because the Review-Journal article in question was "primarily informational," and because the effect on the market is limited because infringing "because the same article was viewable to the public for free on the Las Vegas Review-Journal's Website."

Moreover, Navarro said Klerks' "most meritorious defense" was "implied license," which the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada ruled in Field v. Google, 412 F. Supp. 2d 1106 (Dist. Nev. 2006) "can be found where the copyright holder engages in conduct from which the other party may properly infer that the owner consents to his use." Klerks claimed the Review-Journal "offered the article to the world for free, encouraged people to save and share the article with others without restrictions, and permitted users to 'right-click' and copy the article from its website." Righthaven instead claimed that "allowing a user to copy an entire article and post it to the user's website is similar to allowing a user to copy a library book and distribute the copies; a practice that it notes is illegal under current copyright laws," Navarro wrote. Nevertheless, she found that Klerks "made a plausible argument based on the recent cases addressing the copying of works taken from the internet."

Critics Question Righthaven's Approach; Newspaper is Unapologetic

Outside of court filings, critics of the Review-Journal and Righthaven have raised questions about the long-term impact of a zealous legal approach to protecting news media copyrights.

Sherwin Siy, deputy legal director for Public Knowledge, a public interest group based in Washington D.C., told BNA's Media Law Reporter on October 19 that "if somebody is infringing on somebody's copyrights, they certainly have a right to sue. I don't think there is any debate about that. [But] the existence of copyright law isn't a license to abuse it either." Siy said Righthaven's approach is "turning our legal system into a moneymaking enterprise."

Stephen Bates, an assistant professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas' school of journalism, told the Las Vegas Sun for an August 4 story, "Like most writers, I've had my articles posted online without permission. I'm usually glad to get the attention. When I'm not, I ask that they be taken down. That's how these things are handled. People go to court as a last resort, not as a first resort--especially when the infringer is a small nonprofit or a blogger who probably doesn't know better."

Criticism has been most acute when Righthaven suits have targeted unexpected defendants. For example, Righthaven sued former Senate candidate Angle on September 3 for republishing numerous Review-Journal stories on her campaign website. Review-Journal Publisher Sherman Frederick had long been an outspoken Angle supporter on his blog, and the newspaper endorsed Angle on October 3.

Steve Friess, writing for the AOL blog Politics Daily on September 10, observed that the lawsuits could strain relationships between Review-Journal reporters and their sources. Friess reported that one suit targeted the website of Anthony Curtis' Las Vegas Advisor tourist magazine after the magazine posted online a Review-Journal story reporting the results of a survey conducted by the magazine. Friess said the Review-Journal story "was itself the result of a scoop the Advisor handed to the paper, and now threatens the reporter-source relationship between the Advisor and the [Review-Journal]'s entertainment scribe."

According to the Sun on August 4, Curtis learned of the suit in June when a Sun reporter asked him for a comment about it. "It's ironic and stupid," Curtis said. "If they're going to sue us for quoting us, that gets really stupid."

Frederick was unapologetic in his May 28 blog post. "It is our primary hope that Righthaven will stop people from stealing our stuff," he wrote. "It is our secondary hope, if Righthaven shows continued success, that it will find other clients looking for a solution to the theft of copyrighted material." The Threat Level blog reported August 30 that Righthaven had added a second client, Arkansas-based WEHCO Media, parent company of the Little Rock Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and the Chattanooga (Tenn.) Times Free Press.

The Review-Journal reported November 12 that Frederick had stepped down as publisher, and was replaced by Advertising Director Bob Brown. He was also replaced as Stephens Media CEO by Michael Ferguson, the company's former chief operating officer.

According to an October 6 report by BNA's Electronic Commerce & Law Report, a panel of media lawyers speaking at a September 25 conference focused on "Media Law in the Digital Age" said that online publishers should expect to see more lawsuits of the Righthaven variety. Christopher A. Wiech, an attorney in the Atlanta office of law firm Troutman Sanders, said that because it is unrealistic for many individual bloggers to hire a lawyer to defend their use of a single article, many are likely to accept settlements of "a couple thousand dollars." If Righthaven is successful in getting these types of settlements, Wiech said, "you're going to see more and more types of entities like this pop up."

On September 24, The Associated Press (AP) reported that AP President and CEO Tom Curley called for better enforcement mechanisms to limit unlicensed and unauthorized use of news online. In remarks at a training program run by AP Managing Editors at the First Amendment Center in Nashville, Tenn., Curley said the AP was engaging in efforts to track websites that "scrape" AP content systematically without paying for it.

The Sun reported September 25 that Mark Hinueber, vice president and general counsel of Stephens Media, said he was encouraged that the AP is also taking aim at unlicensed use of its news content. Hinueber spoke during a presentation sponsored by the Las Vegas Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He said he hoped that efforts by the AP and others would deter copyright infringers, and that "Righthaven isn't the only solution to this problem." The Sun reported Hinueber called for "some sort of digital rights agency" that could help protect copyright and license content.

According to the Sun, Hinueber said that although the lawsuits have generated negative publicity for the Review-Journal and may have created problems for reporters whose sources were sued, the lawsuits would continue. "I think the benefits are worth the negative publicity," he said.

Friess defended the Righthaven suits in a July 28 post on the Las Vegas Weekly website. "Offenders think they deserve a polite warning, but I'm all for scaring the hell out of them," Friess wrote. "The thing that's killing the media is the devaluation of its assets, something in which [the media] is a willing participant. This could be a first step toward reminding people that information may want to be free, but those who provide it have bills to pay, too."

- PATRICK FILE
SILHA FELLOW AND BULLETIN EDITOR


25705|32116|25658 Thu, 06 Jan 2011 15:16:21 -0600

Media sought ways to report on controversy without perpetuating it

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2011/01/journalists-question-implicati.html 265945

As controversy simmered in the weeks leading up to Sept. 11, 2010 around a pastor's threat to burn a Quran and a proposal to build an Islamic cultural center in lower Manhattan, commentators and media organizations considered how much the news media might perpetuate the scandal they were covering, and its backlash.

Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainsville, Fla. received international media attention when he threatened to burn copies of the Islamic holy book, the Quran, on the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C.

According to The Washington Post on September 10, Jones first announced his plans to burn copies of the Quran on July 12, 2010 with a series of statements on Twitter that culminated with the statement "9/11/2010 Int Burn a Koran Day [sic]." On September 7, ABC News reported that Jones had also announced on Facebook on July 12 that September 11, 2010, would be "International Burn a Koran Day," and that members of his church would burn copies of the Quran on that day.

News about Jones' plans spread quickly. EuroIslam Info, a Harvard University sponsored news site that covers "news and analysis on Islam in Europe and North America," picked up the story on July 14 and posted it in its "Islamaphobia Observatory" section, and the story spread online among Islamic communities, particularly via Facebook. The September 10 Washington Post story reported that in early August, chain messages were circulating on Facebook protesting Jones' page and calling for its removal. Dozens of groups were formed to protest the page, which was removed in early September.

Jones later connected his planned Quran burning with the "Ground Zero Mosque"--a frequently used name for the proposed Islamic cultural center in lower Manhattan known as Park 51--saying he would not burn the book if the center was moved. Park 51 garnered news coverage as early as Dec. 8, 2009, when The New York Times devoted a front-page story to the project. The story quoted the lead organizer of the project, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, as saying that the project organizers wanted to "push back against the extremists."

Controversy picked up significantly for Park 51 when a community planning board in New York City approved its preliminary plans on May 6, 2010 and The Associated Press (AP) produced a story about it the same day. The story included quotes from those supporting and opposed to the project, and was published by USA Today on May 7. CNN also covered the project's approval on May 7, as did other national news media. The New York Post ran a story on May 6, 2010, with the headline "Panel Approves 'WTC' Mosque."

According to an August 16 story on Salon.com, the term "Ground Zero Mosque" was first used when Laura Ingraham, co-hosting "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox News, interviewed Rauf's wife, Daisy Rauf, about the project. According to the Salon.com story, Ingraham applauded the project at the time.

Alissa Torres, a contributor to Salon.com whose husband was killed in the 2001 attacks, wrote September 7 that she received an e-mail from a New York television reporter on May 6 who wrote, "I am working on a story today about the proposed mosque project at the WTC site. I am interviewing the developers but I am also trying to look for family members who think building a mosque at the site is a bad idea." In her article, Torres said that the query seemed "a bit leading," and wrote that she felt the media were trying to exploit those who lost loved ones in the attacks by "trying to create a controversy where there is none, in raking over wounds that--nine years later--still hurt."

Salon.com's August 16 story stated that Park 51 never should have been a controversy in the first place because "they have had a mosque in the same neighborhood for many years. There's another mosque two blocks away from the site. City officials support the project. Muslims have been praying at the Pentagon, the other building hit on Sept. 11, for many years."

Meanwhile, national news media considered how to cover Jones' proposed Quran burning in light of threats of violence and reprisals against U.S. troops and citizens abroad. The Washington Post reported September 10 that the first large protest in response to the planned Quran burning took place in Indonesia on September 4. On September 6, protesters in Kabul burned an effigy of Jones and chanted "Death to America," according to the Post.

On September 7, Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan, released a statement saying, "Images of the burning of a Koran would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan--and around the world--to inflame public opinion and incite violence." Pakistani publication Dawn quoted Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari on September 9 saying that Jones' plan, if carried out, would "cause irreparable damage to interfaith harmony and also to world peace."

In a television interview on ABC News' "World News," on September 9, President Barack Obama said that burning Qurans could "greatly endanger our young men and women in uniform who are in Iraq, who are in Afghanistan." In a news segment following the interview, ABC reported that "across the world, crowds took to the streets to protest the planned burning of the Quran" with September 9 protests in Pakistan and Afghanistan being the largest. CBS News reported on September 12 that the protests in Afghanistan lasted for three days, from September 8 to September 10, killing two and injuring four.

According to the September 9 "World News" report, the U.S. State Department issued a worldwide warning that day for Americans traveling abroad, out of fear that Americans might be targeted if the planned burnings went forward. U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates also placed a personal call to Jones to warn him of the potential national and international security threats, ABC News reported. According to The Washington Post on September 10, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton also contacted Jones to ask him not to go forward with the burning.

Amid the warnings and calls for Jones to halt his plan, the AP and Fox News both announced that they would not air any footage of the planned Quran burnings if they took place. According to TVNEWSER, a blog on MediaBistro.com, CNN, NBC, ABC, and CBS all planned to cover the event.

The Boston Globe reported on September 9 that Michael Clemente, Senior Vice President at Fox News, said in a phone interview that the network's decision not to broadcast was "about judgment." Clemente told the Globe that Jones was "one guy in the middle of the woods with 50 people in his congregation who's decided to try, I gather, to bring some attention to himself ... there are many more important things going on in the world than that. I don't know what they will be this weekend, but I am sure they will be more important than that."

Tom Kent, deputy news director for the AP, sent out a memo to AP staff on September 9 informing them of the decision not to broadcast the planned Quran burning and offering guidelines on how to limit coverage of it to one story a day. "AP policy is not to provide coverage of events that are gratuitously manufactured to provoke and offend. In the past, AP has declined to provide images of cartoons mocking Islam and Jews," the memo read. The memo stated, "should the event happen on Saturday [September 11], the AP will not distribute images or audio that specifically show Qurans being burned, and will not provide detailed text descriptions of the burning. With the exception of these specific images and descriptions, we expect to cover the Gainesville event, in all media, placing the actions of this group of about 50 people in a clear and balanced context."

Kelly McBride, a media ethicist at the Poynter Institute, wrote in a September 9 blog post that "Whether it's the coverage of the plans to build an Islamic center in Lower Manhattan or reporting on the United States' interrogation of potential terrorists, misinformation is as common as good information." McBride urged editors to use caution in their coverage of Jones' plan to burn a Quran and the Park 51 project, in light of the potential for international backlash.

Jim Osteen, executive editor of The Gainesville Sun, said in an e-mail to McBride that his newspaper was "trying to keep our readers informed without alarming them, or giving this misguided pastor more of a stage than is deserved. While we can't escape the reality of what is likely to happen Saturday, we are committed to not sensationalizing the event."

Mike Thomas, a columnist for the Orlando Sentinel was more direct in his criticism of the media: "I ask you: If a sad little man burns some Qurans in the woods, and the media aren't there to film it, is it news? Of course not." Thomas wrote. "We created the Rev. Terry Jones from dust. And in two weeks, to dust he shall return. Then we'll move on to the guys who plan to run over the Quran at their monster-truck pull. Whatever it takes to keep your attention."

Jones announced September 9 that he had canceled his planned Quran burning, claiming that Florida Imam Muhammad Musri had promised to broker a deal with the group planning to build Park 51. In a televised press conference, Jones said that he would fly to New York City the following Saturday to meet with "the Imam at the ground zero mosque." Jones told ABC News on September 9 that Rauf had "agreed to move [Park 51]. And we have agreed to cancel our event on Saturday. Americans don't want the mosque there and of course Muslims don't want us to burn Korans," Jones said.

However, in an interview with Christiane Amanpour for the ABC program "This Week," Rauf denied that any deal was made, or that he had even spoken with Jones or Musri. He said that he and his partners in Park 51 were not going to "toy with our religion or any other" and would not "barter. ... We are here to extend our hand to build peace and harmony."

On September 11, Jones appeared on NBC's "Today" show and announced that he and members of the church would not burn copies of the Quran. "We will definitely not burn the Quran, no. Not today, not ever," Jones said. Jones explained that his church would not go forward with its planned Quran burning, even given the announcement that the plans for Park 51 would not change. He said that he had received over 100 death threats, and that he believed that "God is telling us to stop," but that he also hoped he would have a chance to speak to Rauf. He stated that his goal had been "to expose that there is an element of Islam that is very dangerous and very radical," and that he felt his church had "accomplished that mission."

On September 9, the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan. announced plans to burn a copy of the Quran along with an American flag on Sept. 11, 2010, according to the Kansas City Star. News website The Daily Beast reported on September 11 that the Church carried out the plan. The burning was covered by local television stations, but was not rebroadcast by any national news organizations, according to The Daily Beast. The Westboro Baptist Church also burned a copy of the Quran in 2008, The Daily Beast reported, without igniting international controversy.

The Westboro Baptist Church also protests funerals and preaches that America is "damned to hell," according to its website. Westboro's funeral protests were the subject of a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, Snyder v. Phelps, in the fall of 2010.

On September 14, CNN reported that in the period surrounding Sept. 11, 2010 "at least three copies of the Quran were burned," in the United States, and that at a "counterdemonstration in London, anti-American protesters burned the Stars and Stripes and a copy of the U.S. Constitution."

- SARA CANNON
SILHA CENTER STAFF


32116|25703|25658 Thu, 06 Jan 2011 15:01:16 -0600

Journalists are skeptical about government solutions

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2011/01/journalism-suffers-amid-drug-w.html 265941

Increasing violence in Mexico has led journalists there to question whether doing their jobs is worth risking their lives. The situation has drawn worldwide attention to the chilling effect created when drug trafficking cartels and law enforcement intimidate and terrorize news media and reporters who scrutinize their activities.

On Sept. 8, 2010, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released a 42-page report, titled "Silence or Death in Mexico's Press" that detailed how "crime, violence, and corruption are destroying the country's journalism." Among the report's findings were that more than 30 journalists or media workers have been murdered or have disappeared since Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched a military offensive against the country's powerful drug cartels in December 2006. The report said that 22 journalists have been murdered in that time, eight of whom were killed "in direct reprisal for reporting on crime and corruption." Additionally, the report said three media support workers have been killed and at least seven journalists have gone missing. Dozens more have been attacked, kidnapped, or forced into exile, the CPJ report said.

"The influence of organized crime over nearly every aspect of society, including government, police, and prosecutors, has made Mexico the deadliest nation for the press in the Western hemisphere and one of the world's most dangerous places to exercise the fundamental human right of free expression," the report said. The report is available online at http://cpj.org/reports/2010/09/silence-or-death-in-mexicos-press.php.

U.S. media have taken notice of the threat to the Mexican press. In an August 16 story, the Los Angeles Times explained that Mexican journalists use the word "narco-censorship" to describe reporters and editors who, "out of fear or caution, are forced to write what the traffickers want them to write, or to simply refrain from publishing the whole truth."

According to the Los Angeles Times, Mexican journalists, especially in the cities of Ciudad Juarez, Durango, and Reynosa, avoid reporting on the specifics of the cartels' drug production, smuggling, organized crime operations, and infiltration of local government because drawing attention to those activities would be likely to draw federal efforts to halt them. Warnings to local media by the drug cartels can come in the form of the disappearance of reporters or a deadly hail of bullets.

The Los Angeles Times reported that in July 2010, four journalists were kidnapped after covering the revelation that the warden of Durango's Gomez Palacio prison had allowed inmates to go out on nighttime killing rampages. The kidnapped reporters were released only when their employers agreed to broadcast videos sent to them by a cartel that purported to show corrupt police officers admitting, at gunpoint, to working for a rival cartel. One of the kidnapped reporters told the Los Angeles Times that over the course of five days he was tortured, beaten with a board, and threatened with "an ugly death."

When traffickers attacked a military garrison in Reynosa with machine guns and hand grenades, part of a larger coordinated attack launched across the country in late March 2010, it made the front page of the Los Angeles Times, but was not reported in the local Reynosa media out of fear of reprisals.

CPJ also reported that bribes can drive coverage, or lack thereof, as much as fear. The organization interviewed journalists in Reynosa who said many reporters take bribes from the drug traffickers to slant their stories or withhold coverage. Stories about kidnappings and extortion are generally considered off-limits.

The situation appeared to be especially desperate in Ciudad Juarez in September 2010, after an intern photographer for local paper El Diario was shot and killed by gunmen when he was leaving a shopping mall at lunchtime on September 16, according to The New York Times on September 20. Another intern was injured in the attack. The following Sunday El Diario published an open letter on its front page under the headline "What Do You Want from Us?" according to the Los Angeles Times blog La Plaza. The letter, according to a translated version on La Plaza, addressed the "Gentlemen of the different organizations that are fighting for the Ciudad Juarez plaza: ... we ask that you explain what it is you want from us, what you'd intend for us to publish or to not publish, so that we know what is expected of us. You are at this time the de facto authorities in this city because the legal authorities have not been able to stop our colleagues from falling, despite the fact that we've repeatedly demanded it from them. Because of this, before this undeniable reality, we direct ourselves to you with these questions, because the last thing we want is that another one of our colleagues fall victim to your bullets."

However, the letter was "not a surrender," according to the version on La Plaza, "It also does not signify we're giving up on the work we've been producing. This is about a truce with those who have imposed the force of their law upon this city, so long as the lives are respected of those who dedicate themselves to the task of informing."

The New York Times reported that although the government had condemned the September 16 killing, its investigation had not identified a suspect or motive. "Such investigations have a history of shifting theories and little resolution," the Times reported, adding that the 2008 murder of El Diario's police reporter remains unsolved; the case's lead prosecutor was also killed.

According to the CPJ report, corruption and fear pervade the investigations of crimes against journalists, despite the establishment of a federal special prosecutor's office for investigating such crimes in 2006 under President Vicente Fox. For example, the report highlighted the unsolved 2009 murder of Durango crime reporter Bladimir Antuna García. Juan López Ramírez, the state's lead prosecutor for crimes against journalists, blamed "grand chaos" in the Mexican criminal trial system as the reason so little investigating had been done; no authorities had spoken to witnesses since the day after the murder.

CPJ reported that Víctor Garza Ayala, owner of El Tiempo de Durango, Antuna's principal employer, had another theory for why the investigation had not gone anywhere: state officials "know perfectly well who killed him. They don't need an investigation," he said. "They are either afraid of who did it or they are in business with them."

The situation has become serious enough for the United Nations to send two envoys on an official visit. Following a 15-day trip in August 2010, the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Opinion said Mexico requires "urgent attention" because "the full enjoyment of freedom of expression ... is up against serious and diverse obstacles, including most notably the murder of journalists and other very serious acts of violence against those who disseminate information, ideas and opinions, and the widespread impunity in those cases."

According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), on August 17, the U.N. envoys said they support efforts to have crimes against media workers recognized and investigated at a federal level. The CPJ report asserted that the Mexican government has "a federal obligation" to address the problem, citing protections for freedom of expression and the press in the Mexican constitution, as well as the fact that Mexico is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantees the right "to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media," and the American Convention on Human Rights, which not only guarantees rights to free expression but also states that every individual has "the right to simple and prompt recourse ... for protection against acts that violate his fundamental rights." In March 2010, the U.N. Human Rights Committee found that the Mexican government had failed to take effective action to protect the press and bring assailants to justice, CPJ reported.

On August 7, hundreds of reporters marched in Mexico City while thousands more marched elsewhere in the country to protest the ongoing threats against journalism, according to a report on the CBS News website. Marcela Turati, head of an organization formed to assist reporters threatened by organized crime called Journalists on Foot, said the march was "the first march organized by journalists calling for the protection of journalists." CBS News reported that Turati said although the march was "an important first step ... we need more follow-up, more mechanisms to protect journalists."

On August 24, Madrid-based Spanish language news service EFE reported that four media unions, along with magazines and journalism foundations, issued a statement calling on the government to take "forceful" action to end the "atmosphere of affronts and violence" against Mexico's journalists and defend freedom of expression and of the press.

The statement, published in the Mexico City daily La Jornada, said that numerous attacks against journalists have "gone unpunished" and the cases remain "without deep investigations," according to EFE. "Threats, intimidation, kidnappings and attacks on communications media, moreover, have become a common practice, mainly among the security forces and serving politicians," the groups said, while "organized crime, especially, has shown no mercy." The statement was published on behalf of the National Journalists Front for Freedom of Expression, whose members include the National Press Editors Union, the Independent Union of La Jornada Workers, the Notimex Workers Union, and the union that represents workers at Puebla's El Sol newspaper. Contralinea and Zocalo magazines, the CIMAC news agency, the Manuel Buendia Foundation and several attorneys also signed the statement, EFE reported.

Although reporters are often reluctant to report on the cartels' organized crime operations out of fear of drawing federal scrutiny, CPJ said that federal investigators and prosecutors are better prepared and have better resources than local authorities to take on threats to press freedom. A federal solution "offer[s] hope for a more effective response," the report said. "The higher level of scrutiny serves as a check against the corrupting power of criminal organizations." CPJ also claimed that federalization of the problem would send an important message of international accountability. "The more Mexico allows the flow of information to be controlled by drug cartels and dishonest local officials, the more it erodes its status as a reliable global partner," the report said.

CPJ and Mexican press freedom advocates support reforms that would add crimes against free expression to the federal penal code, make federal authorities responsible for investigating and prosecuting attacks on the press, and establish accountability at senior levels of the national government.

In the meantime, CPJ reported November 9 that the Mexican government announced the launch of a program aimed at protecting at-risk journalists. According to CPJ, the Ministry of the Interior said it expects to offer protective measures such as bodyguards, armored cars, or stipends to allow journalists to relocate to other parts of the country, and that although the program will initially use federal police, it will eventually involve state law enforcement. "According to the CPJ, Mexican press groups expressed "considerable skepticism" about the plan, complaining that it "is designed and run entirely by government officials who have no understanding of what it's like to be a journalist in Mexico."

In a 2008 meeting with a delegation from CPJ, President Calderón said "the government agrees with the idea of federalizing crimes against freedom of expression," and pledged to put forward a proposal in the context of a broad constitutional amendment to address the spiral of violence and its effect on civil rights more generally. In spite of promises like Calderón's and increasing international attention, including urgent calls for reform from both advocacy groups and the U.N., investigations and accountability has remained primarily local, CPJ reported.

Legislators themselves pose a central obstacle to a legislative approach to federalization, CPJ reported, because they consider the move politically imprudent. Gerardo Priego Tapia, a former leader of the Congressional committee on press attacks, said that politically powerful state governors, especially in some of the states with the highest levels of anti-press violence, oppose federalization as an infringement on states' rights and their own authority. Priego also said corrupt officials who cooperate with organized crime also fear federalization "because those ties may be exposed."

- PATRICK FILE
SILHA FELLOW AND BULLETIN EDITOR


32116|32130|25658 Thu, 06 Jan 2011 14:41:59 -0600

Rulings in two foreign courts--the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and the Canadian Supreme Court--favored journalists' rights to protect confidential sources in fall 2010.

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2011/01/international-courts-favor-new.html 265934

European Court Rules Arrest and Search Violate Human Rights

In a September 14 decision, the ECHR ruled that law enforcement authorities in the Netherlands violated a magazine's rights to "journalistic freedom of expression" when they forced the magazine to hand over photographs of an illegal street race after arresting the magazine's editor and threatening to close its offices in order to search them. Sanoma Uitgevers B.V. v. the Netherlands, App. No. 38224/03 (Eur. Ct. H.R. Sept. 14, 2010)

The case arose after journalists from Autoweek attended the race, near a small town outside of Amsterdam in January 2002. Race participants allowed the journalists to take photographs on the condition that participants' identities of would remain undisclosed. Police were present at the race and eventually closed it down, but no arrests were made, according to the court opinion.

On Feb. 1, 2002, six days before Autoweek published its story about the race, police contacted the magazine and demanded that it hand over copies of its photos. When editors refused the request by phone, police detectives went to the magazine company's offices and served them with a summons issued by Amsterdam's public prosecutor. Under Netherlands law, a summons to produce materials in connection to a criminal investigation does not have to be approved by a judge. When the magazine's editor in chief continued to refuse to produce the photographs, he was placed under arrest and police threatened to shut down the offices of Sanoma Uitgevers, Autoweek's publisher, while they removed all computers and searched them and the building for the photographs. The ECHR noted that the closure would have limited the ability of Sanoma Uitgevers' dozens of other magazines and 180 websites to cover the February 2 wedding of the Netherlands' Crown Prince. After negotiations with prosecutors, as well as a phone call to a judge, the magazine's lawyers surrendered the photographs "under protest" at 1:20 a.m. on February 2.

The magazine lodged a complaint with the Regional Court in the Netherlands, asking that the seizure be ruled unlawful, the photos returned, any copies in police possession destroyed, and any evidence based on their content be ruled inadmissible. In a Sept. 5, 2002 hearing, the public prosecutor revealed that the summons had been issued not because of the street race but because authorities believed that a car used by some of its participants might have been used in a series of robberies. Ultimately the court ordered the photos returned, but declined to invalidate the seizure. The Netherlands Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal, ruling that the Code of Criminal Procedure did not allow a declaratory ruling that the seizure or the use of the seized item was unlawful once it had been returned.

The ECHR was established by the European Convention on Human Rights which was adopted by the Council of Europe in 1953. Individuals or nations who claim that a Council member has violated the Convention can file an appeal with the Court. The publisher's complaint to the ECHR argued that the search violated Article 10 of the Convention, which states, "everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority" and that "the exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society." A seven-judge panel of the ECHR ruled 4 to 3 in March 2009 that no violation of the Convention had occurred. Despite "a regrettable lack of moderation" demonstrated by police and prosecutors, the Court said, domestic courts were entitled to balance the interests of preventing crime with the need to protect journalists' sources, and the crime in this case was serious enough to justify interfering with publishers' rights, especially since there was no other way to identify perpetrators.

On Sept. 14, 2010, the 17-judge Grand Chamber of the Court--which is the ECHR's "court of last resort"--reversed the lower panel's ruling. The Court focused primarily on the fact that Netherlands law does not require judicial oversight for the issuance of the summons, which could impose a "chilling effect" on journalists and their sources, even where no search or seizure is actually executed.

The Court observed that "in its earlier case-law [it] has found various acts of the authorities compelling journalists to give up their privilege and provide information on their sources or to obtain access to journalistic information to constitute interferences with journalistic freedom of expression." It cited Goodwin v. United Kingdom, 123 Eur. Ct. H.R. (1996), in which the Court established the "vital public interest in the protection of the ... journalist's source" as well as Roemen and Schmit v. Luxembourg 102 Eur. Ct. H.R. (2003), Ernst v. Belgium 359 Eur. Ct. H.R. (2003), and Tillack v. Belgium App. no. 20477/05, Eur. Ct. H.R. (2007), where "the Court found that searches of journalists' homes and workplaces ... constituted interferences with their rights guaranteed by paragraph 1 of Article 10."

The Court also observed that the Netherlands trial court had ruled that the government's interest should outweigh the journalists' rights "more so as the undertaking to the journalistic source concerned the street race whereas the investigation did not concern that race," and instead involved "grave crimes." The Court said it "does not consider this distinction to be crucial" because the serious of the underlying case was "irrelevant for the purposes of determining whether there has been an interference with the right of journalists" to protect their sources.

The Court continued: "While it is true that no search or seizure took place in the present case ... a chilling effect will arise wherever journalists are seen to assist in the identification of anonymous sources" because sources will be unwilling to trust promises of confidentiality in the future. The Court added, "News is a perishable commodity and to delay its publication, even for a short period, may well deprive it of all its value and interest."

The Court said that the decision to compel journalists to disclose their confidential source should be made by a judge, rather than a prosecutor who "is a 'party' defending interests potentially incompatible with journalistic source protection and can hardly be seen as objective and impartial so as to make the necessary assessment of the various competing interests." The deciding judge should apply "clear criteria, including whether a less intrusive measure can suffice to serve the overriding public interests established," the Court said.

The Netherlands argued that it met the necessary threshold because a judge had been consulted before the photographs were turned over and the Regional Court had ruled on the magazine's appeal, but the Court rejected this argument. There was a "lack of any legal basis for the involvement of the investigating judge" who was consulted the night the summons was issued, the Court observed, since the Netherlands Criminal Code does not require it. "Being nowhere required by law, it occurred at the sufferance of the public prosecutor," the Court said.

"Secondly," the Court continued, "the investigating judge was called in what can only be described as an advisory role. Although there is no suggestion that the public prosecutor would have compelled the surrender of the CD-ROM in the face of an opinion to the contrary from the investigating judge, the fact remains that the investigating judge had no legal authority in this matter. ... Thus it was not open to him to issue, reject or allow a request for an order, or to qualify or limit such an order as appropriate."

On the issue of the post-disclosure appeal, the Court said "it is clear ... that the exercise of any independent review that only takes place subsequently to the handing over of material ... would undermine the very essence of the right to confidentiality."

News media supporters praised the ECHR ruling. Geoffrey Robertson QC, counsel for a coalition of intervening news media and advocacy groups, called the ruling "an acid test for the Court and for media freedom across Europe," according to international free expression advocacy group Article 19 on September 16. Robertson said the ruling "sets a high benchmark for protection of journalistic materials and will force police and prosecutors across Europe, from Russia to France, to change their practices."

Article 19 reported that intervening organizations included itself, the Media Legal Defence Initiative, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Guardian News and Media Limited, and the Open Society Justice Initiative. Support also came from The Associated Press, Bloomberg News, the European Newspaper Publishers Association, Condé Nast Publications, Hearst Corporation, the National Geographic Society, the New York Times Company, Reuters, Time Inc., the Washington Post Company, and the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, Article 19 said.

Canadian High Court Extends Privilege to Journalist Testimony and Civil Cases

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled on October 22 that a journalist's privilege--a right to protect confidential sources from disclosure--can extend to testimony in civil cases, not just subpoenas for documentary evidence in criminal investigations. Globe and Mail v. Canada, 2010 SCC 41 (Can.)

In May 2010, the Court ruled in R. v. National Post, 2010 SCC 16 (Can.) that although journalists do not have a constitutional right to shield the identity of their sources, a privilege can be applied on a case-by-case basis through a four-part balancing test called "the Wigmore criteria." The National Post case involved a criminal investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and a search warrant seeking possibly forged bank documents. For more on that case, see "Canadian Justices Say No to Privilege, Yes to Publication Ban" in the Summer 2010 issue of the Silha Bulletin.

The Globe and Mail case was distinguished from the National Post case because it involved the law of Quebec, which uses a civil code system rather than a common law system, and also because it involved a reporter having been called to personally testify and disclose confidential sources in the context of a civil trial. The underlying case involved a dispute over government funds issued to, and allegedly misused by, media corporation Le Groupe Polygone Editeurs Inc. Pursuant to its defense against the allegations, Groupe Polygone subpoenaed Globe and Mail reporter Daniel Leblanc to testify and disclose a confidential source for his reporting on the scandal. Groupe Polygone also sought and received a judicial order banning Leblanc from reporting any further stories on the scandal, including details about confidential settlement negotiations between it and the Attorney General of Canada. The trial court judge refused to recognize the existence of a journalist-source privilege and the newspaper's objections were dismissed. The Quebec Court of Appeal declined to hear the Globe and Mail's appeal on the issue of privilege, and dismissed the newspaper's attempt to "discontinue" Polygone's suit against the government.

The opinion for a unanimous nine-member Supreme Court, written by Judge Louis LeBel, first rejected the Globe and Mail's argument that the Quebec Charter, roughly equivalent to a state constitution, provides a basis for journalist-source privilege because of provisions that protect freedom of expression, the right to information, and rights for individuals "bound to professional secrecy by law."

Citing the Court's reasoning in National Post, particularly "the difficulty in defining such a 'heterogeneous and ill-defined group of writers and speakers'" LeBel wrote that "freedom of expression under the Quebec Charter cannot constitute the basis for recognizing a class-based, quasi-constitutional journalist-source privilege." The Court also said that although the right to information "can ... inform the protection of the confidential relationship between journalists and their sources, it cannot constitute the basis for recognizing that privilege" because the right conferred by that provision "is limited to the extent that access to information is already provided for by law ... and [therefore] does not broaden the scope of the right, [and] cannot be the source of a quasi-constitutional right to the protection of journalists' sources."

On the issue of the Charter's protection for "professional secrecy," LeBel first observed that journalism is not included in the list of 45 professions subject to the Quebec Professional Code; its inclusion was contemplated but ultimately rejected. Moreover, LeBel wrote that "there is no basis for drawing an analogy between professional secrecy and journalist-source privilege" because "the associations of journalists are not regulated" and because "journalism is not a profession of the type that professional secrecy traditionally purports to protect." The Court's reasoning was based on a definition of "professional secrecy" that requires that there "be a law that imposes an obligation of silence on an individual" and an "obligation" that is "rooted in a helping relationship." The "helping relationship" is described as one "where the beneficiary of the privilege seeks out the professional for personal help or assistance" and "the obligation of confidentiality is 'in the exclusive interest of the person who disclosed [the information], and in the context of a helping relationship.'" Because the legislature did not include journalism in the list of 45 professions subject to professional secrecy, and because "the relationship between journalists and their sources is not one that would often result in such a 'helping relationship,'" LeBel said the protection for professional secrecy does not extend to journalism.

However, the Court also ruled that the common-law "Wigmore criteria" for determining whether journalist's privilege applies to a case can be imported into Quebec's civil law system. Under the four-part test, a court must determine whether the communication "originate[d] in a confidence that the identity of the informant will not be disclosed," whether the confidence is essential to the relationship in which the communication arises, and whether the relationship is one which should be diligently, deliberately, and consciously fostered in the public good. If the first three requirements are met, "the court must last consider whether in the instant case the public interest served by protecting the identity of the informant from disclosure outweighs the public interest in getting at the truth."

The Court observed that "neither the Civil Code nor the Code of Civil Procedure explicitly provides for the recognition in the civil litigation context of journalist-source privilege, which now exists in the common law jurisdictions. A gap in the codified law exists, and the question becomes one of determining the appropriate way of filling it."

The Court ruled that although there is debate over whether judges can apply common-law principles where the civil code does not provide guidance, "the creation of a framework to address these issues represents a legitimate and necessary exercise of the power of the court to interpret and develop the law" and therefore "it is not inconsistent, either in principle or in fact, to give judges the authority to exempt a journalist from testifying, when his ... rights are found to be paramount." Therefore, the Court ruled, "Despite its common law origins, the use of a Wigmore-like framework to recognize the existence of the privilege in the criminal law context, as established in National Post, is equally relevant for litigation subject to the laws of Quebec."

The Court extensively reviewed the Wigmore criteria and provided guidance on their application to civil law: "the relevant considerations ...when a claim to privilege is made in the context of civil proceedings, include: how central the issue is to the dispute; the stage of the proceedings; whether the journalist is a party to the proceedings; and, perhaps most importantly, whether the information is available through any other means." It also said that the Wigmore criteria should apply to the specific circumstances involving Leblanc and the Globe and Mail.

However, the Court declined to decide whether Leblanc's claim of privilege should allow him to refuse to testify, instead ruling to "remit the matter to the Superior Court for a consideration of Mr. Leblanc's claim, in accordance with these reasons."

The Court also overturned the lower court's ban on Leblanc's publishing further stories about the Polygone scandal. LeBel wrote that the lower court should have given both parties an opportunity to submit briefs in support or opposition to the ban. "A publication ban, which by its very nature infringes the constitutional rights of the party against whom it is imposed, cannot, absent extraordinary circumstances not present here, be imposed ex proprio motu," or without hearing from the parties, LeBel wrote. In his analysis of the issue, LeBel said that any confidentiality agreement between parties to a lawsuit "does not, and cannot, extend to the media. Neither Mr. Leblanc nor the Globe and Mail did anything--illegal or otherwise--to obtain the information published in the article." LeBel added, "I am reluctant to endorse a situation where the media or individual journalists are automatically prevented from publishing information supplied to them by a source who is in breach of his or her confidentiality obligations."

The Montreal Gazette, in an October 23 story, said the ruling "boosted" and "reinforced" freedom of the press in Canada. According to the Gazette Leblanc told reporters "The big victory is the recognition of journalistic work, the protection of sources that has to weigh in the balance when these issues are raised in court."

The Globe and Mail reported October 23 that its editor-in-chief, John Stackhouse, said the ruling "set a very high bar for disclosure of sources in investigative journalism," adding that "journalists and their sources don't enjoy blanket protection, but we can continue to pursue investigative journalism, including confidential sourcing, knowing the courts view public interest as paramount."

However, Professor Jamie Cameron of York University's Osgoode Hall Law School told The Globe and Mail she was disappointed that the Court has refused to recognize "the constitutional status of the newsgathering relationship," and that the case-by-case standard was too uncertain for such a critical part of investigative reporting. Cameron said a shield law is needed to "give this confidential newsgathering relationship the legal protection it requires."

Nevertheless, Globe and Mail lawyer William Brock said "the Supreme Court has clearly stated not only that journalistic-source privilege exists in Quebec, but also that a confidential source should only be revealed where it is vital to the integrity of the administration of justice."

- PATRICK FILE
SILHA FELLOW AND BULLETIN EDITOR


32116|32130|25658 Thu, 06 Jan 2011 14:16:04 -0600

Judges from the U.S. Supreme Court to Minnesota remain divided over issue of access

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2011/01/federal-and-state-courts-consi.html 265929

Parts of both the federal and state judicial branches are considering expanding video access to courtrooms, but lawyers and jurists are split on the merits of the trend. One recent case--Perry v. Schwarzenegger--brought the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court, which stayed a district court judge's order to allow video of the trial to be posted on the Internet. For the time being, a majority of Supreme Court justices who have spoken publicly on the issue oppose allowing cameras in its own courtroom and others.

Federal Judicial Conference Pilot Program

The Judicial Conference of the United States announced Sept. 14, 2010 that it would introduce a limited pilot program in which video cameras would be allowed to record proceedings in some civil lawsuits.

How many federal courts will be involved in the program, whether the program will be permissive or mandatory for courts, and when the program will begin are still unclear. The Judicial Conference said those details will be determined by the Conference's Committee on Court Administration and Case Management, according to a September 14 press release. The program will be "national in scope," and "will last up to three years" once it begins, the release said.

David Sentelle, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and Chairman of the Conference's executive committee, told The Associated Press (AP) on September 15 that certain parameters had already been agreed upon. Recording the faces of witnesses and jurors will be prohibited, and all parties to the case must consent to the recording, Sentelle said. Recording of criminal cases would remain prohibited; Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 53 already bans any electronic media coverage of criminal proceedings. In a departure from previous experiments with cameras in courtrooms, under the proposal the courts will furnish and operate the cameras, as opposed to news media organizations.

The Judicial Conference of the United States was established by Congress in 1922 to serve as the "principal policymaking body concerned with the administration of U.S. Courts," according to the U.S. Courts website. Under 28 U.S.C. § 2701 et seq., its determinations and recommendations with respect to administration are binding on all federal courts except the Supreme Court, which sets its own administrative procedures.

The pilot program is not the federal courts' first foray into video coverage of judicial proceedings. In 1990, the Judicial Conference instituted a program which allowed cameras into selected federal district and appellate courtrooms on an experimental basis. Unlike the 2010 proposal, the court did not operate the cameras itself, but allowed media outlets to bring their own cameras into the courtroom. In 1994, the Conference reinstituted its ban on cameras, largely due to reaction to coverage of the O.J. Simpson murder trial in California State Court.

Under new rules in 1996, the Conference allowed cameras to record proceedings only in U.S. circuit courts of appeal, leaving the decision to individual circuits whether to allow cameras or not. According to the Judicial Conference, only the 2nd and 9th U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal currently allow news media cameras to cover oral arguments in their courtrooms. According to a September 15 post on the Politico blog Under the Radar, media outlets rarely do so.

Minnesota Pilot Program

On Oct. 12, 2010, an advisory panel of judges and lawyers approved a pilot program to allow cameras into Minnesota state trial courts on a limited basis, pending approval by the Minnesota Supreme Court.

The seeds of the proposed pilot program date back to February 2009, when the Minnesota Supreme Court adopted the General Rules of Practice Committee's recommendation to retain the current rule governing cameras at the trial level. That rule, Minnesota General Rule of Practice 4, imposes a presumptive ban on cameras which can be overcome by an order of the trial judge and consent of all parties in the case. However, the Supreme Court instructed the committee to "design a pilot program that will include a study of the impact of televised proceedings on victims and witnesses." For more on the 2009 order see "Minnesota High Court Approves Cameras-in-Court Pilot Program" in the Winter 2009 Silha Bulletin.

A majority of the committee recommended implementing the pilot program along guidelines recommended by scholars at the University of Minnesota, including Jane Kirtley, Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law and Director of the Silha Center. The proposed pilot program would consist of an 18-month study of 500 randomly selected trial court cases, divided into "camera" and "no camera" cases. In order to address concerns that the Supreme Court expressed about there being "no empirical evidence addressing whether the prospect of televised proceedings has a chilling impact on victims and witnesses," the two groups of cases would be analyzed to assess whether victims' or witnesses' testimony was "chilled" as a result of the cameras' presence. According to the majority, the plan was proposed because members of the majority "believe this extensive study is necessary to make scientifically valid conclusions about the impacts cameras may have on participants and users of the judicial system."

The decision to adopt the University of Minnesota-recommended program was narrowly adopted by a 7 to 6 vote. A minority of the committee recommended a "substantially scaled-down research study." The minority's approach would involve "informal surveys of participants in proceedings where the media asked for camera coverage." The surveys would include "anecdotal information from interested groups during the study period," and the committee would elicit comprehensive reports on the program after the study was completed. The minority plan proposed a 12-month timeframe for the first phase of the program. Although the minority of the committee acknowledged that this study would lack the scientific validity of the majority's approach, it believed its approach would "be inexpensive, could be set up more rapidly, and would still address the Court's concerns about the impacts of cameras." The committee did not provide specific figures as to the cost of the minority's proposed program.

In its 2009 order, the Court cautioned that because of economic hard times, the pilot program would have to be revenue-neutral for the Minnesota Judicial Branch. The committee's recommendation predicted that the majority's proposed pilot program would cost "at least" $750,000. Whichever approach the Supreme Court opts to implement, the committee noted that although some cost for the program would probably have to be borne by the Judicial Branch, "direct costs may be covered by independent funds." The committee recommended that the Court "permit a group of citizens to raise the available funds from outside the courts" and that no matter which approach is implemented, funding should be completely secured before the program goes into effect.

The Court invited public comment on the proposal. Comments were due December 17.

California Proposal

The California Judicial Conference released its proposals for media access to state courtrooms in September 2010. The proposal, called "A Balancing Act: Accommodating the Needs of the Bench, Bar, and Media in the Pursuit of Justice," is an attempt to reconcile judicial interests in due process and confidentiality with the public's interest in transparency and openness.

The proposal recommends amending California Rule of Court 1.150, "to set forth an explicit presumption that cameras and other recording devices are allowed in the courtroom unless sufficient reasons exist to prohibit or limit their use." The current version of Rule 1.150, in place since 1997, establishes a presumption against "photographing, recording, or broadcasting of court proceedings by the media using television, radio, photographic, or recording equipment," allowing such devices only "on written order of the judge." The rule currently does not create a presumption against a judge granting such an order, however.

The California proposal was not limited to photographing or recording proceedings. It also recommends, among other things, adoption of uniform statewide rules for gag orders and orders sealing records, and education of judges on how to clearly communicate the substance of courtroom proceedings to the media.

The committee that drafted the proposal was appointed by California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald George, and is comprised of judges from the trial and appellate levels, journalists, First Amendment attorneys and academics. A final version of the plan will be presented to the full Judicial Council in Spring 2011.

Cameras Question Reaches U.S. Supreme Court in Perry v. Schwarzenegger

The controversial case that declared California's gay marriage referendum, Proposition 8, unconstitutional, Perry v. Schwarzenegger, 704 F.Supp.2d 921 (N.D. Cal. 2010), is also significant because of a dispute among the presiding judge, an appellate court, and the U.S. Supreme Court over whether cameras should be allowed to cover the trial in real time. Although the trial judge and a U.S. circuit judge agreed shortly before the trial to allow live video transmission of the proceedings, as well as daily uploads of video to the website YouTube, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed that plan, citing how quickly it was drawn up and a possibility that witnesses might refuse to testify.

In October 2009, a month after the challenge to Proposition 8 was filed, 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Chief Judge Alex Kozinski appointed a three-judge committee to evaluate the possibility of modifying the 9th Circuit Local Rule 77-3. Local Rule 77-3 permits video recordings of appellate proceedings in the circuit court, but not in district courts where trials are held. The committee recommended modifying the rule to create a pilot program which would allow video cameras in trial courts. Judge Vaughn Walker, who presided over Perry, was a member of the committee. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, Walker had the then-impending Perry case "very much in mind at the time [the committee recommended the pilot program] because it had come to prominence then and was thought to be an ideal candidate." Hollingsworth v. Perry, 130 S. Ct. 705 (2010)

Ultimately the committee's recommendation was adopted by the 9th Circuit Judicial Council, which issued a press release announcing the pilot program on Dec. 17, 2009. Under the program, participating cases would be chosen by the chief judge of the district court in consultation with the chief circuit judge. In the case of Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the chief judge of the district was Walker.

On Jan. 6, 2010, Walker issued an order under which Perry would be transmitted live on closed-circuit televisions in federal courthouses in other cities around the United States, and posted on YouTube at the end of each day of the trial. Kozinski approved Walker's order on January 8. Five locations were selected for courthouse broadcasts: Portland, Ore.; San Francisco; Seattle; Pasadena; and Brooklyn, New York. Opponents of cameras covering Perry filed an application for a stay of the order to the U.S. Supreme Court on January 9.

On January 13, the Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 to reverse the order. In the per curiam majority opinion, the Court first noted that the comment period on the change of Rule 77-3 was, at most, five days, and under 28 U.S.C. § 2071(b), any changes to judicial rules of the federal courts must be accompanied by a 30-day comment period. Judges Walker and Kozinski, the Court noted, invoked the "immediate need" exception. Under § 2701(e), "if the prescribing court determines that there is an immediate need for a rule, such court may proceed ... without public notice and opportunity for comment," as long as the judge opens the rule for comment after the need passes. The Supreme Court observed that when the pilot program was announced and implemented, no reason for its implementation was given by the district or appeals court.

The majority also found that "irreparable" harm would occur if transmission of Perry occurred. Specifically, the Court expressed concern that witnesses would be less forthcoming. "The trial will involve various witnesses, including members of same-sex couples; academics ... and those who participated in the campaign leading to the adoption of Proposition 8. This Court has recognized that witness testimony may be chilled if broadcast [and] [s]ome ... witnesses have already said that they will not testify if the trial is broadcast, and they have substantiated their concerns by citing incidents of past harassment."

The Supreme Court admonished Walker for "attempting to change [the] rules at the eleventh hour" to broadcast a high profile case, and stayed the order allowing the trial to be broadcast.

Justice Stephen Breyer dissented from the stay of Walker's order. Justices Stevens, Ginsburg, and Sotomayor joined his dissent. Breyer wrote that five days was more than enough time for the parties in Perry to object to the rule change, and that "there is no evidence that [irreparable] harm could arise in this nonjury civil case from the simple fact of transmission itself," noting that 42 states currently allow recording and broadcast of nonjury civil trials. Breyer also argued that, on balance, the interest of the public in transparency in the courtroom outweighs any harm or chilling effect with respect to witnesses, observing that no specific witnesses in Perry came forward to say their speech would be chilled.

On November 15, the 9th Circuit U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order allowing the December 6 oral arguments on Proposition 8's constitutionality to be broadcast by C-SPAN. The 9th Circuit currently allows cameras in courtrooms. Because the oral argument is an appeal of Walker's August ruling that the measure was unconstitutional, the proceedings will include presentations by lawyers, but not witness testimony.

Public Statements of Supreme Court Justices on the Cameras Issue

The Supreme Court is not immune from the cameras in the courtroom debate. Some justices on the high court stand firmly behind broadcasting the Court's proceedings, while others oppose the idea.

Justices Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia have both publicly expressed views consistent with their ruling in Perry. Scalia has said that the issue of cameras in courtrooms is one issue on which he has changed his mind over the course of his 24-year tenure on the Court. Speaking to an audience at Hastings Law School in September 2010, Scalia said that when he joined the court he was in favor of cameras, but now thinks they should be excluded. According to the San Francisco Chronicle on September 18, Scalia said "If I really thought it would educate the American people, I would remain in favor of it," But instead of educational gavel-to-gavel coverage, he said, most people would see "30-second snippets" on the news that would "distort the public perception of the court."

Alito expressed similar sentiments in a talk at Drake University, telling a group of law students on October 1 that he is concerned about the public's potential reaction to oral arguments, which are generally heated, and during which judges interrupt attorneys frequently. "What would ordinary viewers think?" he asked, according to The Associated Press (AP). Alito added that because most cases are extensively briefed in advance of oral arguments, most viewers would have difficulty following the proceedings. He predicted that, were Supreme Court proceedings televised, "viewership would reach historic lows." Alito also speculated that attorneys' arguments would be affected. "Whenever an event is televised and the participants think any sort of substantial audience is watching, their behavior is changed," he said.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, recognized as the current swing vote on the Court, told the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2007 that cameras should not be introduced because the justices themselves would act differently in their presence. "Please don't introduce into the dynamic that I have with my colleagues, the insidious temptation to think that one of my colleagues is trying to get a soundbite for the television," Kennedy said.

Justice Breyer's views differ from those of Alito, Kennedy, and Scalia. Testifying before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Services in April 2010, Breyer said that maintaining transparency in the federal courts was sufficiently important to justify cameras. "If you bring cameras into the oral arguments, there's a big plus for the court and for the public. I think they'll see that we take our job seriously, the lawyers are well-prepared, the judges are well-prepared, and are trying to think out difficult problems. And for the public to see that, I think, would be a plus. So why not do it?" Breyer added that the discussion over cameras is not one that occurs in a vacuum. "The Canadians [have cameras in their Supreme Court]," Breyer said, "And it's worked out all right for them."

The two newest Justices--Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor--have expressed support for allowing cameras in the Supreme Court. In 2009, prior to her confirmation hearing, at which she also said she supported televising Supreme Court proceedings, Kagan told the 9th Circuit Judicial Conference she was in favor of the practice. "I think if you put cameras in the courtroom, people would say, 'wow,'" Kagan said. "They would see their government working at a really high level."

Sotomayor also expressed support in her confirmation hearing in 2009. "I have had positive experiences with cameras," Sotomayor said. "When I have been asked to join experiments of using cameras in the courtroom, I have participated. I have volunteered." For more Bulletin coverage of Kagan and Sotomayor's views on cameras, see "Kagan Confirmed; Provides Few Hints on Media Law Views" in the Summer 2010 issue and "Critics, Commentators, and Cases Offer Few Glimpses at How Sotomayor can be Expected to Rule on Media Law" in the Summer 2009 issue.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg once expressed strong support for recording Supreme Court proceedings, but her support may have eroded over the years. During her 1993 confirmation hearing, Ginsburg told the Senate Judiciary Committee that she thought cameras in the courtroom would be "good for the public." However, in 2005, speaking before the American Bar Association's Rule of Law Symposium panel, Ginsburg expressed trepidation about the practice, suggesting that cameras at the appellate level could have negative repercussions at the trial level. "I think what bothers many people, at least me, on the other side, is that if [cameras] were in the Supreme Court, I think it would become a symbol for every court," she said, "and therefore it would be in every criminal trial in the country. And when I start thinking about witnesses, I don't want them thinking how they look to their neighbors."

In August 2010, while speaking to the Colorado Judicial Conference, Ginsburg declined to answer a question about her current position on cameras in the Supreme Court; instead, Ginsburg "talked about former justices who opposed cameras," according to an August 28 report from the AP.

- GEOFF PIPOLY
SILHA RESEARCH ASSISTANT


32129|32116|25658 Thu, 06 Jan 2011 13:53:13 -0600

As the Bulletin goes to press, Julian Assange, the founder and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, is in custody in the United Kingdom. He faces extradition to Sweden to answer questions regarding alleged sex offenses. Assange, his lawyers, and his many supporters claim that the charges are simply a pretext to silence the controversial distributor of thousands of classified documents, including, in late November 2010, embarrassing U.S. embassy cables.

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2011/01/directors-note-the-wikileaks-q.html 265927

Despite calls from political figures to charge Assange with crimes ranging from theft of government property to espionage, Attorney General Eric Holder faces significant legal hurdles, not the least being whether the government even has jurisdiction over an individual who is neither an American citizen nor located in the United States.

Journalists and open government advocates are conflicted in this case. They support access to information. They are disappointed that the Obama administration, after promising greater transparency, has continued to thwart it. And they are skeptical of claims that these disclosures genuinely threaten national security and international diplomacy.

On the other hand, WikiLeaks' seemingly indiscriminate release of documents, apparently without thorough review to assess what risks they might pose to safety or privacy, makes many legacy journalists uncomfortable - even those like The New York Times or the London-based Guardian which have received and subsequently published many of them.

In an op-ed essay published by The Australian newspaper on December 8, Assange claims that WikiLeaks has created "a new type of journalism: scientific journalism." This he describes as utilizing the Internet, as well other media outlets, not only to report the news, but to provide readers with links to the original documents that form the basis for a story so that they can judge for themselves whether it was reported accurately. "Democratic societies need a strong media and WikiLeaks is part of that media," he writes. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/wikileaks/dont-shoot-messenger-for-revealing-uncomfortable-truths/story-fn775xjq-1225967241332

Some contend that what WikiLeaks is doing is not "journalism." Serving as a conduit for leaked government records, they argue, does not make it "part of that media." By distinguishing WikiLeaks from the mainstream media, they suggest that Assange and his colleagues should not be covered by statutes such as reporter's shield laws, or by the strong constitutional protections against prior restraints on the press recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in cases like "the Pentagon Papers." New York Times v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971)

But the reality is that "doing journalism" is what makes a journalist, a journalist. A fearless and independent press challenges the status quo, questions authority, and allows the public to keep an eye on the government, especially when government resists that oversight. It is sometimes unpopular and often controversial. Yet it is essential to a free society.

From an ethical perspective, any entity that claims to be part of "the media" should be accountable. It should take responsibility for its decisions, and explain how they are reached. But the First Amendment was never intended to protect only "responsible" journalists. Declaring WikiLeaks a media outlaw is a risky undertaking. Journalists should think long and hard before doing so.

* * *
We welcome you to a new volume of the Silha Bulletin. You will notice a new approach to our editorial content, as well as a new design. From an editorial perspective, our staff of graduate and law students explores current topics by taking a more thematic approach than in the past. In this issue, you will find longer articles that wrestle with complicated issues arising in digital media, including freedom of information, video games censorship, access, and intellectual property. We also include an overview of some of the legal and ethical questions prompted by the most recent election, as well as developments in international law.

We hope that our re-designed Bulletin complements and enhances that new approach in ways that are both user-friendly and aesthetically pleasing. We are very grateful to Steve Wolf, a senior graphic designer at Goody Clancy in Boston, for his generous donation of time and expertise in assisting us.

We invite you to let us know what you think.

- JANE E. KIRTLEY
SILHA PROFESSOR OF MEDIA ETHICS AND LAW
SILHA CENTER DIRECTOR


32131|32116|25658 Thu, 06 Jan 2011 13:44:42 -0600

E-mail 'metadata' is public in Washington; recordkeeping rules apply to social media for federal agencies

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2011/01/courts-officials-answer-questi.html 265926

Technological innovations in communication continue to create questions about what constitutes a "public record" for the purposes of state and federal open records laws. In the fall of 2010, one state supreme court ruled on the "metadata" included in e-mails, and the national archivist urged federal agencies to preserve records of their use of social media.

Washington State Supreme Court Rules 'Metadata' is Public

On Oct. 7, 2010, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled that "metadata," which is information related to the history, tracking, or management of an electronic document, is a public record subject to disclosure under the state's Public Records Act (PRA). O'Neill v. City Of Shoreline 2010 Wash. LEXIS 870 (Wash. Oct. 7, 2010)

The case arose from a public records request Shoreline, Wash. resident Beth O'Neill filed with the city after Shoreline Deputy Mayor Maggie Fimia claimed in a 2006 public meeting that she had received an e-mail, authored by O'Neill, that accused the city council of improper conduct. O'Neill denied sending the e-mail, and made a series of unfulfilled requests for the original e-mail with all of its metadata, including information about the date, time, sender, and recipient of the original message. Failing to locate the original message, Fimia eventually claimed she must have accidentally destroyed it. O'Neill filed suit against the city under the PRA, Wash. Rev. Code § 42.56.

A trial court dismissed O'Neill's suit but a state appeals court reversed, ruling that the city had failed to fulfill the request because although it provided O'Neill with a copy of the same message that the original sender sent to another city council member, the metadata on the version sent to Fimia could be different, so the city was required to provide it.

The Washington Supreme Court affirmed the appeals court in a 5 to 4 ruling, remanding the case back to a trial court "to give the City the chance to search for the requested metadata, and to determine whether the City has violated the PRA." Writing for the majority, Justice Susan Owens said that although the metadata on a message sent or received by a public official pertaining to government business is not usually visible to the senders and recipients, it qualifies as a "public record" under the PRA because it "may contain information that relates to the conduct of government and is important for the public to know." Specifically, Owens wrote that metadata "could conceivably include information about whether a document was altered, what time a document was created, or who sent a document to whom. Our broad PRA exists to ensure that the public maintains control over their government, and we will not deny our citizenry access to a whole class of possibly important government information."

Calling the case an "issue of first impression," the Washington Supreme Court relied on a 2009 decision by the Arizona Supreme Court that ruled that, for the purposes of Arizona's open records law, "metadata in an electronic document is part of the underlying document [and] does not stand on its own." Lake v. City of Phoenix, 218 P.3d 1004 (Ariz. 2009)

The Washington Supreme Court also ruled that pursuant to its attempts to fulfill O'Neill's request, the city should "inspect Fimia's home computer's hard drive for the requested metadata," adding that "this inspection is appropriate only because Fimia used her personal computer for city business. If government employees could circumvent the PRA by using their home computers for government business, the PRA could be drastically undermined."

In a footnote, however, the Court said it "address[ed] only whether the City may inspect Fimia's home computer if she gives consent to the inspection. We do not address whether the City may inspect Fimia's home computer absent her consent."

The Court instructed the trial court to find that if the city refuses to inspect Fimia's home computer, they have "indisputably" violated the PRA, whereas if the city inspects Fimia's home computer and the search turns up no metadata or the same metadata already released to O'Neill, "the trial court must determine, consistent with this court's opinion, whether the City's deletion of the metadata violated the PRA."

Although the ruling favors the free flow of information, it raised a thorny issue of privacy that concerned the court's four dissenters. Justice Gerry L. Alexander wrote in his dissent that "I do not believe that what is contained on the hard drive of a public employee's personal home computer, whether it is deemed 'metadata' or something else, is a public record." Alexander said the contents of the home computer could not be considered a public record since it "is not a writing that is 'retained by any state or local agency'" as defined by the PRA.

"More significantly," Alexander wrote, "the majority provides no authority of law for the proposition that a city employee's home computer is subject to such a search or inspection by the employing city."

O'Neill's attorney, Michele Earl-Hubbard, told The Associated Press that although she was disappointed that the Court remanded the case for another proceeding without finding an outright violation of the Public Records Act, "Our Supreme Court here says yes, there are electronic parts of records that may have value, and an agency may not destroy them. That's a big part of the accountability picture."

The Washington Supreme Court is not the first to broach the question of whether e-mails related to state business should be subject to a state open records law request. In February 2010, the state of Alaska released thousands of government-related e-mails sent by Alaska Governor and former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, her husband Todd, and her staff using non-government e-mail accounts on services like Yahoo. In October 2008, a state judge ruled that the e-mails had to be retained and preserved subject to records requests, but Palin had argued that they were protected by executive privilege. For more on the Palin e-mails, see "Roundup: Government E-mails as Public Records" in the Fall 2008 issue of the Silha Bulletin.

National Archives Encourages Agencies to Preserve Social Media Posts

The Archivist of the United States sent a bulletin to heads of federal agencies on Oct. 20, 2010 titled "Guidance on Managing Records in Web 2.0/Social Media Platforms." In the bulletin, U.S. Archivist David S. Ferriero observed that federal agencies "are using social media and web 2.0 platforms to connect people to government and to share information" and explained that many of the uses of these media create "federal records" as defined by the Federal Records Act (FRA), 44 U.S.C. § 33 et seq.

Under the FRA, "records" are defined as "all books, papers, maps, photographs, machine readable materials, or other documentary materials, regardless of physical form or characteristics, made or received by an agency of the United States Government under Federal law or in connection with the transaction of public business." Federal agencies must preserve records if they provide "evidence of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other activities of the government" or otherwise have "informational value." The U.S. Archivist and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) are empowered by the law to promulgate procedures and standards for how records are compiled, catalogued, reproduced, and disposed of. The FRA is distinct from the Federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. § 552 et seq. in that it covers the retention and preservation of records rather than their disclosure.

In the October 20 bulletin, listed as NARA Bulletin 2011-02 and available online at http://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/bulletins/2011/2011-02.html, Ferriero sought to provide agencies with broad "fundamental guidance" rather than "model schedules or step-by-step guidance," and charged agencies to "determine the most appropriate ways to incorporate recordkeeping requirements into their business processes and identify the specific means by which their agencies will fulfill their responsibilities under the Federal Records Act."

Ferriero identified three categories of "social media platforms" which agencies might use: "web publishing," including blogs or microblogs such as Twitter; "social networking," including tools like Facebook and "virtual worlds" like Second Life; and "file sharing/storage," including video and image sites like YouTube and Flickr as well as online document storage tools like Google Docs. Ferriero observed that "the principles for analyzing, scheduling, and managing records are based on content and are independent of the medium." He proposed that agencies consider whether the information in question is available elsewhere; contains "evidence of an agency's policies, business, mission, etc.;" whether the Web 2.0/social media platform "is being used in relation to the agency's work" and is authorized by the agency; and whether there is "a business need for the information." Ferriero said that the list of considerations was "non-exhaustive," but "if the answers to any of the ... questions are yes, then the content is likely to be a Federal record."

The bulletin said that agencies must consider the "noteworthy records management challenges associated with the use of web 2.0/social media," which it said includes "public expectations that all web content is both permanently valuable and accessible, [that] ownership and control of data [can] reside with a third party," and the fact that content management on web 2.0 and social media services and tools is interactive.

To address these challenges, the bulletin said that agencies "must ensure records management guidance is included in social media policies and procedures" by identifying federal records in those platforms and preserving them, "defining ownership of content and responsibility for managing the records," and sharing policies with employees and the public.

The bulletin acknowledged that in some cases, such as with Flickr or YouTube, privately owned websites might host content that qualifies as records. "Each agency is responsible for managing its records, whether they reside on a third-party social media platform or are housed within the agency," the bulletin said, adding that "a concern with web 2.0/social media platforms is that a service provider could stop providing their service or delete information from an agency's account." A stop in service or deletion of content would not relieve an agency of "its records management obligations," the bulletin said.

In a November 2 blog post on the NARA website at http://blogs.archives.gov/aotus/, Ferriero wrote that "the informal tone" of many of today's social media "should not be confused with insignificance." He observed that "agencies are still neglecting their recordkeeping responsibilities for email." According to Ferriero, a 2009 NARA report "found that most Federal agencies do not manage their email records in an electronic recordkeeping system, and therefore cannot ensure that these emails are preserved in any recordkeeping system on a regular basis." Moreover, Ferriero said that "archaic 'print and file' practices still exist in many agencies, resulting in the inadequate preservation of messages that meet the criteria for Federal records."

- PATRICK FILE
SILHA FELLOW AND BULLETIN EDITOR


32116|32128|25658 Thu, 06 Jan 2011 13:40:27 -0600

On Oct. 4, 2010, President Barack Obama signed House Resolution 5924, the SEC Freedom of Information Restoration Act, into law. The new law repeals § 929I of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which had exempted the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from complying with certain Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2011/01/congress-revokes-new-foia-exem.html 265878

The Dodd-Frank Act, Pub. Law No. 111-203, became law on July 21, 2010. Section 929I of the Act immediately came under fire as journalists and transparency advocates said that the SEC could use it to refuse to comply with FOIA requests if the requests sought records regarding the SEC's "surveillance, risk assessments, or other regulatory and oversight activities." The SEC used § 929I on July 27 to refuse a request by the Fox Business Network (FBN) for information regarding the Bernie Madoff case. On August 3, a consortium of 10 transparency groups sent a letter to Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), co-sponsors of the Dodd-Frank Act, calling for the repeal of 929I and citing concerns about the SEC's record of openness. For more on the incident involving FBN's information request and early criticism of the law, see "Transparency Advocates Protest SEC's New FOIA Exemption" in the Summer 2010 issue of the Silha Bulletin.

According to an October 6 report by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP), discussion of a repeal of the provision arose in July, when U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), Ranking Member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, formally objected to it. Issa was joined by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Ted Kaufman (D-Del.). The RCFP also reported that in a September 16 House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing, opponents of provision 929I argued that it was "too broad, thereby giving the SEC the power to refuse the disclosure of information that could be crucial to public oversight of the financial system and to prevent future financial crises." The Associated Press reported September 18 that SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro argued in the hearing that the SEC needed the exemption because, in some cases, firms would be reluctant to voluntarily provide information if they knew it could be viewed publicly, including by competitors.

The federal FOIA has nine exemptions, covering disclosures that could harm national security or "constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy," for example. Exemption 4, which extends to "trade secrets" or "privileged or confidential commercial or financial information obtained from a person" and Exemption 8, which protects information "contained in or related to examination, operating, or condition reports about financial institutions that the SEC regulates or supervises" were cited by transparency advocates who initially protested § 929I as providing enough protection for the SEC and businesses.

Rick Blum, coordinator of the advocacy group Sunshine in Government Initiative, told the RCFP on October 6 that the repeal of § 929I is a "very strong first step," but more reform will be needed. Blum told the RCFP that Exemption 8 "is broad and no one really knows what it means and the SEC has not [previously] overseen or monitored how Wall Street works."

In a September 23 statement, Issa said, "by repealing [§ 929I], we have reaffirmed our commitment to ensure that the SEC will be held to the highest possible standard of accountability and transparency."

- SARA CANNON
SILHA CENTER STAFF


32116|32127|25658 Wed, 05 Jan 2011 17:22:17 -0600

Police keep reporters out; utility company cites security concerns in withholding records

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2011/01/access-limited-after-californi.html 265877

On Sept. 9, 2010, an underground gas pipeline in San Bruno, Calif. exploded, killing four people and wounding 52. Media access to the disaster site and to documentation of other potentially dangerous pipelines was limited both by police responding to the incident and by the utility company.

The explosion occurred around 6:15 p.m. on September 9, according to a September 10 story by the San Jose Mercury News. Residents in the area had reported smelling gas in the week leading up to the disaster, which destroyed 31 homes and seriously damaged eight more. Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), the utility company that owns and maintains the gas line that exploded, said the line that ruptured was 30 inches in diameter and between 40 and 50 years old.

On September 10, the Mercury News reported that San Bruno police had declared the affected area a "crime scene" in "a routine move that limits access to the area until authorities determine that no foul play was involved." In a blog post on the SF Weekly website, Joe Eskenazi wrote September 13 that by using the designation "crime" rather than "disaster," authorities unnecessarily "kept media out." Citing § 409.5 of the California Penal Code, Eskenazi said that using the "disaster" designation would have allowed police enough authority to keep "gawkers, looters and others" away from the scene while they searched and cleared it without restricting media access. Section 409.5 states that "Nothing in this section shall prevent a duly authorized representative of any news service, newspaper, or radio or television station or network from entering the areas closed pursuant to this section." However, Eskenazi wrote that the designation of the area as a crime scene meant that the exception for reporters pertaining to disaster scenes did not apply. By "treating the entire 10-acre fire zone as the equivalent of a murder room," he wrote, San Bruno police "severely restricted" media access to the scene.

Eskenazi quoted reporter Michael Cabanatuan of the San Francisco Chronicle saying he was "ordered out" of the neighborhood affected by the explosion on the evening of September 9, before the area was declared a crime scene. "We told them that we have access to disaster areas. I did that both individually and with other reporters. But they said 'no, we won't let you in,'" Cabanatuan said.

Eskenazi also quoted Anthony Hare of the San Francisco Forensic Institute and University of California, Berkeley's Center for Catastrophic Risk Management, who previously worked as an incident commander with the Oakland Police Department. Eskenazi wrote that the "crime scene" designation "struck [Hare] as odd." Hare told Eskenazi that "The very law that gives [authorities] the right to declare a critical incident and exclude the public says the press is exempt from this exclusion. That drives a lot of police, fire, and disaster managers crazy. But that's how you keep us honest."

Limits to access and transparency continued in the aftermath of the San Bruno explosion. On September 15, San Francisco website The Bay Citizen reported that PG&E was refusing to release information about other pipelines in the area, citing "security concerns." The Bay Citizen reported that the disaster "laid bare" concerns over California's aging gas pipeline system, but that PG&E's secrecy regarding its network was "raising concern among First Amendment advocates." The Bay Citizen quoted James Wheaton, senior counsel at advocacy group First Amendment Project, asking "If PG&E knows about risky pipelines, why would they keep that secret?"

Sari Koshetz, a spokesperson for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) told The Bay Citizen that it "does not encourage utilities to keep the locations of gas pipelines that are a high-risk for failure from the public" but discourages utility companies from displaying complete system maps online "for obvious security reasons." Because PG&E pipeline information is held by a private corporation, it is not covered by the California Public Records Act, Government Code §§ 6250 - 6276.48.

Heather Ishimaru of San Francisco's KGO-TV reported October 14 that the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) announced that it had assembled a team of experts to investigate the explosion. Ishimaru reported that the CPUC would look for "the root cause of the disaster" and review PG&E's business practices. Ishimaru reported that, in addition to the CPUC investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating the incident, and PG&E is conducting an internal investigation. The NTSB report is available online at http://www.ntsb.gov/Surface/pipeline/Preliminary-Reports/San-Bruno-CA.html. As the Bulletin went to press, none of the investigations had been completed.

- SARA CANNON
SILHA CENTER STAFF


25838|32116|25658 Wed, 05 Jan 2011 17:11:18 -0600

The midterm elections of 2010 saw a variety of issues involving media ethics and law: lawsuits and threatened lawsuits over campaign ads, a reporter detained by private security guards, and a revived discussion about whether reporters and other news commentators should make political contributions.


http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2011/01/2010-midterm-election-ads-spar.html 265875

Murkowski Threatens to Sue TV Stations Running Pro-Miller Ads

Lawyers for Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) threatened legal action against local television stations which aired a campaign ad on behalf of her opponent, Republican candidate Joe Miller. Murkowski's campaign claimed the ad contained false statements and could expose the stations to legal liability.

According to an October 5 post on Anchorage television station KTUU's website, an ad titled "Arrogant Lisa Murkowski--You Lost!" painted a negative picture of Murkowski, who ran against Miller as a write-in candidate after losing to him in Alaska's Republican primary election. The ad accused Murkowski of having "not earned" her Senate seat because she was initially appointed to the seat by her father, Frank Murkowski, after he vacated the seat to assume Alaska's governorship in 2002. Although Murkowski was initially appointed to her seat, she won re-election in 2004. The ad also claimed that Murkowski improperly influenced the absentee vote count in the Republican primary, and that she attempted to manipulate Alaska's Libertarian Party into giving her its spot on the ballot for the general election after Murkowski lost to Miller, according an October 4 story posted on Alaska Dispatch, a news and politics website. The Washington Post reported October 4 that Libertarian party chairman Scott Kohlhaas said that although he met with Murkowski's campaign manager after the primary, he did not feel "manipulated."

The Miller ad was funded and produced by Tea Party Express, a political group financed and controlled by Our Country Deserves Better, a California-based political action committee. Tea Party Express supported Miller in the Republican Primary.

On October 4, Murkowski's lawyer, Timothy McKeever, sent a letter to local broadcasters in Alaska which said the broadcasters were under a "legal and moral obligation" not to air the ad, The Washington Post reported. McKeever's letter went on to say that "[w]hen a station broadcasts false or incorrect advertisements, the station can be held liable for such action in a court of law and can lose their broadcasting license," according to Alaska Dispatch. The letter asked the stations not to broadcast the ad until they could verify its substantive accuracy.

KTUU attorney John McKay said he did not believe that a legal challenge to the ad would be successful, according to an October 5 KTUU story. "Stations that I know in town and work with are careful about these things anyways, they wouldn't knowingly run things that are false," McKay said.

Unofficial results had Murkowski winning reelection by more than 10,000 votes, according to The New York Times on November 19, but Miller challenged that result in a state lawsuit. When the Bulletin went to press, the dispute had not been resolved and an official winner had not been declared, although Murkowski claimed victory on November 17.

Miller Security Guards Detain Reporter

On October 17, private security guards detained and handcuffed a newspaper reporter who was trying to ask Republican Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller a question at a public event at an Anchorage middle school. Miller did not deny that his employees--some of whom were active-duty U.S. soldiers--detained the reporter, but claimed that they did so to protect the candidate from threats and aggressive behavior that the reporter displayed.

An October 17 story on the website of Anchorage TV station KTVA reported that Tony Hopfinger, a reporter for the website Alaska Dispatch, approached Miller with a small digital video camera and asked him questions about whether he was ever formally reprimanded in 2008 when he worked as an attorney for the Fairbanks Northstar Borough, which governs the city of Fairbanks and the region surrounding it. Three men, who did not identify themselves, told Hopfinger to stop asking questions. When Hopfinger continued to ask questions while videotaping Miller, the men restrained Hopfinger, handcuffed him, and led him to the end of the a school hallway where he was held for 30 minutes until police arrived and released him.

According to Miller's version of events, posted on his campaign website the day of the incident, Hopfinger made threatening gestures toward Miller, "in an attempt to create and then record a 'confrontation' with the candidate." Miller's website said that "the blogger [then] physically assaulted another individual and made threatening gestures and movements towards the candidate," at which point the guards detained him.

Hopfinger did not deny shoving one of the security guards, but claimed the guard shoved him first, according to an October 17 report on CNN.com. Lt. Dan Parker of the Anchorage Police Department told CNN that under Alaska law, private security guards are allowed to make "private person arrests," similar to citizens' arrests, but said his department was still looking into whether criminal charges would be filed against the guards.

According to an October 17 blog post by Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com, two of Miller's security guards were active duty U.S. soldiers. Greenwald noted that Department of Defense directive 1344.10 prohibits activity duty military personnel from "participat[ing] in partisan political management, campaigns, or conventions." The Anchorage Daily News reported October 18 that Maj. Bill Coppernoll, public affairs officer for the Army in Alaska, said the two soldiers did not have permission from their current chain of command to work for a private security detail, but the Army did not know whether their employment was authorized by previous company or brigade commanders.

Coppernoll told the Anchorage Daily News that the Army allows off-duty soldiers to take outside employment if the job does not interfere with readiness, risk their own injury or negatively affect the "good order" and discipline of their unit.

Fox News Sues Missouri Democrat Over Campaign Ad

Fox News Corporation sued Missouri Democratic senate nominee Robin Carnahan for $75,000 over footage in a Carnahan campaign ad that Fox claims made it appear as though host Chris Wallace endorsed Carnahan.

Politico blogger Josh Gerstein reported September 16 that the ad, which was posted on Carnahan's campaign website and ran on Missouri television stations, contained footage from a 2006 interview Wallace conducted with Carnaham's Republican opponent, Roy Blunt, who was a congressman at the time. In the interview and the ad, Wallace said "You just said a moment ago that you have to show that you're the part of reform ... but some question whether you are the man to do that. Are you the one to clean up the House?" While a graphic showed on the screen, Wallace noted that Blunt paid $485,000 to a firm connected to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and that Blunt aided tobacco company Phillip Morris in 2002 while Blunt was dating a lobbyist for the company. The ad left out Blunt's answer to Wallace's question, instead freezing on an image of Blunt while an announcer said "Roy Blunt. The very worst of Washington."

The lawsuit, filed September 15 in federal court and in which both Fox News Corporation and Wallace individually are named plaintiffs, advances two claims. First, the suit alleges that the ad violated the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. §101, et seq., when it used Wallace's image from the interview with Blunt. Fox News alleges that the network "has filed with United States Copyright Office an application for copyright registration in the FNS interview." That application was filed September 24, according to an October 12 story on Reuters' website.

The suit also claims that Wallace's privacy was violated under Missouri common law when the ad misappropriated Wallace's image. Specifically, the suit claims that "the selection of distinctive and stylized camera angles" made it appear as though Wallace was endorsing Carnahan by criticizing Blunt.

Lawyers for Carnahan's campaign filed a two-page motion to dismiss Fox's case on October 8. The motion noted that Fox filed its copyright claim to the Wallace interview after it filed its lawsuit against Carnahan. "Because the Fox Network commenced its copyright claim prematurely, the Court cannot grant the Fox Network relief on its copyright infringement claim and must therefore dismiss this claim" under 17 U.S.C. § 411 (a), the motion argued. According to Reuters, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is unsettled on the issue of whether a party can prevail on a copyright claim where the copyright is filed after litigation commences. On November 17, U.S. District Judge Gary Fenner denied Carnahan's motion to dismiss, noting that although Fox News's original complaint did not indicate that the interview had been copyrighted, the company subsequently amended its complaint to reflect an effective copyright filing.

In a September 24 post on the website Slate, property law professors Sonia Katyal of Fordham Law School and Eduardo Penalver of Cornell Law School argued that Fox's case was substantively "bogus" and that the ad's use of Fox's footage falls into the "fair use" exception found in § 107 of the Copyright Act. The professors noted that in a fair use claim "courts examine the character of the use. Political commentary and criticism are especially favored. Commercial uses are not." Fox's argument that the use of its footage was commercial because it appeared in a campaign ad was weak, the professors wrote, because "courts have repeatedly rejected the proposition that [using video in campaign ads] makes a campaign ad commercial. This is why the claim about Wallace's publicity rights also fails."

In addition to fighting the lawsuit in court, Carnahan's campaign fired back politically. On September 21, Carnahan said in a press release that her campaign "stands behind" the ad, and although the campaign temporarily removed the ad from its website, the ad continued to air on local television, according to a September 21 post on the Washington Post blog 44. Carnahan lost her bid for Senate, and the "media" page of her campaign website--which had continued to host the ad during the campaign--is no longer online.

The Citizens United Decision and the Midterm Elections

According to experts and government agencies, the Supreme Court's Jan. 21, 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission had a significant impact on how donors spent money in the 2010 midterm elections.

The ruling struck down portions of a federal campaign finance law, asserting that the law impermissibly discriminated against the First Amendment rights of corporations to support political candidates for office. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the five-member majority, wrote that there is no principled way to distinguish between large media corporations, which effectively participate as speakers in the marketplace of ideas, from other corporations, which were foreclosed by the law from participating in the same way. "If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech," Kennedy wrote. Citizens United v. FEC, 130 S. Ct. 876 (2010)

According to an October 2010 study by the Campaign Media Analysis Group, a nonpartisan organization that tracks money in politics, television advertisement spending by third-party interest groups not associated with a specific candidate for federal office more than doubled in 2010, compared to the 2006 midterm elections.

The amount of money flowing into the midterms was directly attributable to the Citizens United ruling, according to Trevor Potter, a former Federal Election Commission (FEC) Chair and critic of the decision. Potter told The New York Times on October 7 that the Court's ruling was significant for its "psychological" impact on donors. Potter said that even if wealthy donors do not understand the nuances of the case, they understand its thrust to be that citizens and companies are allowed to spend more on political campaigns. Potter added that more "casual observers" believe that corporations may spend unlimited amounts of money after Citizens United. "That change in psychology ... has made a difference in terms of the amount of money now being spent," he added. Steven Law, head of the conservative organization American Crossroads, a tax-exempt fundraising group and a supporter of the Citizens United ruling, agreed. "The principal impact of the Citizens United decision was to give prospective donors a general sense that it was within their constitutional rights to support independent political activity," Law told the Times. For more on the Citizens United decision, see "Supreme Court Strikes Down Campaign Finance Regulation for Corporations" in the Winter/Spring 2010 issue of the Silha Bulletin.

Journalists Gave More than $469,000 in 2010 Elections

Two high profile suspensions followed revelations that cable news pundits violated their employer's ethics policies by contributing to political campaigns. But a study of journalists' political donations suggests that fewer journalists consider political donations to be an ethical breach.

On November 5, MSNBC commentator Keith Olbermann was suspended without pay from his on-air role as host of the show "Countdown" after the network discovered that Olbermann donated to the campaigns of three Democratic candidates for federal office.

The donations--each in the amount of $2,400, which is the maximum individual donation allowed under federal law--were to the campaigns of Arizona Representatives Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords, and Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway. The Grijalva donation occurred on October 28, the same day the congressman was a guest on "Countdown."

NBC News has a policy against employees contributing to political campaigns without obtaining prior approval from management first because it considers such donations a breach of journalistic ethics, according to a November 7 post on the website Politco.

Olbermann returned to the air on November 9, and on his program that night he said he was unaware of NBC News's policy when he made the contributions. He also criticized the Citizens United ruling and the lack of disclosure requirements for donations to nonprofit groups whose primary function is to advocate for candidates. "The point," Olbermann said, was "if I had given the money [to candidates funneled] through the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, you would have never, ever known."

A second MSNBC host--former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough--was also suspended for making donations. On November 19, New York Times Media Decoder blogger Brian Stelter reported that NBC News had suspended Scarborough for two days for making eight previously undisclosed contributions of $500 apiece to Republican candidates with whom he was personally close. In a statement, Scarborough said the contributions were "not relevant to my work at MSNBC" because he made them "to close personal friends and family members and were limited to local races." But he added that "there is nothing more important than maintaining the integrity of [NBC News'] highly respected brand."

The actions of Olbermann and Scarborough are not out of the ordinary for journalists, according to a September 2010 study of FEC filings by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), a nonpartisan think tank. The study found that 235 people who identified themselves as "journalists" or "media professionals" together donated over $469,000 to various candidates for federal office during the 2010 midterm congressional elections--donations which raised questions about the evolving state of media ethics in the 21st Century.

The study applied a broad definition of "journalist" and "media professional." The CRP's data set included journalists from what it called "hard" news sources, examples of which included The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, News Corp., The New York Times, and Reuters, and from "soft" news organizations such as ESPN, Vogue, and local community-based news sites.

Some individuals donated thousands of dollars to candidates. CRP reported that 65 percent of the individual donations went to Democratic candidates. Chris Hayes, Washington Editor for The Nation magazine gave $250 to Josh Segall--an Alabama Democrat and close friend of Hayes. Hayes told CRP that he has a personal rule against donating to politicians, but said he thought the Segall case was different because of his personal friendship with the candidate. His friendship would ethically prevent him from covering the race in Alabama's 3rd Congressional District anyway, Hayes said, so "whatever threat of conflict is already there. It seems like the least of it to throw an extra $250 on top of it," Hayes told CRP. Hayes was initially slated to be the fill-in host of "Countdown" during Olbermann's suspension, according to a November 7 Politico post, but the network withdrew from that arrangement after discovering that Hayes also donated to candidates.

Other journalists on CRP's list of donors see things differently from Hayes. Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who donated $1,000 to Rep. Walter Minnick (D-Idaho) told CRP he sees no ethical conflict with reporters donating to political campaigns. "It's nobody's business," Hersh said. "I'm giving money to people I think are good people." Nicholas Benton, editor-in-chief of the Falls Church News-Press in Virginia, who donated over $4,000 to Democratic candidates and the Democratic National Committee, argued that if journalists are inactive in the political process, they become mere mouthpieces for campaigns and candidates. "To sit back passively and echo what political candidates and politicians say without providing the readers of an assessment of the relative merits on the standpoint of truth and of facts is a disservice," he said.

Many large news outlets, including The New York Times, Reuters, ABC News, and NBC News have conflict of interest policies that prohibit employees from directly participating in campaigns, which includes donations, according to the CRP. The Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics says journalists should "remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility."

Aaron Quinn, a professor of journalism ethics at California State University, told the CRP that journalists are increasingly seen as public figures, which makes their personal decisions to donate to candidates more open to public scrutiny. He added that the appearance of a conflict of interest is the functional equivalent of an actual conflict. According to Hayes, at a minimum, reporters who donate should at least disclose their donations so that the public will not believe their reporting is compromised. "If you were paying for access," Hayes told the CRP, "that would be a scandal."

- GEOFF PIPOLY
SILHA RESEARCH ASSISTANT


32116|32126|25658 Wed, 05 Jan 2011 16:51:19 -0600

Join us at the 10th Anniversary Esther Freier Endowed Lecture April 13, 2011

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The 10th Anniversary Esther Freier Endowed Lecture in Literature takes place April 13, 2011. Author Joan Didion will speak at 7:30 pm, at Ted Mann Concert Hall. The event is free & open to the public!

One of the 20th Century's most innovative and influential essayists (Slouching Toward Bethlehem, The White Album), Joan Didion "broke through" 40 years after her first important works with the widely read memoir The Year of Magical Thinking, awarded the 2005 National Book Award. Two years later, Didion received the National Book Foundation's annual Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. A fiction writer as well, Didion has published five novels, including the acclaimed Play It as It Lays and Democracy. Didion adapted The Year of Magical Thinking as a one-woman play, which was produced on Broadway by Scott Rudin starring Vanessa Redgrave. Presented by the Esther Freier Endowed Lectures in Literature.

25177|25349|31828 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 15:34:54 -0600

Introducing CLA development officer Kevin Parker

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Greetings, fellow literati. I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself to you as the new development contact for the Department of English. I have spent the past five years working in higher education as a development professional at UCLA and Loyola Marymount University. My last position was at the United Negro College Fund here in Minneapolis. I have a bachelor's degree in English from Texas A & M University. I am excited to be working with such a stellar program and faculty.

The success of the department is driven not only by the outstanding leadership of its faculty, but by the dedication and support of alumni and friends like you. Thanks to your generosity, two graduate student fellowships--the Michael Dennis Browne Fellowship Fund and the Edward M. Griffin Fellowship Fund--have recently reached endowment level, which ensures support in the years to come. This achievement is especially important in our financially uncertain times.

Without your support, students like Matt Burgess, a 2009 graduate of the Creative Writing Program, would have a more difficult time reaching their potential. This fall Matt published his first novel Dogfight, A Love Story, which has received great reviews, including one in the New York Times Book Review. Matt raves about his experience here as a student and a teaching assistant: "I had wonderfully generous teachers like Charlie Baxter and Julie Schumacher, and my peers in the program were all encouraging and talented and very serious about books. We didn't have to compete for funding, which freed us up to root for one another and to support one another's projects."

Please continue to join me in making educational dreams a reality for young adults lucky enough to be part of such a thriving department. Maintaining a connection with you is very important to us. Feel free to contact me at 612-626-5140 or kparker@umn.edu if you have questions or would like information on how you can help the department continue its success.

25177|25346|31828 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 15:33:03 -0600

Introducing 2010-12 CLA Winton Chair Nuruddin Farah

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The Department of English is pleased to announce the residency of Nuruddin Farah, the Somali novelist and a 2010-12 Winton Chair in the College of Liberal Arts. Born in 1945 in Baidoa, Somalia, Farah is the author of ten novels, a nonfiction book, several plays, and numerous articles and stories in English. He is the 1998 winner of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature.

During his three-year tenure in Minnesota, Farah will be giving readings, teaching classes, developing and presenting original plays, meeting with and mentoring high school students, and participating in the intellectual life of the University of Minnesota and its neighboring communities.

Farah, who lives in South Africa, taught within the Creative Writing Program in 1988 and has visited since. "It's been wonderful to be back to Minneapolis," he says, "which is my second home, and to reunite with my close friends and former students."

An excerpt from Farah's forthcoming novel Crossbones (Riverhead) is published in the December 13, 2010, New Yorker. Farah is the guest speaker at the December 12 CLA Commencement ceremony.

25177|25347|31828 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 15:29:42 -0600 http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2010/12/dissertations-awarded-2009-10.html 263382

Lamiya Almas, "The Women of the Early Modern Turk and Moor Plays." (Adviser: Watkins)

Aaron Bruenger, "A Middle-of-the-Road Peace Movement: Ethos and the Practical Pacifists." (Adviser: Ross)

Madhurima Chakraborty, "Liberative Ideology and Post-colonial Writing." (Adviser: Brennan) Assistant Professor, Columbia College, Chicago.

Lauren Curtright, "Modernism and the Politics of Gothic Adaptation." (Adviser: Rabinowitz). Awarded the Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellowship at Georgia Tech 2010-13.

Abigail Davis, "From Hawthorne to History: The Mythologizing of John Endecott." (Adviser: Griffin)

Stephen Healey, "The Rise of Creative Writing and the New Value of Creativity." (Advisers: Damon and Augst) Tenure track at Minneapolis Community and Technical College.

Kathleen Howard, "The Word Made Flesh: The Perception of Holiness in the Texts of Late Medieval and Early Modern Holy Women in England." (Adviser: Krug) Awarded an ACLS Postdoctoral Fellowship. Visiting Assistant Professor at SUNY Stony Brook from 2010­-12.

Elizabeth Hutter, "Suspended in Uncertainty: Drowning in Antebellum America." (Advisers: Crain & Scandura)

Elizabeth Ketner, "Memory, Monarchy, and Identity on the 'Scepter'd Isle': Constructing Identity Through Historical Fiction in Renaissance England and France." (Adviser: Watkins) Assistant Professor, SUNY Plattsburgh.

Chang-hee Kim, "The fantasy of Asian America: Identity, Ideology, and Desire." (Adviser: Lee) Postdoc at Yonsei University.

Jennifer Miller, "From Water Margins to Borderlands: Negotiating Boundaries and the Fantastic in Fantasy, Native American, and Asian American Literatures." (Adviser: Treuer) Awarded two-year Lilly Postdoctoral Fellowship at Valparaiso University.

Gregory Murray, "A Performative Study of Playfulness in Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Frank O'Hara, and Elizabeth Bishop." (Adviser: Damon) Tenure track at Georgia Perimeter College.

Julia Musha, "The Other Europe: Locating Albania in Contemporary European Discourse." (Adviser: Mowitt)

Becky Peterson, "Experimentation, Identification, Ornamentation: Avant-garde Women Artists and Modernism's Exceptional Objects." (Adviser: Rabinowitz) Adjunct at University of New Mexico.

Nicholas Robinette, "Free Realist Style: Epistemology, Form and the Novel, 1909-1954." (Adviser: Brennan) Visiting assistant professor at Oberlin College.

Stoyan Tchaprazov, "The Eastern Question, Western Europe, and the Balkans in Fin-de-Siècle Literature." (Adviser: Elfenbein) Adjunct at Drake University, Des Moines.

Elizabeth Weixel, "The Forest and Social Change in Early Modern English Literature, 1590-1700." (Adviser: Watkins) Assistant Professor, Western Kentucky University.

25177|25347|31828 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 15:25:50 -0600 http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2010/12/phd-student-news-1.html 263381

Graduate School Dissertation Fellowships: Nicholas Hengen, "Texts as Tactics: A Literary Critical Politics" (Adviser Timothy Brennan); Lucia Pawlowski, "High Theory, the Teaching of Writing, and the Crisis of the University" (Adviser Geoff Sirc); Lisa Trochman, "Fatal Femmes: Noir Anxiety and the Woman Criminal" (Adviser Paula Rabinowitz); Adam Schrag, "Surface to Surface: War, Image and the Senses in the Screenic Era" (Adviser Paula Rabinowitz)

Graduate Research Partnership Program Fellowships: Emily Anderson, "Monsters Without Voices: The Creation and Uses of Fear in Silent Horror Film" (Sponsor Lois Cucullu); Lelaine Bonine, "For the Love of Film: In Search of Hitchcock on the Secular Pilgrimage" (Sponsor Jani Scandura); Nicholas Hengen, "Weapons in the War: The U.S. Military's Literary Regime During World War II" (Sponsor Paula Rabinowitz); Eunha Na, "Ritual in Contemporary Theater: A Global Perspective on African American and Korean Theatres" (Sponsor Josephine Lee)

Samuel Holt Monk Prize for Published Scholarship: Chris Kamerbeek, "Appearing Acts: Celebrity, Biography and Henry James's Ghosts of the 1890s," The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association, 42:2 (2009) (Adviser Paula Rabinowitz)

Jay and Rose Phillips Fellowship: Davu Seru

Ruth Drake Dissertation Fellowship: Ryan Cox, "Premonition of a Future Line We Will Be Writing: Politics, Language, and Identity in English Canadian Experimental Poetry" (Adviser Paula Rabinowitz)

Outstanding Graduate Instructor Award from the Department of Writing Studies: Elisabeth Hansen and Patricia Zanski

Erik Carlson, a fourth-year PhD student in English won the John Leyerle-CARA Prize for Dissertation Research.

Molly Kelley Gage won a PEO Scholar Award. She has an article forthcoming in Digital Humanities Quarterly.

Anne Roth-Reinhardt was awarded a Jay T. Last Fellowship through the American Antiquarian Society. She presented "Pirate or Patriot? Representation of John Paul Jones in Melville's Israel Potter" at the CHAVic Seminar of the American Antiquarian Society. She and Elizabeth Hutter (PhD 2010) will co-chair a roundtable at the Society of Early Americanists' Seventh Biennial Conference in March of 2011.

25177|25347|31828 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 15:23:21 -0600 http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2010/12/phd-alumnaei-news.html 263379

Matthew Brennan (PhD 1984) published The Poet's Holy Craft: William Gilmore Simms and Romantic Verse Tradition with University of South Carolina Press (2010). He is Professor of English at Indiana State University, Terre Haute.

Terry Castle (PhD 1980) published The Professor and Other Writings (Harper, 2010). She is Walter A. Haas Professor in the Humanities and Professor of English at Stanford University.

Steve Healey (PhD 2009) published his second poetry collection 10 Mississippi (Coffee House Press, 2010). He has joined the faculty in English at Minneapolis Community and Technical College.

Margaret Noori (PhD 2001, MA, BA summa cum laude) is Director of the Comprehensive Studies Program and teaches American Indian Literature at the University of Michigan. Her work focuses on the recovery and maintenance of Anishinaabe language and literature. Research includes language proficiency and assessment, and the study of indigenous literary aesthetics. To see and hear current projects visit www.ojibwe.net

John O'Brien (PhD 1995) was appointed president of North Hennepin Community College in Brooklyn Park. O'Brien was formerly academic vice president and chief academic officer at Century College and directed the "Students First" project, a Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System initiative to improve student services. He served as acting president at Century College in 2008-09.

William Reichard (PhD 1997) has a new collection of poems Sin Eater with Mid-List Press.

Karen Roggenkamp (PhD 2001) is now co-editor of the academic journal American Periodicals.

Robert Schuler (PhD 1989) published his 15th collection of poems, The Book of Jeweled Visions, with MWPH Books.

Linda Shenk (PhD 2002) published Learned Queen: The Image of Elizabeth I in Politics and Poetry (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). She is Assistant Professor of English at Iowa State University, where she has been the recipient of the university-wide Early Achievement in Teaching Award (2008) and the Jerry Shakeshaft Master Teacher in the Humanities and Social Sciences (2008-09).

Janet Sommers (PhD 1995) was named Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at Northwestern College in St. Paul.

Sarah Wadsworth (PhD 2000) has been awarded the Reese Fellowship for American Bibliography and the History of the Book in the Americas by the Bibliographical Society of America. Wadsworth writes: "The project that the BSA is helping to fund through this fellowship is one I began 15 years ago as a seminar paper for one of Ed Griffin's graduate seminars. It just goes to show that good teaching inspires enduring interests!" She continues as Assistant Professor of English at Marquette University.

Martin Warren (PhD 1995) published "The Quakers as Parrhesiasts: Frank Speech and Plain Speaking as the Fruits of Silence" in the journal Quaker History (Vol. 98, No. 2) and "Wikis in the Classroom: It's the Process, Not the Product" in the fall 2009 Minnesota English Journal. He is Associate Professor of English at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul.

25177|25347|31828 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 15:21:31 -0600 http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2010/12/scholarship-awards.html 263378

CLA Selmer Birkelo Scholarship: Leesha Plante

Captain DeWitt Jennings Payne Scholarship: Sara Homes and Kendra Speedling

Donald V. Hawkins Scholarship: Leah Hickey, Heather McRae, Eric Murphy, and Lauren Scheller

Anna Augusta von Helmholtz Phelan Scholarship: Molly Chester

Moses Marston Scholarship: Elizabeth Russell

Robert E. Moore Scholarship: Erin Raffensperger (for senior year) and Kevin Curran (for junior year)

Martin B. Ruud Scholarship: Kevin Curran, Amy Durmaskin, Asha Van Krevelen, and Delaine Wendling

Sharon L. Borine Award: Naomi Ko

Joan C. Forester Scholarship: Alexandra Vujovich

Joanne Carlson Award: Amy Durmaskin

Beverly Atkinson Scholarship for Non-Traditional English Majors: Abdiasis Hirsi

Mark David Clawson Thesis Awards: Zachary Jones and Larisa Garski

Paul & Lucienne Taylor Internship Grants: Kate Carpenter and Erin Flannery

25177|25347|31828 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 15:20:02 -0600

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2010/12/ba-alumnaei-news.html 263377

Stacey Amo (BA 2008) returned to Minnesota in 2009 after two years as an English instructor in primary schools in Lille, France. She is currently getting her masters in literature at Minnesota State, focusing on postcolonial literature. She presented her paper, "Where Does He Call Home? Nationality and Environment as Identity in Albert Wendt's Sons for the Return Home" at the 19th annual British Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies conference. She also presented this year at the annual College English Association conference and the national Popular Culture Association conference. Amo will be applying to PhD programs for Fall 2011.

Patrick Barry (BA 2004) teaches English in the Upper School of the Blake School in Minneapolis.

Crystal Boyd (BA 2007 summa cum laude) is enrolled in the University of Colorado's Graduate Program in Museum and Field Studies.

Thomas Boyle (BA 2007 summa cum laude) was accepted into the Master's program in the Department of Semiotics at the University of Tartu in Estonia with a full tuition scholarship.

Rebecca Dosch Brown (BA 1990 magna cum laude) is Assistant Academic Adviser in the University Honors Program. A mnartists.org 2010 What Light Poetry winner and a 2009 miniStories Grand Prize winner, she published the flash fiction "Birdman" and "The Trousers" on the mnartists.org site.

Adam Brunner (BA 2004) became Associate Editor at MVP Books, editing and developing books covering individual and team sports, health and fitness, and outdoor recreation. He was previously Editorial Assistant at University of Minnesota Press.

Scott Carlson (BA 1998) was the Bryant Jackson Lecturer at Illinois State University in May 2010, speaking on "Libraries and the Future." He continues as a reporter for the Chronicle of Higher Education.

James Chase (BA English and BS Aerospace Engineering 1999) has been a systems engineer at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory since 2002. He received an MS from MIT in 2001.

Carolyn Crooke (BA 1991) published the second installment in her "Disillusionists Trilogy" (urban fantasy), Double Cross, with Ballantine/Spectra. She writes under the pen name Carolyn Crane.

Jessica Holm (BA 2004) is enrolled in the University of Colorado Graduate Program in Museum and Field Studies.

Imani Jaafar-Mohammad (BA 2001 magna cum laude) earned her JD from William Mitchell College of Law. She served as a staff attorney for the Legal Aid Society of Minneapolis and is now a partner at MJM Legal, practicing in the areas of estate planning, business law, and criminal defense. She is also an adjunct professor at William Mitchell College of Law and a senior speaker for the Islamic Resource Group.

Zahra Khorasani (BA 2002), former Department of English peer adviser, has entered the University of Minnesota's doctorate program in Higher Education. She completed the English MEd teaching license program here, taught middle/high school for two years, then returned to the University as a CLA adviser; she is currently Academic Adviser in the College of Design.

Anne Klingbeil (BA 2004) is Advertising and Promotions Coordinator for the University of Minnesota Press.

Christina (Soderstrom) Nguyen (BA 1997 summa cum laude) is Senior Writer & Social Media Manager for High Point Creative in St. Paul. She will be published in the 2010 Haiku Society of America Members' Anthology.

Chelsea Nutting (BA 2009 summa cum laude) is currently a student in the University of Minnesota's TESL masters program.

The Honorable James Rosenbaum (BA 1966; JD 1969) was recognized as one of 21 Alumni of Notable Achievement in the College of Liberal Arts in April. Judge Rosenbaum retired as Senior U.S. District Judge in Minneapolis this past August. He is also a member of the Department of English Advisory Board.

Tresa Undem (BA 1997 summa cum laude) is Vice President for Lake Research Partners in Washington D.C., where she works with non-profits, foundations, issue advocacy organizations, and media campaigns, conducting research on a variety of progressive policy issues. She holds a master's degree from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

25177|25347|31828 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 15:18:57 -0600 http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2010/12/faculty-news-1.html 263371

2010 Imagine Fund awards went to Timothy Brennan, Maria Damon, Genevieve Escure, Ray Gonzalez, Michael Hancher, Qadri Ismail, Paula Rabinowitz, Jani Scandura, Katherine Scheil, Julie Schumacher, and Charles Sugnet. The $4000 arts and humanities awards may be used for research needs, teaching materials, books, materials for creative works, or travel.

Charles Baxter will publish Gryphon: New and Selected Stories in January 2011 with Pantheon. His short story, "The Cousins," which originally appeared in Tin House, was selected by Richard Russo for The Best American Short Stories 2010. He published the short story "The Winner" in Tin House, "The Old Murderer" in the American Scholar, "Mr. Scary" in Ploughshares, and "A Scream" in Cellar Door. He has an essay on Paula Fox's "The Widow's Children" in the New Ohio Review. He published reviews of the latest novels by Jonathan Franzen and Jonathan Lethem in the New York Review of Books.

Timothy Brennan co-edited (with Keya Ganguly) Intellectual Labor, a special issue of South Atlantic Quarterly 108:2 (January 2009). He published "Politics or Ethics?" in Locating Transnational Ideals, edited by Walter Goebel and Saskia Schabio (Routledge, 2009) and "The Art of the Circular Reading" in Commitment and Complicity, edited by Begum O. Firat, Bregje van Eekelen, Sarah de Mul, and Sonja van Wichelen (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). He published in Italian "Antonio Gramsci negli Stati Uniti, un'esasperazione" in "Americanismi sulla ricezione del pensiero di Gramsci negli Stati Uniti" (On the reception of Gramsci's thought in the United States), edited by Mauro Pala (CUEC, 2010). His essay "Nietzsche and the Colonies" was featured in German Colonialism, Race, the Holocaust, and Postwar Germany, edited by Volker Langbehn and Mohammad Salah (Columbia UP, 2010). He published "Intellectual Labor" and "Labor and the Logic of Abstraction: an Interview with Moishe Postone" in South Atlantic Quarterly 108:2 (Spring 2009). "When to Publish" appeared in Social Text online (February 2, 2009). His essay "Postcolonial Studies between the European Wars" was translated into Swedish, "Postkoloniala studiers europeisk rötter: En undertryckt idéhistoria," häften för kritiska studier 197 (Fall 2009); a chapter from Wars of Position "Humanism, Philology, and the Critique of Imperialism" was translated into Polish, "Humanizm, filologia I imperialism," in Porównania/Comparisons 9 (Fall 2009); and "The Making of a Counter-Tradition" was translated into Turkish, "Bir Karsi Gelenek Olusturmak" in Hazırlayanlar: Müge Gürsoy Sökmen, Başak Ertür, Barbarlari Beklerken (Istanbul, 2010). He was invited to give the following lectures: "Vico, Spinoza, and the Imperial Past" (Cornell University, June, 2010); "The Role of the Academy in Progressive Social Change" (CUNY Grad Center, New York, May, 2010); "The Conservative Gesture in Popular Music" (University of Wisconsin-Madison, November, 2009); "In Plain Hearing: Afro-Latin Music and the Subtext of Everyday Life" (American Cultures Colloquium, Northwestern University, October, 2009); "Problems with the Idea of a Cosmopolitan Subaltern," for "Postcolonial Empires: Writing Resistance?" (Cambridge University, July, 2009); "The Post-Political, or How we Argue Now" for the conference "Intellectuals and the State: Complicities, Confrontations, Ruptures" (Nicosia, Cyprus, June, 2009); "Beyond World Music: From the Roots of Jazz to Ringtones" (part of the lecture series "Globalization Unearthed" at The People's University, Minneapolis Public Library, June, 2009); "Nietzsche and the Colonies" (Department of Music, New York University, April, 2009); "On Freedom: Problems in Popular Music Studies" for the conference "Cuba and the Atlantic: Celebrating 400 years of Espejo de paciencia" (University of Minnesota, Department of Spanish, April, 2009); "A Short History of the Term 'Cosmopolitanism'" (Asian Studies Department, Stanford University, February, 2009). He was interviewed about his book Secular Devotion: Afro-Latin Music and Imperial Jazz by KFAI-FM "Write On Radio" (Minneapolis) on April 8, 2009, by KPFA-FM (Berkeley, CA) on December 8, 2009, and by KBEM-FM (Minneapolis) on January 8, 2010. He was interviewed for the two-part program "The 1960s and Today" aired the week of December 20, 2009, with "Access Minnesota," Minnesota Broadcasters Association, for a network of 45 radio stations statewide. He was an invited Faculty and Seminar Leader at the School of Criticism and Theory (Cornell University, Summer, 2010) "Conformism, Antagonism, Critique: On the Post-Political." He was granted Single Semester Leave Award for fall 2010. He was an invited member of the Advisory Board for the Center for the Study of Globalization and Cultures, University of Hong Kong.

Michael Dennis Browne (emeritus) edited Lucille Broderson's poetry collection But You're Wearing a Blue Shirt the Color of the Sky (Nodin Press, 2010).

Tom Clayton published "New Directions: Soundings in A Midsummer Night's Dream" in A Midsummer Night's Dream: A Critical Guide, edited by Regina Buccola (Continuum, 2010).

Siobhan Craig published Cinema After Fascism: the Shattered Screen (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).

Lois Cucullu published the essay "Downsizing 'the Great Divide': A Reflexive Approach to Modernisms, Disciplinarity, and Class" for Disciplining Modernism, edited by Pamela Caughie (Palgrave, 2010). Her essay "The Adolescent Dorian Gray: Oscar Wilde's Proto-Picture of Modernist Celebrity" was published in Modernist Star Maps, edited by Aaron Jaffe and Jonathan Goldman (Ashgate, 2010). For the 12th Annual Modernist Studies Conference (Victoria, BC, November 2010), she co-led a seminar entitled "The Modernism-Fashion Nexus" and also presented "Wilde and Wilder Salomés: Flouting the Generational Divide from Sarah Bernhardt to Norma Desmond," for the panel "Generation M: Modernism and the Generation Complex." She will deliver another paper "Isherwood: A Single Man and the American Maurice" at MLA in January 2011 for a special session on Christopher Isherwood and Los Angeles, organized by James Berg (PhD 1996), Dean of the Social Sciences and Arts at the College of the Desert.

Maria Damon published "Imp/penetrable Archive: Adeena Karasick's Wall of Sound," in Radical Poetics and Secular Jewish Culture, edited by Daniel Morris and Stephen Paul Miller (University of Alabama Press, 2009) and "Alan Sondheim's Internet Diaspora" in Diasporic Avant Gardes: Experimental Poetics and Cultural Displacement, edited by Carrie Noland and Barrett Watten (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). She published the visual poem/needlework "Terra Divisa/Terra Divina," in These Debatable Lands, Vol. II, edited by Iain Biggs (Wild Conversations Press, 2009). She published two poems with Jukka-Pekka Kervinen, "Riff on Jukka 3" and "Jamming with Jukka," in Tammy. She reviewed three books in Rain Taxi Review of Books: You Are Here, by Thich Nhat Hanh (winter 2009/2010); I Slept With Joey Ramone: A Family Memoir by Mickey Leigh and Legs McNeil (spring 2010); and Unraveled: A Weaver's Tale of Life Gone Modern by Elizabeth Krause (summer 2010). She also reviewed Race and the Avant-Garde: Asian American and Experimental Poetry Since 1965 by Timothy Yu and Poetic Obligation by G. Matthew Jenkins for American Literature (March 2010). She presented, with Adeena Karasick, "Intertextile, Text in Exile: A Shmata Mash-up" for a panel on "Where is the Sentence Going?" at In(ter)ventions: Literary Arts at the Edge, Banff Centre for the Arts, Alberta, in February and "Intertextile, Text in Exile: Shmata Mash-up: a Jewette for Two Voices" at the post_moot Convocation 2010, Miami University-Ohio in April. She presented "Micropoetries" at "The Works: A Writer's Salon," Bryant-Lake Bowl, Minneapolis, in April. And she gave a poetry reading with mIEKAL aND at Avols Bookstore, in Madison, Wisconsin, in April.

Andrew Elfenbein's 2008 book Romanticism and the Rise of English was awarded an Outstanding Academic Book Award from Choice. His edition of Dracula was published by Longmann Cultural Editions in 2010.

Ray Gonzalez's poem "Bob Dylan in El Paso, 1963" was featured on MPRnewsQ, Minnesota Public Radio's online news service, in March. The poem is from Faith Run (University of Arizona Press, 2009), named a finalist in poetry by the International Latino Book Awards. Sudden Fiction Latino: Short Short Stories From the U.S. and Latin America, co-edited by Gonzalez, Robert Shapard, and James Thomas, was published by W.W. Norton. His book of prose poems, Cool Auditor (BOA Editions, 2009) was named a Best Book of the Year in the Montserrat Review's annual Book Issue.

Patricia Hampl wrote the text for "Brooklyn Bones," a choral work by Alvin Singleton which received its Carnegie Hall premiere on April 26, 2010. Hampl presented "The Big Time--F. Scott Fitzgerald," a staged essay about Fitzgerald's love/hate relationship with literary ambition and success September 18 at St. Paul's Fitzgerald Theatre with music by Dan Chouinard and friends (including singer Blake Hazzard, Fitzgerald's great-granddaughter).

Michael Hancher published "Definition and Depiction" in Word & Image (September 2010).

Josephine Lee published The Japan of Pure Invention: Gilbert & Sullivan's The Mikado (University of Minnesota Press, 2010). Lee was promoted to full professor.

Nabil Matar was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities grant for a project entitled "Crossing Cultural Spaces: Islam and the West in Arts and Sciences." The grant will support an academic forum and program development workshop "exploring continuities between cultural and intellectual traditions in the Islamic worlds and Western civilization." He also was awarded a Grant-in-Aid of Research, Artistry, and Scholarship.

Ellen Messer-Davidow received the inaugural College of Liberal Arts Dr. Matthew Stark Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Faculty Award. In August, she became Chair of the Department of English.

Paula Rabinowitz will hold the Distinguished Fulbright Lectureship in American Literature in the People's Republic of China for Spring 2011 at East China Normal University in Shanghai.

Julie Schumacher received a 2009-10 Morse-Alumni Award for Outstanding Contributions to Undergraduate Education. She was also awarded a residency at the Bellagio Center in Italy for spring 2011. She plans to work on a collection of short stories, "Passengers."

Madelon Sprengnether published her chapbook of prose poems, Near Solstice, Mourning, winner of the West Town Press Poetry Chapbook competition.

John Watkins was named a Distinguished McKnight University Professor.

25177|25347|31828 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 14:28:17 -0600

Pillsbury Hall has been designated for the Department of English

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2010/12/a-home-for-english.html 263339

A couple of years ago, junior and senior English major classmates crowded into a makeshift classroom were asked to dream. Imagine a permanent home for the Department of English: what features should it include? What might it offer that 40 years of temporary housing in Lind Hall has not? Nearly all their answers boiled down to one word: community. The possibility for it increases dramatically when the Department of English's 740 majors, 42 faculty, 130 graduate students, and 6000 students annually taking English classes are grounded in one place, a single building with room for offices, classrooms, public readings, and informal gathering spaces.

"English is about more than just reading books," declared one of the students, 2009 graduate Kristi Behnke. "It's about experiencing literature. It would be great to have space to do that--performance spaces, publications labs, and communal areas."

The dreaming, which has involved Department of English faculty and University of Minnesota administration for years, is over. The new home designated for the Department of English is Pillsbury Hall, a sandstone block building a short jaunt up Church Street with 150 years of history behind it.

Pillsbury Hall, built in 1889, is the second oldest building on campus and easily one of the most significant. John S. Pillsbury, Minnesota governor from 1875 to 1881 and a University of Minnesota Regent from 1863 until his death in 1901, first rescued the fledgling institution of higher learning in the 1860s with a reorganization plan that stabilized its financial situation. Then, in 1889, the Minnesota State Legislature was considering sending the land grants available under the Morrill Act for the establishment of an agriculture and mechanic arts college to another location in the state. Pillsbury stepped in with an offer to personally fund a "hall of science" for the University of Minnesota on the condition that the land grants go to the University of Minnesota. His offer was accepted, the hall was built, and Pillsbury Hall has been the home of the Department of Geology ever since. Pillsbury's elegant offer is worth quoting:


"I propose to erect and complete a hall of science at an expense of $150,000 more or less and to present it to the state, and all I ask to know is that these land grants will be kept intact and this institution be made one that this great state can be proud of; that may be adequate to the needs of the state, an honor to it, and a lasting monument to the progress which is characteristic of this state now and in the years to come--some assurance that when I am dead and gone, this institution shall be kept for all time, broad in its scope, powerful in its influence, as firm and substantial in its maturity as it was weak and struggling in the days that saw its birth." John S. Pillsbury

With its arched entryways and patterned sandstone, Pillsbury Hall has been called "the best remaining example of 19th Century architecture on the Minneapolis campus." Designed by LeRoy S. Buffington in the Romanesque style of Henry Hobson Richardson, it is considered his finest work still in existence. Buffington also designed and constructed Burton Hall (1894), Nicholson Hall (1890), and Eddy Hall (1886). In addition, John S. Pillsbury contracted Buffington for the Pillsbury "A" Mill. Harvey Ellis, an associate at Buffington's firm, is believed to have been the draftsman for the Pillsbury Hall project. Roger G. Kennedy, one-time director of the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian, named Ellis "an elusive American genius"; he is best known for "mission" furniture designs produced by Gustav Stickley's company.

Pillsbury Hall was first suggested as a home for the Department of English in 1996, by College of Liberal Arts Interim Dean Robert Holt. Then Chair Shirley Garner had expressed frustration both with the limitations of Lind Hall's space and the unfeasible options occasionally offered in its place. Holt explained that the Institute of Technology planned to propose a new building for the Department of Physics, which would then open up the Tate Laboratory of Physics for the Department of Geology and Geophysics. The facilities needs of modern geologic research had become increasingly problematic for Pillsbury Hall.

Pillsbury Hall fit the Department of English very well, however, as space assessments have shown. Its 48,538 square feet match the requirements of the department for faculty and graduate student offices, while also providing classroom space; Department of English faculty and students would no longer have to chase their classes around the East Bank. The building also includes room for public readings, lectures, and performances: the Department of English offers one of the fullest event schedules in the College of Liberal Arts. Finally, space is available, as it never has been in Lind Hall, for a commons and a publication lab where students can work on group projects, meet between classes, and otherwise feel a sense of communal identity and ownership within the third largest major of the College of Liberal Arts.

The fit between Pillsbury Hall and the Department of English is not merely a matter of space. The Old Campus Historic District (the Knoll area) of which Pillsbury Hall is a part has emerged as a center for the humanities, with Folwell Hall encompassing language departments, Nolte Center housing the Institute for Advanced Study and the Center for Medieval Studies, and Nicholson Hall providing homes for Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature and the Writing Center. Meanwhile, the Department of English shares Lind Hall with the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications (IMA) and the College of Science and Engineering. The prestigious IMA, one of only eight National Science Foundation Mathematical Sciences Institutes in the United States with visitor programs attracting over 1000 scientists per year, has indicated that it would like to expand further into Lind Hall.

After hearing Dean Holt's suggestion, Professor Garner recruited now Regents Professor Madelon Sprengnether, and the two began to research the possibility of a move to Pillsbury Hall while reaching out to University of Minnesota administrators and community leaders who might assist in the process. A Pillsbury Hall Committee was initiated within the Department of English, including members of the Department of English Advisory Board.

An investigation into the soundness of the structure revealed that Pillsbury Hall, while solid, needs serious interior renovation. Layers of remodeling projects bear the marks of various decades, jarring with the historical character of the hall. Mechanical and electrical systems require updating. Shadowy spaces call out for more light. The total package for a re-envisioned, renovated, and furnished Pillsbury Hall is estimated at $24 million.

Precedent for renovation surrounds Pillsbury Hall. Other historic buildings nearby were once slated to be "decommissioned," their space no longer assigned to departments. But University President Mark Yudof (1997-2002), an early supporter of the move of the Department of English to Pillsbury Hall, pushed for a master plan for the Minneapolis campus in which historically significant buildings were restored and brought into active use. In 2005, Jones Hall (1901) reopened as the elegant new freshman welcome center, with its skylight restored, its timber roof structure replaced to meet fire code, and its exterior brick and terra cotta masonry preserved. Soon after, Nicholson Hall showed off a sleek, slimmer self, shorn of a decaying wing and auditorium, its turret reconstructed and its art deco lobby restored.

Celebrating the revival of Nicholson Hall as a home for the humanities, then College of Liberal Arts Dean Steven Rosenstone saw the Old Campus Historic District transformed: "When our vision is fully realized, we'll have a vital, historic humanities district that will be the culmination of literally decades of planning and dreaming," said Rosenstone, now Vice President of Scholarly and Cultural Affairs. "I like to think that 50 years or a century from now, students who walk the halls of these venerable buildings will thank this generation of Minnesotans for their commitment to preserving the University's heritage."

In 2006, Professor Sprengnether organized a field session for the 2007 National Preservation Conference in St. Paul focused on exploring the Old Campus Historic District. With the assistance of the Weisman Art Museum, the Pillsbury Hall Committee staged an exhibit of architectural drawings from the University of Minnesota's Leroy S. Buffington collection in conjunction with the field session. Members of the Pillsbury family were invited to a special exhibit reception, which highlighted Pillsbury Hall and the plans for renovation.

In the first public airing of their support, University of Minnesota President Robert Bruininks and Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs E. Thomas Sullivan co-hosted the event and spoke enthusiastically of Pillsbury Hall as the new home of the Department of English. Proclaimed President Bruininks with relish: "It's a go!"

Since 2007, Provost Sullivan has been leading fundraising efforts particularly with a goal to achieve a lead gift towards the Pillsbury Hall interior renovation on behalf of the entire Pillsbury family. Significant results have been achieved through major gifts by Philip and Nina Pillsbury, the Southways Foundation, and Ella Crosby, among other family members.

With the 2010 Minnesota State Legislature approving four million dollars toward planning the Physics and Nanotechnology building, the long dream of a permanent home for the Department of English is becoming reality. One of those English majors fantasizing a road out of Lind Hall may have put it best: "It is only appropriate," noted Becky Palapala (BA 2010), "that two of the oldest, most esteemed aspects of University of Minnesota tradition--Pillsbury Hall and the Department of English--should find new life in one another."

25177|25344|31828 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 13:47:49 -0600

Celebrating the career of undergraduate adviser and Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies Beverly Atkinson, who retired in May, 2010

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2010/12/commencing-the-next-stage-beve.html 263365

On the afternoon of May 4, 2010, in the Upson Room of Walter Library, the Department of English celebrated Beverly Atkinson (MA 1971), upon her retirement after 37 years of service as an undergraduate adviser and later Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies. Steve Atkinson (MA 1972), her husband and a retired CLA Senior Accountant, gave a stirring speech that described meeting Atkinson in an English graduate seminar in the early 1970s. Undergraduate peer adviser Moira Pirsch performed a poem she'd written; curriculum coordinator Michael Walsh (MFA 2005) read "Ode to the Book #2" by Pablo Neruda.

Advising peers gathered around the woman who was a primary organizer of the University-wide Advising Network and the more informal web of CLA department advisers. Former English advisees greeted her with hugs. Department faculty and staff milled around, torn between wishing the honoree an excellent retirement and wondering at the loss of Atkinson's institutional knowledge and gracious presence. [Former English associate academic adviser Rebecca Aylesworth has risen to the challenge as the new Coordinator of Advising and Undergraduate Studies.] Professor Julie Schumacher noted that, in an informal survey, the words most commonly cited to describe Atkinson were "kind" and "generous."

But perhaps the most striking moment of the afternoon came when a pale man using a walker entered the room, asked with impeccable timing, "What's the protocol here?" and took the stage, as it were. Retired in 2003 from the English department as a Morse-Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus after 39 years of service, Archibald I. Leyasmeyer had undergone, just the week before, hip replacement surgery. Below are his remarks.


Two weeks ago I wrote to Bev, indicating that while I very much wanted to be at her farewell event, my current health situation would not make it possible. Well, I've been out of the hospital for a few days, feel mobile enough to be here, and so I am.

Yeats, that great Irish magician of language, wrote:

An aged man is but a paltry thing
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress.

I might be leaning on a walker, but my soul is clapping and singing, celebrating the wonderful accomplishments and experiences we all have shared with Bev Atkinson.

My last day of teaching I finished by working with The Tempest and Long Day's Journey Into Night, two great plays I had taught for decades. As I was reviewing them, it suddenly struck me how important Ariel's question is at the end of the play: "Was't well done?"

During my first term as Director of Undergraduate Studies and of Honors in English, back in the early 1970s, I hired Beverly, and that's probably the most important thing I did for our undergraduate program. Over the decades she has been a valuable and increasingly indispensable member of the Undergraduate Studies leadership, as has been widely recognized.

Students love and admire her, for they recognize her commitment to them, her respect for them as individuals, her desire to see them succeed. On this campus we have quite a number of individuals who are great teachers, and we have some who truly enable the students to learn. Bev is one of the latter, and the students know it.

According to legend, the Great Sphinx, when asked the secret of the ages, eventually replied, "Don't expect too much." This might be the insight of the shifting desert sands across the centuries, but it certainly does not reflect Bev's attitudes. She expects a great deal of herself, the students, her colleagues, her profession. With luminous common sense, a wonderful awareness of a wide range of relevant issues, and a powerful sense of standards, she has been a major force in shaping our undergraduate program and sustaining its excellence.

She is, very simply, resourceful, competent, dependable, determined, honest, and damn good. She has been a major asset to the University, and it is a better place because of her sustained contributions.

"Was't well done?" Indeed, and we thank you, Bev.


In an interview a week after the celebration, Atkinson smiles at the memory of Dr. Leyasmeyer's speech. "I did not expect that at all," she says, shaking her head. "That's the first thing I have to do: write a lot of thank you notes."

Pressed to make general statements about the changes in University undergraduate education since 1973, Atkinson instead gently points to specific curriculum and policy decisions. She mourns the switch from quarter to semester system, which, she notes, "means you have two fewer teachers, two fewer classroom experiences, two fewer courses you could take. I think ten courses are not enough to prepare someone for moving on." And while she appreciates the increasingly accomplished students the U is attracting, she wonders who has been excluded, now that General College is shuttered and average high school grade point scores of freshmen are climbing.

She is optimistic about the current crop of Milleniums. "I would say that clearly in the last five years or so students are much more engaged and civically minded, interested in social justice, both local and international," she claims, "which I think is really exciting. And they're striving to see the connection to their education. Maybe that's been true of students before, but now the opportunities are there."

Other gains Atkinson has witnessed include vastly improved student services, especially for students with physical and mental health issues and for veterans. Her own activism within the University has often been around issues of educational access: the English scholarship that bears her name is directed to "non-traditional" students who, she says, "in the broadest sense seem to have more barriers that make it difficult to have the time to develop their skills, their talents."

Atkinson enjoys the new technology that is allowing more integrated advising between CLA and department advisers and even the Learning Abroad Center. "I like how technology can help us do what we do," she observes. "But it doesn't replace personal conversation. Many students will want to take care of something over email, and I'll say, 'You know, let's get together. It's so much more fun, believe me.'

"I will miss the conversations with students," she says, a little wistful. "Even the most challenging are worthwhile."

But the woman who climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro two years ago is looking forward to a commencement of adventures new (travel and time with her preschool grandson) and familiar (gardening and books). Because it's Beverly Atkinson, we know it will be done well.

25177|25344|31828 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 13:46:46 -0600

Celebrating the career of Professor Emeritus Michael Dennis Browne, who retired in May, 2010

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2010/12/commencing-the-next-stage-mich.html 263362

The number of poets in the crowd gathered April 23, 2010, to celebrate poet and professor Michael Dennis Browne on the occasion of his retirement was high as expected: Robert Bly, Louis Jenkins, Lucille Broderson, Joyce Sutphen, among others. But, given the 48-person choir in attendance, the musicians in the room may have eclipsed the poets. Certainly, they out-voiced them, notes swelling to fill those tall Weisman Museum ceilings. And Professor Browne appeared quite happy about it. As he notes a month later, in an office with books still thick on the ground, "I always wanted to have a party at the end of my career when people could get a little sense of the work I've done in music.

"To have Ross Sutter singing 'The Wedding Song,' which I love, and then to have the University Singers directed by Kathy Salzman Romey [Director of Choral Activities at the U] singing three of my favorite pieces with [collaborator] Stephen Paulus--that was a highlight."

Browne pauses, reconsiders. "But when my [three] children stood up: oh God! Mary read a letter from my brother in England, which was very emotional--just the two of us left, as my sisters have died. And then when [son] Peter read 'A Blessing,' and there was Robert Bly next to me--who was the person in the poem: the horses welcoming 'my friend and me,' well that's James Wright and Robert Bly [pictured right]. And then Robert stands up! And the remarks. . . . Everything was a highlight. It was just an amazing evening. So I feel very lucky. I think I said, 'I feel very lucky.' It's been a nice career."

Emcee Regents Professor Patricia Hampl initiated the proceedings by reading the decree from Minneapolis mayor R. T. Ryback proclaiming April 23, 2010, Michael Dennis Browne Day. "WHEREAS Michael Dennis Browne, award-winning Distinguished Teaching Professor of English at the University of Minnesota for 39 years, librettist of many texts for music, most notably 'Pilgrims' Hymn,' 'The Road Home,' 'Hymn for America,' and the Pulitzer Prize-nominated post-Holocaust oratorio 'To Be Certain of the Dawn' recorded by the Minnesota Orchestra, poet and former director of the Program in Creative Writing at the University of Minnesota, is retiring on the eve of his 70th birthday after teaching and living in his chosen city of Minneapolis since 1971 . . . ."

"That was totally on the initiative of my loyal wife Lisa," the poet explains, rather sheepishly. "She wrote to him. To have a Michael Dennis Browne Day was sweet, yes. It was kind of comic. But touching!" he stresses. "I was touched. I embraced my wife."

As the title of a festschrift created in his honor puts it, Some Ride! Many of the contributors to the festschrift attended the retirement celebration, and several read their contributions. Broderson, at 94 probably the oldest of Professor Browne's former students, spoke about taking that first poetry class with Michael and discovering, in her 60s, a new life as a poet and writer. This fall, she published her first poetry collection But You Were Wearing a Blue Shirt the Color of the Sky with Nodin Press; her long-time mentor edited the volume.

That project is among the many Professor Browne has had percolating on the back burner, waiting for more time. In his office, he shows off his daily calendar, in which he has scrawled "savannah" across the summer weeks: "long, undulating grasslands," he pronounces in that orator's voice of his. "Oh yeah, I'm longing to have some time just to potter around and type." On the docket: A second book of prose, to follow last year's What the Poem Wants: Prose on Poetry. A new book of poetry. A music commission for a new church with composer Stephen Paulus, with whom Browne has been collaborating since Paulus was a PhD student at the U in the 1970s.

The strength of the latter relationship represents another reason for Browne to feel lucky. "We were willing to be flexible and learn from each other," he recalls. "I knew he was good, and he knew I was good, so we knew we could do good stuff together. Though we could never have anticipated a piece like 'Pilgrim's Hymn,' for instance: that piece has changed our lives. He's just a magical composer, a gorgeous composer."

Hear Browne talk about Paulus, about hanging out at rehearsals with Osmo Vänskä and Dale Warland, and it seems music must be his favorite creative activity, as it was for his parents. But then, as he admits, "I have many loves." Lately he has discovered a passion for theology, especially the interfaith variety. "The need to be dialogic with other religions," he describes. "Judaism and Catholicism. Buddhism very much so. I used to be a Catholic; now I'm a contentious Catholic. I'm trying to do a spiritual commonplace book, my favorite spiritual ideas kind of alphabetized. So I'll probably be reading more theology than poetry [in retirement]."

Browne looks at his remaining stacks of books. "If I ever get out of this office! What is the British phrase. . . . It was a tip. A 'tip' means like a . . . landfill." He chuckles. "A landfill of poetry."

Photos: Molly Sutton Kiefer

25177|25344|31828 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 13:32:24 -0600

Celebrating the career of Professor Emeritus Edward Griffin, who retired in May, 2010

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2010/12/commencing-the-next-stage-edwa.html 263360

Praise is commonplace at retirement events; more rarely, the word "love" is used, as it was more than once in honoring Professor Edward Griffin upon his retirement after 44 years with the Department of English, celebrated April 7, 2010, in the Arthur Upson Room in Walter Library. Speaker after speaker celebrated Professor Griffin's "fundamental decency and generosity" as a teacher and colleague (quote from Professor Emeritus Ted Wright). The tall man with the big voice and the ready anecdote was forced to listen to a parade of affectionate stories all starring Ed Griffin.

This was a professor who always talked with pride of the accomplishments of former graduate students, and on that afternoon in they walked, from Massachusetts and Texas and Connecticut and all parts regional. Karen Weierman (PhD 1999), Assistant Professor of English, Worcester State University, spoke on behalf of four tenure-tracked graduates of the American Literature Subfield in the 1990s, recalling their mentor's tireless support and encouragement: "There are not enough words to express our gratitude."

Retiree Doris Marquit (PhD 1977) credited her former adviser for turning her into a scholar at mid-life: "He took me and my scholarly interests seriously, so I did too. That new identity has been part of me ever since."

Professor Griffin chaired the Department of American Studies for eight years in the 1980s and advised many graduate students there. "Ed communicated not only his intellectual interest in literature, but his personal joy in it," noted one, Catherine Spaeth, now Director of the Office of Global Studies at St. Catherine University.

Professor Michael Hancher led the celebration program, quoting from former students and colleagues and from Professor Griffin's autobiographical essay "Hoops & Hurdles: The Unlikely Story of How I Learned How I Learn." Most of the testimony could be summed up with this sentence from Rose Cutting (PhD 1972), Chair, Department of English and Communication Studies, St. Mary's University: "I feel blessed and lucky that Ed Griffin has stood for 40 years as my assurance that great scholar/teachers are also great human beings."

Some weeks later, taking a break from clearing out his office, Professor Griffin chuckles at his befuddled reaction to the party. "I was having a hard time processing all that," he remembers. "My wife said, 'How come you didn't see all this coming?' I said, 'I don't know, Jean, I just never understood!'"

As he did at the party, Griffin emphasizes how grateful he is to the students and colleagues who have kept him on his toes. "Counting my graduate school days, I've spent almost half a century in the company of people between 17 and 35. If I walk away from that cold turkey, it'd be like cutting off my arm. Who's going to keep me thinking? Who's going to ask all these questions I've never thought of before? I've seen people who think golf is going to be enough. It's not enough. Somehow you have to do something systematic to make sure that you really don't start coasting."

Professor Griffin has two projects to provoke his intellect. After swearing to never write another biography of an octogenarian (in 1980 he published Old Brick: Charles Chauncy of Boston, 1705-1787), he fell for the 18th century American poet--and loyalist--Mather Byles. "You want to write that death bed scene," he jokes, "and you have to write the whole century. Luckily I've been studying that century for 20 years. I feel like I can locate this life in the fabric of what it was like in the years leading up to and after the American Revolution with a kind of particularity that will make it read like an historical novel. Although I'll tell you, everything in there can be documented."

He's also editing a collection of the letters of Byles' two daughters, Catherine and Mary. Griffin has spent 10 years tracking down nearly 2000 letters. "We know very little about loyalist women," Griffin stresses. "And we know next to nothing about women who stayed in Boston. I tell you, it opens a window on the Revolution and the early national period all the way to the age of Emerson."

Griffin will keep his brain cells engaged in other ways as well. At the party, one of his former graduate students remembered asking him to take on her dissertation. "He said that when you get him as an adviser, you get him for life."

Penelope Kelsey (PhD 2002), Associate Professor, University of Colorado, seconded. "Ed mentored me through being a TA, dissertating, and entering the job market. He also provided a great deal of support via email as I settled into my first tenure-line job, helping me transition fully from job candidate to colleague. He has kept in touch with me through three tenure-line jobs. What a swell guy!" she concluded.

I'll tell you, everything in there can be documented.

25177|25344|31828 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 13:17:16 -0600

MFA alumna Swati Avasthi elevates the young adult novel

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2010/12/pioneering-fiction.html 263350

Swati Avasthi (MFA 2010) immigrated with her parents to Albuquerque from India when she was one. By five, she knew she wanted to be a writer. "I read Little House in the Big Woods, and I wanted to be just like Laura," she explains, laughing, in an interview in Lind Hall. "Which I now think is hysterical. She was a pioneer! I'm an immigrant."

Let's leave aside the question of whether those two nouns are closer than they appear. The little Swati wrote and wrote until, at 16, she realized, she says, "Oh God, I'm going to have to make money." And there the tale took a circuitous turn into theater, in which she majored at the University of Chicago and made a living afterward, and then into the law. Working for her masters in criminal justice at night, she spent three years coordinating a domestic violence legal clinic. She moved with her husband to Minneapolis after getting a scholarship to the University of Minnesota Law School.

"Then I found out I was pregnant," Avasthi says with a smile. "I took a two-year leave of absence, thinking I'd go back . . . ." And she started writing again. Another baby came. Law school was still out. "I spent five years writing from nine at night until one in the morning on a fantasy novel . . . that is awful." She makes a face. "It's the novel I learned to write on."

When the youngest child went to kindergarten, it looked like law school was finally in the works. Avasthi was on her computer applying to do the LSAT, when the phone rang. She had won a Loft Mentor Series award, in which emerging Minnesota writers work intensively with nationally acclaimed writers. "It was one of those great moments in life," she says. "I went, 'Okay, I'm not doing this JD after all.'"

Instead she wrote a novel about a young man named Jace, a smart, passionate, and sarcastic 16-year-old who gets kicked out of the family home after finally hitting his abusive father. Split, which was published by Knopf in her third year in the MFA program, is surprising in all sorts of ways, not least the sure adolescent tone of the protagonist. Avasthi has no brothers, only sisters. She got into the part, she says, by walking around the house acting in character. As she noted on writer Holly Cupala's blog, "Once I went grocery shopping as Jace. I came home with Oreos and Fritos. My kids were so grateful."

The theater training was not in vain. Nor the legal experience. Avasthi has described how the seed of the story came from an interview at her legal clinic, in which a mother detailed harrowing abuse while her boy and girl listened alongside her. Asked if they should leave, the woman shrugged and explained that they were present for the violence. "What surprised me was that I was mad at the mom," Avasthi relates. "And I was pretty ashamed of that. I knew better than to blame the victims. But it wasn't really until that moment that I understood how debilitating abuse was, that we can't protect our kids.

"I kept thinking about what it would be like for the boy, what it would be like to have a role model that no one would want to be like. I feel like the mapping of voice for girls as a victim has been pretty well done. Ultimately abuse affects boys too, and I don't really like the fact that as a society we frame domestic violence as a women's issue."

Avasthi came to the Creative Writing Program with a draft of Split, hoping to work with novelists and story writers Charles Baxter and Julie Schumacher (Minnesota Book Award winner for younger reader novel Black Box). Professor Schumacher's final recommendation for Split was to cut 50 pages, which at the time felt drastic. Now she credits Schumacher for teaching her how to dig to the story's essential core.

Professor Baxter's role was less direct but just as integral. "A story I'd been working on was too imitative of a specific graphic novel story," she remembers. "When I realized that, I put it aside. Then I was sitting in Charlie's class, and one of the things he talks about a lot is this concept of making it a problem for the story and not with the story. And I thought, 'What if I gave this problem, of the story being trite, to my character?' Which then brought in this whole idea of using the graphic novel within the text. She loves graphic novels, so she likes to think of herself within one. That was the impetus for the second novel."

Bidden, as it is provisionally titled, has been submitted to Knopf. Professor Schumacher claims it's even better than Split. In a delightful bit of historical revision, the second novel includes a character from Avasthi's shelved fantasy novel. "He's been recycled," she reveals with a wide grin.

But why two books now in the young adult fiction mode? "I think that plot has become a dirty word in adult literary fiction," she notes carefully. "I think that that sacrifices readers. Good YA is really story driven. I started reading YA when my kids were little." She laughs. "They're so much easier to read.

"The first YA book I happened to pick up was Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, which has won every award and is this incredibly groundbreaking book. And I just fell into it!"
Shades of another Minnesota immigrant who wrote "juveniles," yes, Laura Ingalls Wilder.

25345|25177|31828 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 11:56:07 -0600

Poet Joanna Rawson is the 2010-11 Minnesota Writer of Distinction

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2010/12/zipline-poetry.html 263349

In the wake of Michael Dennis Browne's retirement, the Creative Writing Program is pleased to be conducting a search for an Assistant Professor of Poetry, a tenure track position which will start in Fall 2011. The application deadline was mid-October. The search committee will interview candidates at the Modern Language Association Convention in early January, and finalists will visit campus soon after.

Meanwhile, the Department of English enjoys the teaching and manuscript advising of Northfield poet Joanna Rawson, the Creative Writing Program's 2010-11 Minnesota Writer of Distinction. Rawson's first collection Quarry won the 1997 Association of Writers and Writing Programs' Donald Hall Prize in Poetry and was published through the University of Pittsburgh. Her second Unrest is out this year on Graywolf Press. "I've taught Graywolf poets [to students] ever since I broke teeth," Rawson reports, semi-seriously. "And this pantheon has been such good company since Unrest came out."

Senior editor Jeff Shotts had sent Rawson a congratulatory note back when Quarry was published, suggesting she show him any new collection. More than a decade later, Rawson complied, and Shotts accepted the manuscript. "The poems in Unrest happened over, say, five years," Rawson relates. "I'm not all that prolific, and I don't try to be--I don't crank out. With young children around [ages four and seven], I tend to crash and sleep during the times I used to write poems. That's okay, and it will be okay for a long time."

Rawson also works for University of Minnesota Extension as a Master Gardener, giving advice on rain gardens and composting. In addition, she writes freelance book and art reviews, not to mention providing meals for the occasional student from nearby Carleton College, where her husband Stephen Mohring teaches sculpture, wood, and 3D art.

Rawson did a lecturer stint in the Creative Writing Program in 2000 and is excited to return to University teaching. "Grad students, and I'm recalling my own stint as one, sometimes dash for safety once they begin to see their work as part of a big, sometimes intimidating historical tradition," she acknowledges. "So part of what I'm looking forward to is getting risky again, getting raw again, and taking the zipline and base-jump risks that refresh and reinvent the language in poems."

Unrest pieced together resonances around bees, immigrant stowaways, life during wartime, and gardens into an SOS signal of alarm and also, alarmingly, inertia--the normalizing of precariousness. Rawson finds herself presently occupied with punishments, especially capital: "How people kill each other under official sanction, how states and localities and mobs put citizens and residents and persons to death and why," she describes. "This isn't something I understand yet, in poetry at least, but it's the main informant of my current writing life."

The Minnesota Writer of Distinction is made possible by the Edelstein-Keller Endowment.

25345|25177|31828 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 11:47:43 -0600 http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2010/12/mfa-student-news-1.html 263351

Elizabeth Abbott won a Marcella DeBourg Fellowship.

Amanda Beck published two poems in Handsome: "False Pregnancy" and "Three Histories."

Jonah Charney-Sirott received a Graduate Research Partnership Program Fellowship.

Feng Sun Chen's poem "Glitter" was one of the finalists for the PPCA (Palooka People's Choice Award). She was also featured in Strange Machine # 5.

Colleen Coyne was selected as the Scribe for Human Rights for summer 2010, a writer-in-residence fellowship with the University's Human Rights Program. Her poem "The Kitchen Ghost" is a winner of the 2010 mnLIT "What Light" Poetry Project and published on mnartists.org. Two poems, "Host" and "Flicker," will appear in the summer 2010 "Safe" issue of Women's Studies Quarterly. She received a CLA Thesis Research Fellowship for 2009-10 and an O'Rourke Fellowship for Travel.

Lucas de Lima published "handwriting" in Mudfish, and two other poems in Abjective. He received a CLA Thesis Research Fellowship.

Gwyn Fallbrooke received a CLA Thesis Research Fellowship.

Sarah Fox won the Academy of American Poets James Wright Prize for Poetry. She had poems accepted for publication in Conduit, Tammy, Eleven Eleven, Spout, and Action Yes. She participated in the Celebration of Midwestern Poetry in May 2010 at Open Book, sponsored by Rain Taxi and the Poetry Society of American, as a panelist discussing the "Future of Midwestern Poetry." She and Lucas de Lima are now contributing to the multi-authored literary blog Montevidayo. Their review of Hiromi Ito's collection of poetry Killing Kanoko was published in Rain Taxi.

Sally Franson's "New York Poem" is featured in BAP Quarterly's NYC issue.

Chrissy Friedlander publishes a section of her long poem "On the Subject of Tornadoes" in the summer/fall Fugue.

Brian Gebhart received an O'Rourke Fellowship for Travel.

Amir Hussain participated in the Graduate Symposium "Framing the Human" (Romance Studies) on March 6, 2010, with the paper/presentation "Encountering the Bat: (Re)presentations of Human Moral Responsibility." His "Night Poem" will be published in Beloit Poetry Journal. His poem "Again and Again I Marry the Earth" appears online at Poets for Living Waters, a poetry response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Molly Sutton Kiefer published the poem "The Recent History of Middle Sand Land (II)" in Tattoo Highway and the poem "Traver K Sutton Will Write Letters to His Wife" in Conte. She has new poems in the anthology From Orchards, Fields, and Gardens. She is the winner of the Astounding Beauty Ruffian Press chapbook award for her manuscript, "The Recent History of Middle Sand Lake." Her book will be published in December 2010. She received an O'Rourke Fellowship for Travel.

Brian Laidlaw is the recipient of a 2010 SASE Jerome Grant. He published his poem series "Terratactic (Part II)" in Volt. His poems "Bedroll" and "Spatial Politic of the Rapture" appear in Field. Aufgabe and Konundrum Engine Literary Review accepted two poems each. His prose poem, "Dogfight," appears in Quarter After Eight. He was awarded the MFA program's 2010 Book Arts Fellowship and the Gesell Award for Excellence in Poetry.

David LeGault published the essays "The Weight of the Earth" in cold-drill and "Make Me a Knife" in Pank, and his essay "Breaking Point" was a finalist for the Collagist nonfiction contest and will appear in the magazine. He received a CLA Thesis Research Fellowship and an O'Rourke Fellowship for Travel.

David Malley received a Graduate Research Partnership Program Fellowship and a CLA Thesis Research Fellowship for 2009-10.

Colleen McCarthy received an O'Rourke Fellowship for Travel.

Edward McPherson won a Gesell Summer Writing Fellowship at the Anderson Center.

Heather McPherson received an O'Rourke Fellowship for Travel.

Josh Morsell won a Marcella DeBourg Fellowship and a Gesell Summer Writing Fellowship at the Anderson Center. He received an O'Rourke Fellowship for Travel.

Josh Ostergaard has a chapter called "Toward a More Inclusive Approach to Participation: The Varieties of Art Experiences" (with Alaka Wali) in Audiences and the Arts: Communication Perspectives, edited by Lois Foreman-Wernet and Brenda Dervin (Hampton Press, 2009).

Kate Petersen's "Suffolk Downs" was published in Hobart Pulp. "State and Milk" was published in the Fall 2010 issue of The Pinch.

Adriane Quinlan published part of a memoir about her job as a speed typist for the Ministry of Propaganda during the 2008 Olympics in the literary journal N+1.

Claire Stanford won a Gesell Award for Excellence in Fiction. She received a CLA Thesis Research Fellowship for 2009-10.

25345|25177|31828 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 11:46:47 -0600 http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2010/12/mfa-alumnaei-news.html 263356

Maureen Aitken (MFA 1997) won a 2010 Minnesota State Arts Board Grant.

Swati Avasthi (MFA 2010) received a silver Parents' Choice Award for her debut novel Split (Knopf, 2010). She also won a 2010 Minnesota State Arts Board Grant.

Roseanne Bane (MA 1990) published the article, "The Writer's Brain: What Neurology Tells Us About Teaching Writing" in Creative Writing: Teaching Theory and Practice.

Marge Barrett (MFA 2005) took second place in Fine Lines' 55-word fiction contest. She published work in Talking Stick, Plains Song Review, and The State We're In (Minnesota Historical Society Press).

Emily Bright (MFA 2008) published the poem "Monsoon" in the June 2010 issue of the Pedestal Magazine.

Matt Burgess (MFA 2009) published his novel Dogfight, A Love Story (Doubleday), which was named a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Pick. Publishers Weekly listed it as a "Top 10 Most Promising Debut" for fall 2010.

Charles Conley (MFA 2006) is the recipient of a 2010 grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation, for use traveling and writing in South America. He also received a fellowship to the Sozopol Fiction Seminars in Bulgaria in May.

Sara Culver (MFA 2010) won the AWP Intro Award for her story "First-Order Differential Equations." It will be published in Puerto del Sol.

Meryl DePasquale (MFA 2010) won a 2010 Minnesota State Arts Board Grant.

Benjamin Doty (MFA 2010) won a 2010 Minnesota State Arts Board Grant. He also published the poem "My Girl, Daisy Cutter" in Tattoo Highway, and a short story in Issue 15 of Front Porch. His short story "Proud of you no matter what" appears in the anthology Sharp Sticks, Driven Nails from the Dublin-based journal the Stinging Fly.

Matt Duffus (MFA 2005) took second in New Ohio Review's 2010 fiction contest (judged by Ann Beattie and Stephen Dunn) for "The Soprano at Midlife."

Ellen Dworsky (MFA 2004) published the memoir, "Walking Away," in The Truth about the Fact: International Journal of Literary Nonfiction (Spring 2010).

Kevin Fenton (MFA 2005) won the Associated Writing Programs award for the novel for Merit Badges. New Issues Press will publish it in spring 2011.

Emily Freeman (MFA 2008) had her story "The Critic" included in Best New American Voices 2010 (edited by Dani Shapiro). She won a 2010 Minnesota State Arts Board Grant.

Julie Gard (MFA 2000) published prose poetry in Ekphrasis and Gertrude, experimental nonfiction in Press 53's anthology What Doesn't Kill You, and a short-short story in Tattoo Highway.

Kathleen Glasgow (MFA 2002) won a 2010 Minnesota State Arts Board Grant.

Erin Hart (MA 1995) published her third novel False Mermaid (Scribner) in March 2010. It was included in Booklist's "Top Ten Crime Novels of 2010."

Kate Hopper (MFA 2005) published "Becoming a Sanvicenteña: Five Stages" in Brevity #32.

Nicole Johns (MFA 2006) published poems in Evening Street Review. Her memoir Purge: Rehab Diaries was a finalist for ForeWord's Book of the Year.

Carla Elaine-Johnson (MFA 2007) has been accepted into the Givens Black Writers Collaborative Retreat Program for 2010. There will be a writers' performance in May 2011.

Cheri Johnson (MFA 2005) won the Second Year Winter Fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown for 2010-11. She has also been hired as a fiction reader at the literary magazine Our Stories, where every story submitted receives feedback from a staff member. Her novel excerpt "In San Jacinto" was published in the Fall/Winter 2009-10 issue of Cerise Press.

Stephanie Johnson (MFA 2005) published her debut collection of poetry, Kinesthesia, with New Rivers Press.

Priscilla Kinter (MFA 2010) publishes "The Myth of the Prose Poem" in issue 8 of Sentence. Her essays "Good Idea #3: peanut butter" and "Measurement of a Man" appear in the fall 2010 issue of South Loop Review: Creative Nonfiction + Art. The former essay received an Honorable Mention in Fourth Genre's essay contest.

Alex Lemon (MFA 2004) was featured in Esquire magazine's 2010 "Best and the Brightest" issue. He published the memoir Happy (Scribner, 2009) and his fourth poetry collection Fancy Beasts (Milkweed, 2010).

Katie Leo (MFA 2009) was named a 2010-11 Loft Mentor Series winner in Creative Nonfiction and won a 2010 Minnesota State Arts Board Grant. She has two poems in the inaugural issue of Flying Fish.

Laurie Lindeen (MFA 2005) published a craft essay in Columbia College's literary journal Fictionary.

Gayla Marty (MFA 1997) published the nonfiction book, Memory of Trees, with the University of Minnesota Press.

Michelle Mathees (MFA 2001) is the recipient of a 2010 McKnight/ARAC grant, and her collection Served was a finalist for the 2010 Stephen Dunn Prize in Poetry. She published poems in Pank, Pemmican, and Merge.

Michael Medrano (MFA 2006) published the poems "The Dream" and "Federico, You Worry Me" in the Cortland Review #46.

Scott Muskin (MFA 1998) was a finalist for a Minnesota Book Award for his novel The Annunciations of Hank Meyerson, Mama's Boy and Scholar.

Margie Newman (MFA 2003) received a 2010 SASE/Jerome Grant.

Kevin O'Rourke (MFA 2010) published the poem "Of a Certainty" in 580 Split. His poem "Impedimenta" was in the Brooklyn Review.

Wilson Peden (MFA 2010) won the Gesell Award for Excellence in Literary Nonfiction.

Luke Pingel (MFA 2009) accepted a position as Assistant Professor of English at St. Catherine University in St. Paul. An excerpt from his poetry manuscript A Stream, a Raincoat and a Tattooed Silhouette was published by the North American Review.

Karen Rigby (MFA 2004) published poems in ep;phany and Mid-American Review. She co-edits Cerise Press, which was named in Best of Magazines 2009 by the Library Journal.

Mike Rollin (MFA 2007) received a 2010 SASE/Jerome Grant and a 2010 Minnesota State Arts Board Grant.

Shantha Susman (MFA 2010) won a 2010 Minnesota State Arts Board Grant. She also won a Gesell Award for Excellence in Fiction.

Dominic Saucedo (MFA 2002) joined the faculty at Minneapolis Community and Technical College teaching Composition and Creative Writing. He published a novel excerpt, "The Train," in the Summer 2010 Cerise Press. He also has a story in Breakwater Review.

Christine Sikorski (MFA 1997) was awarded a grant through the VSA arts of Minnesota Career Advancement Grant Program. The 14th annual competitive grant, funded by the Jerome Foundation, recognizes excellence by Minnesota artists with disabilities. Sikorski will publish her chapbook of poems titled How the Earth Once Felt.

Alyson Sinclair (MFA 2007) published two poems in the summer 2010 issue of Tin House. She was recently a runner-up/honorable mention in the 92nd St Y "Discovery" Boston Review Contest.

Joyce Sutphen (MA 1996) published the poetry collection First Words (Red Dragonfly, 2010).

Francine Marie Tolf (MFA 2006) received Honorable Mention in Nimrod's International Pablo Neruda Poetry Contest. Her memoir Joliet Girl was published by North Star Press of St. Cloud, and her first collection of poetry Rain, Lilies, Luck is out with Antrim House Press. She also was awarded a grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation and has been offered a residency by Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, IL. Her essay "Toby and Sheeba and Turning Fifty" was published in Mary Magazine, and an excerpt from Joliet Girl appeared in Green Hills Literary Lantern.

Holly Vanderhaar (MFA 2010) published the lyric essay "Blood" in South Loop Review: Creative Nonfiction + Art.

Michael Walsh (MFA 2006) published The Dirt Riddles (University of Arkansas Press, 2010), winner of the inaugural Miller Williams Poetry Prize. His poem "Ear, Skin and Bone Riddles" was the basis for new work by Dr. Marcos Balter, Director of Composition Studies at Columbia College Chicago, premiered at Heaven Gallery in Chicago in May.

Shana Youngdahl (MFA 2006) received a mini-grant from the Iowa Arts Council while working on her poem "Of Nets," which was published by Gendun.

25345|25177|31828 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 11:45:12 -0600

Newly named Distinguished McKnight University Professor John Watkins

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2010/12/swift-water.html 263325

"Something that's happened in history departments that I think could productively happen in literary departments is: stop thinking about land masses and start thinking about waterways," declares Professor of English John Watkins. "The world changes drastically. And you get a very different kind of literary history."

That Watkins is already on board with that perspective is obvious not only in his scholarship but in his process and how he envisions it. Interviewed in Lind Hall this past summer, Watkins reveals: "There's a tendency among humanists to think about their work in terms of 'There's this book, followed by this book, followed by this book.' I think of my work in more of a social scientist model, which is in terms of streams."

Although Watkins admits wryly that he is "technically the Shakespeare-Renaissance guy," his interests in Medieval history and the classics have led him to "always" question periodization, resulting in projects such as the boundary-crossing book he co-edited with Curtis Perry, Shakespeare and the Middle Ages (Oxford University Press, 2009). What he describes as his "main stream"--diplomacy and interstate relations--can branch into a collaboration, say, with historian Carol Levin investigating how Shakespeare configures images of foreigners and of the "foreigner" within, culminating in the book Shakespeare's Foreign Worlds: National and Transnational Identities in the Elizabethan Age (Cornell University Press, 2009). Or it can run through his current primary project, investigating marriage diplomacy from Virgil to Marie Antoinette.

Such works, along with his charismatic and provocative teaching (he's won every undergraduate teaching award available), are reasons the University of Minnesota last spring named Watkins a Distinguished McKnight University Professor. The award goes to the University's greatest-achieving mid-career faculty, and is second only to Regents Professor as the highest prize for faculty here. He also received the University's McKnight Land-Grant Professorship and was a CLA Scholar of the College (2004-07).

A less visible achievement, perhaps, is Professor Watkins' success as a dissertation director. In a dismal academic job market, his advisees have a remarkable record of tenure-track placement. Advisee Elizabeth Weixel also won the Graduate School's Best Dissertation in the arts and humanities last spring. Watkins attributes the students' accomplishments to the growing strength of Medieval and Early Modern here. "It's a large community," he stresses. "We have a lot of faculty members, ranging from Regents professors to some of the youngest members of the department, working within Early Modern and Medieval. The other thing I think is really important is that there is so much support within the college: the Center for Early Modern History, the Center for Medieval Studies. Our students are able to take courses in the period in a wide variety of disciplines: in history, in French and Italian, in German studies, so they're getting a tremendous education.

"And in general there have been enough graduate students," he continues, "there has been a critical mass, so they have an intellectual life above and beyond the faculty. There is the Medieval and Early Modern Research Group, which is very much student owned and operated. Where they can have exchanges but not have direct faculty presence. They need to find their own language. As someone who has strong interests in Montessori education, this sounds right to me: that there are times when your job is to shut up and get out of the way."

Linda Shenk (PhD 2002) is an assistant professor at Iowa State University who this year published Learned Queen: The Image of Elizabeth I in Politics and Poetry, a book based on her dissertation with Watkins. "In some ways, I owe my entire career to John," she writes via email. "I had the kind of first semester that made me unsure as to whether or not I wanted to continue, but the work I started to pursue with his encouragement that semester led not only to my dissertation but also to my book. I marvel at his amazing mind and clever wit, but what I appreciate most, as his former student, is his ability to give students the intellectual support they need so that they challenge themselves."

To a certain extent, Watkins is providing the kind of direction he wishes he experienced in graduate school at Yale University. Raised in Hot Springs, Arkansas, Watkins earned his BA in English at Indiana University with major coursework in French, German, and history. Then he received a Marshall Scholarship, one of 30 given that year in the United States to study in Britain. He went to Oxford University for two years, where, he recalls, they sent him to the library, and he "read like crazy." He loved it. He still chairs the Rhodes-Marshall selection committee annually here.

His Oxford tutor, John Pitcher, assigned him the topic that would jumpstart his career. "It was a standard Oxford thing," he relates, falling into a mid-Atlantic drawl: "'I want you to go out and think about Spenser and Virgil. Think about the Aenied, and what it would be like to read the Aenied in 16th century Ireland.' The way it worked, you would read for a couple of weeks, and the day before you met with your tutor, you'd write the essay. I was up all night thinking, 'What the heck am I going to write tomorrow?' Deep in the night I started seeing a pattern about female abandonment, and I suddenly realized that what's driving this form is 'How on earth do you take an epic model that is focused in so many ways on female abandonment--you have to leave Dido to go to Rome--how on earth do you turn that model into a compliment to Elizabeth I?' And that became my first book."

After receiving his Oxford MA, Watkins sprinted through his Yale PhD coursework in a year and a half so he could focus on writing his dissertation, which was published by Yale University Press as The Specter of Dido: Spenser and Virgilian Epic in 1995. While in New Haven, he met fellow graduate student Andrew Elfenbein, now his partner, a colleague in the Department of English, and the co-parent of a 12-year-old son who may know more than he wants to about the study of English literature. "Andy's doing an edition of Dracula," says Watkins, "and we're now all proofreading it 30 minutes a night together. This is of course family reading time, so we're also all reading it aloud." [Professor Elfenbein's Dracula was published by Longman Cultural Editions in October.]

Such collaborations come easily to Watkins, who not only co-authored and co-edited those recent books, but regularly co-teaches courses with colleagues in history and in French and Italian. "I think there's a reason I write on diplomacy," he grants. "I'm really interested in what happens when you bring things into dialogue. It's a way that you keep growing yourself."

Water is a restless creature, after all, its nature movement. In a video interview, Watkins speaks more fully about his book projects. He also talks about book-writing as an adventure in "self-ing," in creating self-hood. "You become a different person in the books that you write," he claims. "The person who wrote the Spenser book probably would not have liked the book on marriage, wouldn't have known what to make of it. . . . It's that inquiry of new possibilities of personhood."

A dedicated traveler, Watkins' favorite city is Venice, one of the world's wateriest. Professor Shenk likens the research process he models to strolling in that city: "You put your map in your backpack so that you can go down pathways that interest you," she explains, "and often you discover things that you never imagined. I thank John for teaching me that mentoring is giving my graduate students their individual Venices to explore."

25177|25344|31828 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 10:38:40 -0600

What the CLA 2015 Report means for English

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2010/12/a-department-of-distinction.html 263313

by Ellen Messer-Davidow

What is the identity of a department whose faculty members write novels and scholarly books, compose libretti and hypertexts, design web-based courses and conference posters, and parse philosophical treatises and Creole idioms? What binds their research and teaching on medieval gardens and modern pulp fiction, Renaissance diplomatic practices and Victorian dictionary illustrations, early Moroccan political thought and contemporary eco-criticism, Asian-American theater and ladies' Shakespeare clubs? With this diversity of interests, is the Department of English at the cutting edge of our discipline or is it just a CLA unit that houses a bunch of iconoclasts? Why are we even thinking about department identity?

The answer, to be a little crass, is money. For several years, virtually all American universities and colleges have been caught in a fiscal crunch--pinched on one ledger by the inexorably rising costs of facilities maintenance, energy, new technology, library acquisitions, and health care benefits for students and employees, and squeezed on the other side of the ledger by declining revenues from state and federal governments, investments, and private sources. Then beginning in 2008 the recession triggered a nasty pauperization spiral: American families lost their jobs and homes, tax revenues fell, and states were plunged into budget deficit sink-holes, causing them to slash their appropriations to higher education and everything else.

In 2009, CLA Dean James Parente established the 2015 Committee, consisting of faculty, staff, and students, and charged it with providing recommendations on "how CLA should reorganize for a better academic future and whether CLA will have the resources to continue as a major research institution." The committee's final report, released in November 2010, concludes that we must be a more distinguished but smaller college. (The report is available online.)

So on one hand, the report asks all departments and programs to consider how they can be more interdisciplinary, more global, more student-centered, and more engaged in order to be more distinctive and distinguished among our peer institutions. But on the other hand, it reveals that CLA has borne the brunt of University budget cutting. From FY08 through FY 11 (academic years 2007-08 through 2010-11), all other colleges enjoyed increases ranging from $1 million to $6 million, while CLA alone experienced cuts of $8.7 million. The $8.7 million could have funded 50 faculty members, 80 teaching assistants, and a small number of professional teaching and administrative staff.

The Department of English has shared the pain. For FY10, English took a cut of $128,000 or five percent of the base budget; and for FY11, we took another cut of $111,378 or five percent of the base budget. These are recurring, not temporary, cuts that in concrete terms mean not replacing faculty and staff members who retire, reducing TA positions available to graduate students, and skimping on equipment and supplies.

Fortunately, we have many strengths on which to build a "new English" that meets the criteria articulated by CLA. We have a tradition of student-centered teaching, as can be seen in this issue's articles on inspirational faculty members--our recently retired Professors Michael Dennis Browne and Edward Griffin, as well as our Distinguished McKnight University Professor John Watkins. Watkins has not only produced acclaimed scholarship in the field of Early Modern Studies but participates in the community of Medieval and Early Modern Studies formed by faculty and students in the department and across the University.

Newly promoted Associate Professor Omise'eke Tinsley, celebrating the publication of her first book, is a part of a growing group interested in diaspora literature and theory. Two assistant professors, also authors of first books, work in multi-national fields: Tony C. Brown studies Enlightenment encounters between the Old and New Worlds, and Siobhan Craig analyzes post-World War II "rubble" films produced in Italy, France, Germany, and the United States.

English major Moira Pirsch, who will graduate in December, has been so deeply committed to community service and university leadership that she received three prestigious awards: the President's Student Leadership and Service Award, the University of Minnesota Alumni Association Student Leadership Award, and selection as the student speaker at CLA's December Commencement. Hard to top that performance! But credit for outreach must also go to Lecturer Eric Daigre who oversees our public engagement component consisting of service learning courses and community internships.

The Creative Writing Program, now in its 14th year, consistently ranks in the top 20 MFA programs nationally. Prolific graduates such as Swati Avasthi, who published one novel while a student and completed a second for her degree, have contributed to the program's prominence. Speaking of distinguished writers, the department is hosting CLA Winton Chair Nuruddin Farah. This acclaimed novelist, who is teaching students in English and other fields from 2010-12, just mounted a staged reading of a new play in the Twin Cities and will also be the guest speaker at CLA's December Commencement.

For some years, department faculty and supporters have been working hard to give the department a home of its own in the historic Pillsbury Hall. Professor Shirley Garner and Regents Professor Madelon Sprengnether have been leading this initiative.

Meanwhile, this year alone generous donors endowed the Gesell Award for Creative Writing and boosted two funds--the Michael Dennis Browne Fellowship Fund and the Edward M. Griffin Fellowship Fund--to the $25,000 mark, making them eligible for a 21st Century Graduate Fellowship Match that will double the principal. Even the printing of this newsletter was made possible by a generous donor.

For your faith in us and in the important skills of close reading, careful analysis, and cogent writing that we foster in our students--we thank you. Please continue to help us as we strive to be a department of distinction in CLA and the world. You are welcome to share your thoughts with me by sending an e-mail to emd@umn.edu or to donate online through the University of Minnesota Foundation.

25177|25343|31828 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 10:35:57 -0600

BA alumnus Scott Z. Burns rocks Hollywood

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2010/12/i-will-dare.html 263342



Quick: what Hollywood director, screenwriter, and producer (of an Oscar-winning movie) was raised in a Minneapolis inner-ring suburb? Joel or Ethan Coen, right?

Not so fast. The suburb was Golden Valley, not St. Louis Park, and the man in question is a summa cum laude 1985 graduate of the Department of English. Meet Scott Z. Burns, co-writer of the action film The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), co-producer of the Academy Award-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth (2006), and writer of Steven Soderbergh's The Informant! (2009) and current project Contagion (2011).

The latter, a multi-narrative story in the Traffic mold with a cast of Oscar-toting leads--Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Marion Cotillard--is already being touted as an Oscar 2012 frontrunner. Part of it takes place in, yes, Minnesota. "I still very much define myself as a Minnesotan," says a cheerful Burns, phoning from his home in Venice, California. "My whole upbringing there really plays a big role in my work, I think."

The Minnesota work ethic was part of the takeaway, Burns claims. "To get better at writing you need to keep doing it. If you want to do this for a living, you just gotta put your butt in the chair every morning." He laughs. "And hang on for your life."

But there were more specific assists from his home state. "I'm going to shamelessly plug the U," he warns. A dropout of Golden Valley High School, he managed to satisfy requirements to get into the University without getting his GED. ("I hope they don't take my degree away.") Unlike Golden Valley at that time, the U provided opportunities to meet people from different countries, with different politics, and similar enthusiasm for music, theater, and the arts.

Burns commuted from the family home for awhile, imagining that he would eventually transfer elsewhere. He thought he would be a humanities or anthropology major. But the English credits kept piling up. "I think from the time I was in grade school in Golden Valley I always wanted to write," he confesses. "I didn't really believe that I would be allowed to. It seemed like the kind of job that existed in another century. It was like telling people you were going to be a silversmith."

But Burns' professors began to tease out that secret ambition. "Tom Clayton was my Shakespeare professor, and he had a picture of Shakespeare on one wall and of The Clash on the other," Burns describes. "I think it was the first time that I began to connect the things that people study to contemporary culture. Once he showed me that bridge I found that there was a way of integrating my fascination with [Minneapolis artists] The Replacements and Hüsker Dü or Prince--there was a way of beginning to see that you could connect that and literature."

Burns reflects for a moment. "Tom was the person who encouraged me and supported my candidacy as a Rhodes Scholar, and although that didn't get far, it was very valuable to me to be seen by someone who was a Rhodes Scholar and was such a respected academic. He had a huge influence on my life." Regents Professor Clayton remembers Burns as "bright, inventive, witty, and challenging, a stimulating presence in class."

Burns decided to enroll in the Literature in London Program that Professor Clayton administered. After his return, he wrote for the Minnesota Daily. He took a class from Professor of English Art Geffen on comedy, and Geffen became his summa adviser on a thesis consisting of a short story. "Again, he was someone who began to make literature more of a living experience for me," Burns notes. Burns finally asked the question out loud--can one profitably pursue a career in the arts?--and humanities professor Pauline Yu told him it was possible, if one worked at a very high level.

So he went into copywriting. "Advertising," he remembers, "was a baby step in the direction of having a career that was based on creativity and desire to make art." He did it at a high level. Burns was the copywriter in the initial 1993 California "Got Milk?" campaign, which won multiple industry awards for the agency Goodby Silverstein and Partners. He expanded into directing commercials. And, he says, "I got really lucky."

Through another Minnesotan, Burns met Peter Berg, who had gone to Macalaster College; they became friends. Berg was just beginning his directing career, after years as an actor on Chicago Hope. On a vacation, he stole Burns' journal and read it. "At one point he said to me, 'Are you going to write commercials all your life?'" Then Berg offered Burns a writing job on his TV series Wonderland. While the series was critically lauded, it didn't last. "We didn't until late in the game realize that maybe having a more consistent voice and a better sense of serialized shows would have helped us," Burns notes dryly. "Peter seems to have figured that out with Friday Night Lights."

It didn't much matter. Burns connected with producer Lawrence Bender and activist Laurie David, and they went on to make An Inconvenient Truth with director Davis Guggenheim. He met Soderbergh, who produced, along with Berg and George Clooney, Burns' first directing/writing effort PU-239, for HBO. He shared writing credits on Paul Greengrass' The Bourne Ultimatum, which grossed over $442 million worldwide. And he adapted The Informant! for Soderbergh, which earned a Golden Globe nomination for star Matt Damon.

Burns has several film scripts cooking besides Contagion. But he's also got another plan. "I haven't written a novel yet," he reports enthusiastically. "I would love to. There's now a file on my desktop that I can go to and add a page or a paragraph.

"I just met [novelist] Nick Hornby, and he's sort of demystifying it for me," Burns continues, "telling me that I won't find it to be such a foreign land if I just . . . go there." He takes a deep breath. "I think that's what I've been trying to work my way back to the whole time."

25177|25344|31828 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 10:32:44 -0600

CLA Fall Commencement Speaker Moira Pirsch describes how she "came alive" at the University

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2010/12/learning-to-live.html 263366

English major Moira Pirsch has done so much for English and for the University that we nominated her for a President's Student Leadership and Service Award, which she won (one of 30 undergraduate honorees). She went on to receive a University of Minnesota Alumni Association Student Leadership Award (one of eight honorees). She served as a peer counselor and a presenter at the First Annual English Undergraduate Student Conference last spring, among other activities she describes below. Moira graduates December 2010: She is the College of Liberal Arts Commencement student speaker. Get ready, world.

by Moira Pirsch

"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." -- Howard Thurman

The first time I performed a piece of poetry was in a stuffy classroom in my high school in Madison, Wisconsin. The school brought poets from San Francisco to run a writing workshop and poetry performance. I went to see the performance and ended up writing a poem for myself. Afterward, a mentor came up to me and said, "You're gonna share your piece, right?" And without thinking much, I did. I was extremely nervous, shaking and almost crying.

At the end of the day, a fellow student stopped me in the hallway and professed timidly, "What you did up there, that was really cool. I don't know if I could ever do something like that." At that moment, I realized that performance poetry isn't only about performing something for an audience, it's about communicating with that audience, and helping that audience grow into community. That day, during that awkward exchange in the hallway, I came alive.

I went on to be the president of my high school's spoken word club, but if you had told me then that by the time I was 21 I would have performed in front of 1000 people and traveled across the country to share my work, I never would have believed you.

All my life, I was encouraged to attend the University of Minnesota. I heard stories about my grandfather living in Pioneer Hall in 1930, my parents' courtship on the West Bank, and my older brother finding his passion for biology and animal behavior research there.

When I moved to Minnesota to attend the U, I wasn't prepared for how difficult the transition would be. Freshman year, I found myself feeling unhappy in my classes, having trouble finding people with similar interests, and being too shy to really break the mold of what advisers and professors were suggesting for me.

Frustrated, I remembered that feeling of coming alive I had when I was in high school. I sought out the spoken word community, where I was introduced to the MN Spoken Word Association. I soon began working as a Youth Programs Intern there, organizing a youth poetry competition or "Slam" series. Through my work with Twin Cities youth, I was able to build relationships and define my place as part of this community.

Also during my freshman year, I discovered the Community Service-Learning Center at the U. The CSLC informed me about HECUA's Writing for Social Change Program, where I fell in love with experiential learning. It was in HECUA that I first heard about Eric Daigre's service learning class ENGL 3741 Literacy and American Cultural Diversity [where students volunteer with community organizations two hours a week beyond their studies]. That class gave me the confidence to become more involved in my community. I was able to feel extremely connected to my instructor and peers, because we shared experiences that happened outside of school. I was able to apply readings I previously was uninterested in to my experiences and see them in a new, necessary light. Because we used the world as one of our textbooks, I better understood my place in this world.

I also began to work with the U's spoken word student organization Voices Merging. In 2009-10, I became president. Twice a month, Voices Merging hosts open mics in the lecture hall assigned to medical students, Moos Tower. At each open mic, over 400 diverse students and community members come together to share their stories and listen to one another. This past year, Voices Merging (with the generous help of departments and organizations) raised over $60,000 and presented a national hip hop conference "From Vices to Verses," where over 750 people attended workshops, performances, and discussions centered on how hip hop pedagogy, activism, and culture can educate, empower, and transform communities. [The conference was co-sponsored by English, and Professor Geoffrey Sirc participated on a panel.]

Through these experiences, I gained a clearer sense of what it is that makes me come alive. I began taking classes I wanted to learn from (not just those in my major) and exploring opportunities that presented themselves (including the Community Engagement Scholars Program, National Student Exchange, the DirecTrack to Teaching Program, and UROP). More importantly, I became dedicated to integrating my passions into every aspect of my life; I became determined to come alive in every class, every job, every relationship.

Soon I will be moving on to join many other future teachers in graduate school. I am excited and have faith that my next adventure will help me further discover and define my passions. My little brother shared this quote by Confucius with me the other day, "Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life." I plan on it.

Here is a video of Moira performing one of her poems.

25177|25344|31828 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 10:31:31 -0600

Associate Professor Tinsley looks at same-sex desire in Caribbean literature

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2010/12/omiseeke-tinsley.html 263376

Associate Professor of English Omise'eke Natasha Tinsley is teaching a freshmen seminar on Post-Colonial and Anti-Racist Coming of Age Narratives this fall. Her introductory bio for students notes that when Tinsley was a girl, she wanted to be a writer, dancer, and mother--all of which goals, Tinsley writes, she still finds exciting. In recent years, the California native has performed with the Twin Cities modern Indian dance company Ananya Dance Theatre. She has a baby daughter. And last summer she published her first book, the elegantly incisive Thiefing Sugar: Eroticism Between Women in Caribbean Literature (Duke University Press).

"The book started in some ways from an answer I got in 1996," Tinsley recalls, "when I asked a prominent professor of Caribbean lit about titles in Caribbean 'lesbian' literature. She told me that that didn't exist in the Caribbean, probably because homosexuality didn't exist in Africa until European colonization. I knew all of that was wrong but couldn't prove it . . . and so started to be on the lookout for evidence not only that same-sex desire existed and had been given words in the Caribbean, but that there was a long-rooted tradition of both."

Moving from early 20th century Afro-Surinamese mati song performances to contemporary Caribbean-Canadian poet Dionne Brand, Tinsley investigates texts in which women writers "redeploy" woman-as-nature tropes to imagine the landscape and other women belonging not to a colonial master but to themselves. During the writing process, Tinsley met some unique challenges: "First, really thinking more and more deeply about what 'woman' means in an African diaspora context," Tinsley explains, "how chattel slavery changes the stakes of reclaiming that word, how radically and powerfully it becomes divorced from biology. And, second, rethinking what it means to write academic prose: trying to find pleasure in the prose, to look for how to make a sentence beautiful . . . to write creatively about creative texts."

That she has succeeded is clear in the words of prominent Caribbean anthropologist Gloria Wekker, who calls Thiefing Sugar "[l]uscious, abundant, and rich." Next up for Tinsley, who was promoted with tenure last spring, is the monograph Desiring the Blue Lagoon: Sea Crossings and Fluid Identities in Caribbean Literature, which focuses on contemporary Caribbean authors. She is also venturing into fiction writing, with a novel in progress about women shipbuilders in World War II.

25177|25344|31828 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 10:15:47 -0600

Nelson (PhD 1979) is on a mission to make poetry accessible

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2010/12/marilyn-nelson.html 263384

The poet Marilyn Nelson (PhD 1979), visiting Minneapolis in May to give a reading at Open Book, turns to Professor of English John Wright at dinner beforehand. "John, weren't you the one who called your dissertation a 'ticky tacky'?"

"What a memory!" exclaims Wright (BEE Electrical Engineering, MA English, PhD American Studies 1977). "Guilty as charged."

"I've told so many students that," says Nelson, Professor Emerita of English at the University of Connecticut, Storrs. "It takes some of the pressure off."

Nelson, formerly Waniek, seems to enjoy subverting intimidating systems. In the five years (2001-2006) she was Poet Laureate of Connecticut, she made it her mission to bring poetry into everyday life. She convinced publishers to donate poetry anthologies, inserted book plates, and placed them in dentist and doctor offices ("People don't want to read Good Housekeeping"). She raised money for nonprofits by auctioning off her writing skills for wedding and birthday poems ("It's a service poets should provide"). She spent three years writing poems about Connecticut state history (the award-winning Miss Crandell's School for Young Ladies and Little Misses of Color is a sonnet collection with Elizabeth Alexander about an 1833-34 school that welcomed African-American girls).

Two of Nelson's poetry collections, Homeplace and The Fields of Praise, were finalists for National Book Awards. She has won NEA, Guggenheim, and Fulbright fellowships. But she has always also written for children, including the 2001 Boston Globe/Hornbook Award-winning Carver: A Life in Poems (another National Book Award finalist). While in Minneapolis, she enthuses about two recent school visits, during which children wrote their own history poems after reading hers.

She is often approached, Nelson says, by people with half-written poems looking for advice. Poetry writing is far from dead; poetry reading needs a boost. To that end, she acquiesced to one of her poems being permanently etched above a urinal at the University of Pennsylvania. With a quick smile, she observes: "People have to find the right poem at the right time."

25177|25344|31828 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 09:36:34 -0600

The Graduate School's "Best Dissertation in the Arts & Humanities" winner

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2010/12/focus-on-alumni-elizabeth-weix.html 263457

Last spring, the Graduate School announced the four winners of the annual Best Dissertation Award. The winner of the arts and humanities division was Department of English alumna Elizabeth Weixel (PhD 2009) for her dissertation "The Forest and Social Change in Early Modern English Literature, 1580-1700," with Distinguished McKnight University Professor John Watkins as her adviser.

"It was quite a surprise and an honor," says Weixel, interviewed during summer leave from Western Kentucky University, where she is now Assistant Professor of English.

Professor Watkins was not at all surprised. "Beth is fantastic," he declares emphatically. "She wrote a dissertation centered in the Early Modern period, but it had important resonances for people working on the Middle Ages, people working on the 18th century. She has a lot of stuff there about Medieval romance, but it looks forward to people like Pope. The dissertation was profoundly historical in the way she worked with the forest and the social life of the forest--the forest as a social construction. There was remarkable excellence."

Weixel returns the regard. "It's a privilege to work with John. He knew when to tell me things, when to direct me, and when to just let me figure things out on my own. I really appreciate that he had faith in me."

Weixel was on campus continuing her research, which began as a general interest in forests and trees and took shape through study of A Midsummer Night's Dream. She had learned that the term "forest" in Shakespeare's time didn't necessarily mean a space with trees; it was hunting land set aside for royalty. "I realized I needed to think of it as something that had legal boundaries and provisions for whether you could access it and what you could do in it." That knowledge changed how she thought about the play. "I'm interested in the ways that the power of the aristocracy was waning, albeit over a long period," she says, "and how the forest seemed to reflect that as different characters from different social ranks struggle within the forest."

She has since spent hours reading through period forest manuals, grounding her analysis of Dream, As You Like It, Milton's Paradise Regained, poems about country houses, and the sixth book of Spenser's Faerie Queene, a portion of which is published in the current Spenser Studies (Vol. 25), her first publication.

25177|25344|31828 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 08:18:14 -0600

You already know CLA and the U. You know that we proudly provide a 21st century education for thousands of Minnesotans, and we also make ground-breaking discoveries that improve peoples' lives. Not only are we a creator of highly-trained workers, but we also bring in nearly $1 billion in research grants that stimulate our state's economy.

Now how do we spread the word?

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2010/11/keeping-the-u-healthy.html 260546

This month's election resulted in 60 new legislators being elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives and Senate, one of the largest freshman classes in recent history. Chances are they are not as familiar as you are with all of the great things that the University of Minnesota and CLA do.

We need you to help us share University of Minnesota stories with our newly elected legislators. Sign up for our Legislative Network now, and you will be prompted to send occasional, time-sensitive messages to your elected officials telling them about how you support the U and that you want them to as well. It only takes about one minute to sign up, and maybe less than that to send a message while the Legislature is in session beginning in January.

The College of Liberal Arts and the U depend on the Minnesota Legislature to support our dual public education and research mission. And we depend on alumni like you to help us make our case.

18316 Wed, 17 Nov 2010 11:37:13 -0600

In spring and summer of 2010, courts around the country issued rulings on whether websites must reveal the identities of anonymous commenters in response to subpoenas, adding to the growing jurisprudence on an evolving legal problem. Meanwhile, a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling might limit First Amendment protection for anonymous online speech that can be considered "commercial speech."

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2010/09/online-anonymity-continues-to-1.html 247767

New Hampshire Supreme Court Favors Right to Speak Anonymously

On May 6, the New Hampshire Supreme Court followed a recent judicial trend toward protecting the identities of anonymous commenters under the First Amendment, ruling that a mortgage industry website did not have to remove a document it had published online or reveal the document's anonymous source or the identity of an anonymous website commenter.

In 2008, mortgage lender The Mortgage Specialists, Inc. sued Implode-Explode Heavy Industries, Inc., which operates the website The Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter (Implode-O-Meter), after the website published an article that detailed the New Hampshire Banking Department's administrative actions against The Mortgage Specialists and provided a link to a financial document the company had allegedly submitted to state banking authorities. On March 11, 2009, a New Hampshire state trial court granted The Mortgage Specialists' request that Implode-O-Meter remove the document and several posts by commenter "Brianbattersby" from its website, identify the source of the document, and disclose the identity of the commenter, pursuant to claims that publication of the document violated state laws and that the commenter's posts were false and defamatory.

In an opinion by Justice Carol Ann Conboy, the state Supreme Court vacated and remanded the lower court's order that Implode-O-Meter disclose the identity of "Brianbattersby," "including his full name, address, email address, phone number, and any other personal information [Implode-O-Meter] possesses." Conboy's opinion rejected the lower court's assertion that "the maintenance of a free press does not give a publisher a right to protect the identity of someone who has provided it with unauthorized or defamatory information." Instead, the Supreme Court ruled that New Hampshire trial courts must "strike the balance between a defamation plaintiff's right to protect its reputation and a defendant's right to exercise free speech anonymously." Accordingly, the court adopted a four-part test based on the New Jersey appellate court's ruling in Dendrite International, Inc. v. Doe Number 3, 775 A.2d 756 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 2001), a case that involved a corporation's motion to compel the disclosure of the identity of an anonymous online critic pursuant to a defamation claim. Under the Dendrite standard, courts must 1) require the plaintiff to attempt to notify anonymous commenters that they are the subject of a subpoena or application for an order of disclosure, 2) require the plaintiff to identify the exact statements that constitute actionable speech, 3) review the plaintiff's complaint to determine whether it has set forth a prima facie cause of action that can also withstand a motion to dismiss and provides sufficient evidence to support each claim, and 4) balance the defendant's First Amendment right of anonymous free speech against the strength of the prima facie case presented and the necessity for the disclosure of the anonymous defendant's identity to allow the plaintiff to properly proceed. The high court remanded the case back to the trial court for an application of the Dendrite test. The Mortgage Specialists, Inc. v. Implode-Explode Heavy Industries, Inc., 2010 N.H. LEXIS 41 (N.H. May 6, 2010)

The court also vacated and remanded the lower court's order that Implode-O-Meter identify the source of the document, and reversed the lower court's injunction prohibiting republication of the financial document and comments by "Brianbattersby." In ruling that Implode-O-Meter did not have to identify its anonymous source, the court cited New Hampshire's qualified common law journalist's privilege. "Although our cases discussing the newsgathering privilege have involved traditional news media, such as newspapers," Conboy wrote, "we reject Mortgage Specialists' contention that the newsgathering privilege is inapplicable here because Implode is neither an established media entity nor engaged in investigative reporting. ... The fact that Implode operates a website makes it no less a member of the press. ... Implode's website serves an informative function and contributes to the flow of information to the public. Thus, Implode is a reporter for purposes of the newsgathering privilege." The high court remanded the issue of whether the anonymous source should be disclosed, ordering the lower court to balance "the potential harm to the free flow of information that might result [from disclosure] against the asserted need for the requested information."

The court also ruled that the lower court's injunction was an unconstitutional prior restraint. Mortgage Specialists argued that publication of the financial document was illegal because it violated the confidentiality requirements of a state law pertaining to "investigations and reports of examinations by the banking department" and constituted an invasion of privacy, and because the "Brianbattersby" comments did not qualify for First Amendment protection because they were false and defamatory. Conboy cited numerous U.S. Supreme Court decisions that found that prior restraints violated the First Amendment "even when confidential information has allegedly been obtained unlawfully by the publisher," including Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697 (1931) and New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971) ("the Pentagon Papers case"). Conboy wrote that "Mortgage Specialists' interests in protecting its privacy and reputation do not justify the extraordinary remedy of prior restraint. While it may be true that Mortgage Specialists' loan information is 'confidential,' such information is certainly not more sensitive than the documents at issue in the Pentagon Papers case. Nor are the [document] and postings more inflammatory than the anti-Semitic publications at issue in Near."

Illinois Court Requires Disclosure

On June 1, a state appellate court in Illinois ordered Ottawa Publishing Co., publisher of the Ottawa, Ill. Times, to disclose the identity of a commenter on its website, Mywebtimes.com.

The decision reversed a trial court's ruling that granted the publisher's motion to dismiss Donald and Janet Maxon's pre-litigation petition for discovery. In fall 2008, the Maxons filed the petitions for discovery under Illinois Supreme Court Rule 224, which allows a would-be plaintiff to engage in discovery before filing a lawsuit to uncover the identity of "one who may be responsible in damages." The Maxons alleged that commenter "FabFive from Ottawa" had defamed them on Mywebtimes.com by claiming they had bribed a city commission, leading it to favor an ordinance that would allow bed and breakfasts to operate in residential areas. "FabFive from Ottawa"'s comments included, "How much is Don and Janet from another Planet paying [the commission] for [its] betrayal????"

In granting the publisher's motion to dismiss, the trial court applied a standard based on Dendrite and Doe v. Cahill, 884 A.2d 451 (Del. 2005), finding that the Maxons failed to state a prima facie cause of action for defamation because the commenter's statements were statements of opinion. The Illinois Appellate Court for the Third District ruled 2 to 1 to reverse the trial court's order.

Rejecting the lower court's finding that "FabFive from Ottawa"'s statements were opinions, Judge William E. Holdridge wrote that the majority found "nothing in the content or the forum to indicate that the allegations that the Maxons bribed a public official could not reasonably be interpreted as stating an actual fact," adding, "the mere fact that a statement of fact is couched in the rhetorical hyperbole of an opinion does not render it nonactionable."
Maxon v. Ottawa Publishing Co., 929 N.E.2d 666 (Ill. App. Ct. June 1, 2010)

Holdridge also wrote that since Rule 224 requires a trial court to ensure that the would-be plaintiff's petition 1) is verified, 2) states particular facts that would establish a cause of action, 3) seeks only the identity of the potential defendant and no other information, and 4) is subjected to a hearing, "trial courts in Illinois possess sufficient tools and discretion to protect any anonymous individual from any improper inquiry into his or her identity." Therefore, Holdridge argued, a separate analysis of the constitutional protections for anonymous speech using Cahill, Dendrite, or any other standard would be redundant and unnecessary.

"Moreover," Holdridge wrote, "given that there is no constitutional right to defame, we find no need for the additional requirements articulated in the Dendrite-Cahill test. ... [O]nce the petitioner has made out a prima facie case for defamation, the potential defendant has no first-amendment right to balance against the petitioner's right to seek redress for damage to his reputation, as it is well settled that there is no first-amendment right to defame."

Judge Daniel L. Schmidt dissented, saying that the majority "misse[d] the point" in its opinion because "the protection of the anonymity of speech is a separate issue from the defamatory nature of the speech. In other words, no one suggests that an anonymous speaker deserves a higher degree of protection from claims of defamation than an individual whose identity is known. Rather, it is the anonymity itself that is equally worthy of protection."

Schmidt wrote that the Dendrite-Cahill test "adds a crucial extra layer of protection to anonymous speech ... . The additional procedural requirements articulated in the Dendrite-Cahill test are not designed to protect defamatory anonymous speech. Rather, they are designed to protect the identity of those participating in nonactionable anonymous speech. Once an anonymous speaker's identity is revealed, it cannot be 'unrevealed.'" Schmidt also disagreed with the majority's decision that a reasonable person would construe the "FabFive from Ottawa" comments to be statements of fact, rather than "the venting of one's spleen by someone disgruntled by the decision of a local body politic."

Ottawa Publishing Co. attorney Michael Schmidt told the Bulletin July 23 that the newspaper chose not to appeal the case to the Illinois Supreme Court.

North Carolina Trial Courts Split on Whether to Unmask Commenters

A North Carolina trial court judge ruled August 16 that the Gaston Gazette did not have to disclose the identity of an anonymous commenter because the state's shield law protected that information.

According to Gaston County Superior Court Judge Calvin Murphy's order, the attorney for a murder suspect subpoenaed the Gazette and publisher Julie Moreno to reveal the identity of commenter "justicen2010." The Associated Press (AP) reported August 2 that, according to the newspaper's attorney, the comment included information related to a lie-detector test the murder suspect took.

In a three-page order, Murphy ruled that the suspect's attorney failed to overcome the qualified journalist's privilege established by N.C. Gen. Stat. § 8-53.11, which states "A journalist has a qualified privilege against disclosure in any legal proceeding of any confidential or nonconfidential information, document, or item obtained or prepared while acting as a journalist."

Murphy wrote that the commenter's identity qualified as "confidential information related to [t]he Gazette's and Moreno's newsgathering and news publishing activities" and "therefore, [t]he Gazette and Moreno have a qualified privilege against compelled disclosure of Internet posters' IP addresses, e-mail addresses, names, physical addresses, and other identifying information" they collect. North Carolina v. Mead, 10-CRS-2160 (Gaston Cty. Sup. Ct. June 28, 2010)

Murphy ruled that the suspect's attorney failed to show, as the statute requires, that the commenter's identity is "relevant and material to the proper administration of the legal proceeding for which the testimony or production is sought; cannot be obtained from alternate sources; and is essential to the maintenance of a claim or defense of the person on whose behalf the testimony or production is sought."

In an earlier case, on June 28, Vance County Superior Court Judge Howard E. Manning ordered the editor of a Henderson, N.C. community news blog to disclose the names and addresses of six commenters who allegedly defamed a candidate for county commissioner.

Jason A. Feingold, editor of the Home in Henderson blog, posted an article on Aug. 14, 2009 titled "Arrest made in elder abuse case" concerning the arrest of a woman who had subleased a house to eight tenants between ages 45 and 88. Feingold reported that living conditions in the house were extremely poor, and tenants were without electricity or running water. Commenters identified Thomas S. Hester, a former county commissioner and candidate for the same office, as the owner of the property, and criticized him for allowing the conditions in the house. The article and comments are available online at http://www.homeinhenderson.com/?p=9317. Hester filed a "John Doe" lawsuit for defamation against 20 of the commenters, and subpoenaed Feingold to disclose their identities.

In his June 28 order, Judge Howard E. Manning observed that under U.S. Supreme Court cases such as Buckley v. American Constitutional Law Foundation, 525 U.S. 182 (1999) and Talley v. California, 362 U.S. 60 (1960), "the right of free speech provided by the First Amendment is protected when the speech is anonymous" but "the right to speak anonymously, on the internet or anywhere, is not absolute and there is no right to freely defame other persons." Hester v. Jane or John Doe, 10-CVS-361 (Vance Cty. Sup. Ct. June 28, 2010)

Manning said the Dendrite standard "provides a reasoned step by step test of the complaint, some of which this Court will use in its determination." Ultimately, however, Manning's analysis eschewed central aspects of the Dendrite test, including a determination of whether the plaintiff presented a prima facie case for defamation, saying that to require a specific evidentiary showing would be "way too stringent and premature, especially where there is no dispute that the blogs were posted and that the blogs [sic] content are [sic] out there for all the world to read." Manning identified six statements that were libelous per se, or defamatory on their face, and ordered that the commenters be identified. The judge determined that the statements of 14 other commenters were not libelous "and despite their unflattering references, if any, to Hester, are protected by the First Amendment."

In his motion to quash the subpoena, Feingold had also argued that the commenters' identities were protected by North Carolina's shield law, but Manning did not address that issue.

9th Circuit Ruling Proposes Lower Standard for Commercial Speech

In a July 12, 2010 ruling on a procedural issue, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals suggested that the standard for unmasking an anonymous commenter could be lower when the commenter's speech qualifies as commercial speech, as opposed to "political, religious, or literary speech."

The underlying case involves a long-running dispute between Quixtar, Inc., also known as Amway, and Signature Management TEAM, LLC, (TEAM) which sells books, seminars, and motivational speaker appearances to Independent Business Operators (IBOs) selling Quixtar products. Quixtar has sued TEAM for tortious interference with contracts and business relations, alleging that TEAM carried out an online "smear campaign," encouraging IBOs to end their contracts with Quixtar. Quixtar has sought information about the identity of five anonymous online speakers allegedly responsible for criticizing Quixtar management, but a TEAM employee refused to identify them in his deposition. Quixtar claims that the online critics can be linked to TEAM and therefore support its claims of tortious interference.

The Nevada District Court applied the Cahill standard and ordered the TEAM employee to identify three of the five anonymous speakers. The anonymous speakers and Quixtar appealed to the Circuit Court to issue a writ of mandamus requiring the District Court to abandon its order. Quixtar asked that the District Court be compelled to order all five speakers to be identified; the anonymous speakers asked that the District Court be compelled to allow all the speakers to remain anonymous.

Writing for the 9th Circuit, Judge M. Margaret McKeown denied both parties' petitions, calling mandamus an "'extraordinary' remedy limited to 'extraordinary' causes." However, McKeown also wrote that the lower court's application of the Cahill standard for unmasking anonymous online speakers was "understandable," but "in the context of commercial speech balanced against a discretionary discovery order ... Cahill's bar extends too far."
In re: Anonymous Online Speakers, 2010 U.S. App. LEXIS 14166 (9th Cir. July 12, 2010)

McKeown characterized the anonymous online posts, which included allegations that Quixtar had "secretly ... acknowledged that its products are overpriced and not sellable," "refused to pay bonuses to IBOs in good standing" and "currently suffers from systemic dishonesty" as commercial speech, or "expression related solely to the economic interests of the speaker and its audience" as defined by Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission, 447 U.S. 557 (1980). In Central Hudson, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that truthful, non-misleading commercial speech is entitled to some First Amendment protection, but less than other constitutionally protected expression.

McKeown wrote that "in discovery disputes involving the identity of anonymous speakers, the notion that commercial speech should be afforded less protection than political, religious, or literary speech is hardly a novel principle" and that "we suggest that the nature of the speech should be a driving force in choosing a standard by which to balance the rights of anonymous speakers in discovery disputes." To support these propositions, McKeown cited Lefkoe v. Jos. A. Bank Clothiers, Inc., 577 F.3d 240 (4th Cir. 2009), a federal appeals court decision allowing the deposition of an anonymous speaker in a securities fraud class action, and Doe v. Reed, 103 S. Ct. 2811 (June 24, 2010), in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that individuals who sign referendum petitions generally do not have a constitutional right to keep their identities secret, but that courts should consider on a case-by-case basis whether a particular referendum presents unique circumstances requiring anonymity.

A July 20 Citizen Media Law Project (CMLP) blog post called the ruling "troubling" because "the court's sense of what qualifies as commercial speech seems unduly broad." The post observed that under the 9th Circuit's interpretation, almost any comment on any review website or "gripe site" could be considered "related solely to the economic interests of the speaker and its audience."

In a post on the Consumer Law & Policy Blog, attorney Paul Alan Levy observed that "it is not clear how the Ninth Circuit satisfied itself that the speech at issue was commercial. To be sure, it is commercial on Quixtar's theory of the case (derogatory comments posted by a rival for the purpose of stealing business), but the same could be said in any Cahill-type case--on the plaintiff's legal theory, the Doe's speech is unprotected by the First Amendment because, for example, it is false statements of fact made with actual malice. Yet that has never been enough to overcome the right of anonymous speech. Hopefully there was some basis in the record other than the plaintiff's say-so for finding the speech commercial."

The CMLP post extended Levy's point to argue that "[t]he court's circular reasoning could tilt the scales in favor of disclosure in every defamation case, where plaintiff[s] by definition claim that the speech in question is not entitled to any First Amendment protection at all. ... The whole point of the Dendrite and Cahill tests is to make sure that plaintiffs can support such allegations with at least some minimal factual basis before they get what they want."

- Patrick File
Silha Fellow and Bulletin Editor

25700|25658|29649 Mon, 13 Sep 2010 14:30:58 -0600

In Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association, the U.S. Supreme Court will address whether the First Amendment bars the state of California from restricting the sale of violent video games to minors. This year’s Silha Lecturer, Paul Smith, will argue on behalf of the video game dealers’ group in that case. Smith’s lecture, titled “Not Child’s Play: The Misguided Effort to Regulate Violent Video Games” will take place on Monday, Oct. 18, 2010.

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2010/09/silha-lecturer-paul-smith-to-d.html 247705

The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals struck down the California statute in February 2009, ruling that it was a constitutionally invalid content-based restriction on speech. The 9th Circuit ruling is Video Software Dealers Association v. Schwarzenegger, 556 F.3d 950, (9th Cir. 2009). At the 25th Annual Silha Lecture, Smith will discuss the constitutional challenges to regulating the media that minors consume and the case law precedent that could influence the future of those regulations.

Paul Smith is a partner in Jenner & Block’s Washington, D.C. office and a member of the firm’s Policy Committee. He is also Chair of the firm’s Appellate and Supreme Court, Creative Content, and First Amendment practices. Smith has had an active Supreme Court practice for many years, making oral arguments in 13 cases, including Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003) and United States v. American Library Ass’n, 539 U.S. 194 (2003). Smith also represents various clients in trial and appellate cases involving commercial and telecommunications issues, the First Amendment, intellectual property, and election law.

Smith graduated from Amherst College and Yale Law School, and clerked for Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell. In 2008, Legal Times listed him as one of 30 “Champions” of the past 30 years in Washington, D.C., honoring attorneys who uphold the profession’s core values of public duty and client service. In 2010, the National Law Journal named him one of the decade’s 40 most influential lawyers.

The Silha Lecture begins at 7:00 p.m. in Cowles Auditorium at the Hubert H. Humphrey Center on the West Bank Campus of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and will include an opportunity for audience Q&A. The event is free and open to the public. No reservations or tickets are required.

The Silha Center is based at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota. Silha Center activities, including the 25th annual lecture, are made possible by a generous endowment from the late Otto Silha and his wife, Helen.

- Sara Cannon
Silha Center Staff

25658|25704|30694 Mon, 13 Sep 2010 10:22:34 -0600

After 20 years at Fox affiliate KMSP (Fox 9), Twin Cities news anchor Robyne Robinson announced her retirement from broadcast journalism on May 11, 2010, shortly before being named gubernatorial candidate Matt Entenza’s running mate for lieutenant governor on May 27. The timing of Robinson’s departure, as well as Fox 9’s decision to allow her to remain on the air briefly without acknowledging the offer from the Entenza campaign, prompted criticism of both Robinson and her employer over a potential conflict of interest.

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2010/09/robinson-joins-campaign-critic.html 247701

Robinson announced on air on May 11 that she would leave her position as an anchor of Fox 9’s evening broadcast, “News at 9,” on May 26, citing her growing jewelry business, ROX Minneapolis, as the impetus behind her decision. By Monday, May 24, local media were reporting that Robinson was considering running on the gubernatorial ticket with Democrat Farmer-Labor (DFL) candidate Entenza, according to a May 25 post on the Minneapolis/St. Paul City Pages blog, The Blotter. By Monday afternoon, Robinson confirmed rumors that Entenza’s campaign had offered her the job, but said she had not made a decision, according to a May 24 story in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. A May 24 post on Fox 9’s website mentioned that Robinson was considering Entenza’s offer to run for lieutenant governor. However, that evening, Fox 9’s 5 p.m. news broadcast failed to report the offer, even as Robinson’s co-anchor, Jeff Passolt, presented a story about other gubernatorial candidates’ choices for running mates. During a broadcast the following night, on May 25, Passolt mentioned the offer from the Entenza campaign. On May 27, the day after Robinson’s final night as an anchor at Fox 9, Entenza made a formal announcement via Twitter that he had chosen Robinson as his running mate. Entenza dropped out of the race on August 10, after taking third in the state’s DFL primary.

In a May 25 post on the Minnesota news website MinnPost.com, David Brauer commented on Robinson’s confirmation that she had been offered the position, noting that Fox 9’s contracts forbid journalists to become involved in politics. In a May 25 story broadcast by Minneapolis television station WCCO, Jane Kirtley, the director of the Silha Center and professor of media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota, said that if Robinson’s plan was to become Entenza’s running mate, she should have left Fox 9 immediately. “I know she is scheduled to leave, but she should leave right now as an ethical matter,” Kirtley said. WCCO quoted a Fox spokesperson in New York speaking on behalf of Fox 9 who said, “there is a clear difference between being invited to be a candidate and announcing that you are a candidate.”

Brauer called the decision “the very definition of a conflict of interest,” identifying ethical mistakes Fox 9 made in its handling of the story before Robinson’s final night anchoring the news. “Robinson should be sidelined as long as she’s a political newsmaker in play,” Brauer wrote. He also wrote that Fox 9’s political reporter, Jeff Goldberg, should have pressed Robinson and the Entenza campaign for comment on early reports that she had been offered the position, and that Fox 9 should have been clearer and more straightforward in its coverage of all lieutenant governor choices.

In a May 26 post on the Star Tribune blog Artcetera, contributor Neal Justin wrote that, by aligning herself with Entenza, Robinson “showed her political colors as a Democrat.” Justin also wrote that Robinson undermined her credibility as a journalist by blurring the line between journalist and political campaigner in interviews she gave to other Twin Cities media prior to her departure. “The minute she said openly that she’d think about it should have been the minute Fox officials thanked her for her service and showed her the door,” Justin wrote.

Several media outlets, including City Pages, MinnPost, and the Star Tribune, identified another case that may have created a conflict of interest for Robinson. A March 29 story published online by City Pages said Robinson had designed jewelry for musician Beyonce Knowles. The story was written by Robinson’s publicist, Kate Iverson, but ran on the City Pages website without acknowledgment of Robinson and Iverson’s relationship. After the story attracted criticism, City Pages added a disclaimer that disclosed Iverson’s relationship with Robinson: “It came to light after this post ran that the author is Robinson’s publicist, but we are leaving the post online since it’s an informational interview and the disclosure has been made.”

In a May 25 story on The Blotter, Kelly McBride, a journalism ethics expert at the Poynter Institute, said Fox 9 should have hastened Robinson’s retirement once it learned she was considering Entenza’s offer. “While she’s making the decision, take her off the air, especially since she’s publicly known,” McBride said.

- Ruth DeFoster
Silha Research Assistant

25703|25658|30694 Mon, 13 Sep 2010 10:16:31 -0600

A Twin Cities magazine’s “outing” of a controversial anti-gay rights pastor in June 2010 focused national attention on the issue of whether, when, and how the news media should report on hypocrisy among outspoken critics of gay rights.

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2010/09/glbt-magazine-walks-perilous-e.html 247700

On June 18, 2010, Lavender magazine, a publication focused on the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered (GLBT) community in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, published a story “outing” Tom Brock, a pastor at Minneapolis’ Hope Lutheran Church, revealing that he attended a local anonymous support group for gay men “struggling with chastity.” In addition to preaching at Hope Lutheran, Brock hosts a radio program on KKMS AM 980, called “The Pastor’s Study,” where he has spoken out in opposition to same-sex marriage, and was a vocal opponent of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s 2009 decision to relax its rules on allowing gays to serve as clergy.

The cover of the June 18 issue of Lavender featured a photo of Brock accompanied by the headline “Anti-Gay Lutheran Pastor Protests Too Much.” The cover story revealed that reporter John Townsend had clandestinely joined a Catholic support group for “gay men struggling with chastity” that Brock attended in order to determine the truth about Brock’s sexuality. Lavender reported that the group is operated by an organization called Faith in Action, which it called “Minnesota’s official arm of the global Catholic gay-chastity-maintenance organization called Courage.” According to Lavender, Courage describes itself as a “twelve-step style” program, where membership is meant to remain secret as the men meet and discuss their faith and struggles with sexuality. The article detailed Brock’s behavior and comments in the meetings, as well as his admission that on a preaching mission in Slovakia he “fell into temptation.”

Townsend explained in the article that although “virtually everyone holds privacy sacred” in GLBT activism, “the exception is if someone in a public position of political, social, or theological influence engages in homosexual or transgender activity while at the same time denouncing the basic civil rights of GLBT citizens.” The article is available online at http://www.lavendermagazine.com/this-issue/featured-article/antigay-lutheran-pastor-protests-too-much/.

Within days of the article’s publication, Townsend’s ethics and those of Lavender Media President and CEO Stephen Rocheford were the focus of criticism. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported on June 23 that Townsend’s story had been widely reported on by GLBT websites nationwide, with online commenters alternately championing and condemning the reporting. Michael R. Triplett, of RE:ACT, the official blog of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists’ Association, was quoted in the Star Tribune story as saying he found the ethics of Townsend’s reporting “suspect.”

In a June 22 post, MinnPost.com media blogger David Brauer observed that “not everyone in the gay community thinks the ends justified Lavender’s means.” According to Brauer, the report could have a broader “chilling effect” on gays who go to support groups for chemical and other dependencies. Brauer quoted Twin Cities publicist and former journalist Karl Reichert: “people go to these programs and trust they are truly anonymous. As someone who’s participated in a support group, it’s not fair to anyone in the group” to betray that trust.

Pastor Tom Parrish, Brock’s supervisor at Hope Lutheran Church, lambasted Lavender, telling Brauer “there are no ethics for them … . To take on a public figure publicly, we expect that--Tom and I have gone through that before. But they’re killing a [12-step] process that has worked for 100 years. I think it’s criminal, and I can’t rationalize it in my mind.”

In a discussion on the Twin Cities Public Television (TPT) program “Almanac” on June 9, Rocheford said that the infiltration of the support group was acceptable because it is not a real 12-step program. In the June 23 Star Tribune story, Rocheford called the group “a Catholic perversion of an honest 12-step program.”

In the June 23 Star Tribune story, Jane Kirtley, director of the Silha Center and professor of media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota, questioned Lavender’s approach to getting the story. “I’m a believer that the use of undercover reporting should be reserved only for the most important stories that you can’t get any other way,” she said. “Whenever you go undercover, you raise the question with the public: If you were prepared to misrepresent yourself to get the story, how can we be sure that the story is accurate?” Kirtley, also appearing on “Almanac” with Rocheford, called the controversy “a classic situation of means and ends,” adding, “whether it was an appropriate story to report--I don’t think there’s a lot of debate about that. It was the way it was obtained” that was ethically problematic.

On “Almanac,” Rocheford asserted that the approach was justified because Brock is a public figure. “We’re only interested in a public figure who makes his living attacking the gay community,” Rocheford said. Rocheford told the Star Tribune “we have a policy here that we don’t ‘out’ people, with one exception: public figures who make [anti-gay] pronouncements and then turn out to be homosexuals.”

Townsend responded to critics in a July 5 Star Tribune “counterpoint” piece explaining his motivations, methods, and a previous investigation into the Faith in Action-sponsored Courage group to which Brock belonged. “Faith In Action participants are required to refer to their same sex attraction as a ‘disorder,’” Townsend wrote, adding that homosexuality has not been classified as a mental illness since 1973. Townsend wrote that although the Star Tribune had described the support group as a “therapy group,” no therapist was present when he attended. Townsend also wrote that he had received tips that other members of the group had said they felt psychologically abused and considered suicide. Such groups are dangerous, Townsend asserted, stating that, to break the story about Brock, “becoming an embedded whistleblower was the only option left.”

On August 2, The Associated Press (AP) reported that Brock had returned to work at Hope Lutheran Church. According to the AP, a church investigation found that although Brock admitted to having homosexual urges, task force members “could find no evidence Brock ever had sex with men.” Parrish would not share the full report, but “confirmed that Brock sought counseling and enlisted another minister as an ‘accountability partner’ with whom he frequently discussed his struggles.” The AP reported that Brock said he will step down as senior pastor at Hope Lutheran, but plans to continue ministering “on a national level” with a “new message: you can have this struggle with same-sex attraction, say no to it, and still follow Christ.”

- Sara Cannon
Silha Center Staff

25703|25658|30694 Mon, 13 Sep 2010 10:08:42 -0600

In the wake of a controversial article in Rolling Stone that led to the dismissal of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, a debate emerged within the journalistic community about the unofficial rules that bind beat reporters, and the potential chilling effect the scandal may have on media coverage of the military.

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2010/09/a-reporter-a-general-and-the-e.html 247693

On June 22, 2010, Rolling Stone published a feature on McChrystal, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, titled “The Runaway General,” in which McChrystal and his aides were quoted being openly critical of civilian officials, including the president, the vice president, White House aides and a U.S. ambassador. The story, written by freelance reporter Michael Hastings, broke when Rolling Stone provided an advance copy of the story to The Associated Press (AP) on June 21. The AP published a story online highlighting McChrystal’s criticism of U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry. Early the following day, June 22, Time and Politico.com posted the full Rolling Stone piece to their websites, shortly before Rolling Stone itself published the story online.

According to the Rolling Stone story, McChrystal said he felt “betrayed” by a leaked cable from Eikenberry in which Eikenberry was critical of McChrystal’s strategy in Afghanistan and dismissive of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. “Here’s one that covers his flank for the history books,” McChrystal said in the Rolling Stone profile. “Now if we fail, they can say, ‘I told you so.’” In an opening anecdote, Hastings also reported on McChrystal and his aides’ disdain for a state dinner with a French minister. In an exchange with McChrystal, another aide was quoted as jokingly mishearing Vice President Joe Biden’s name as “Bite Me.”

On June 22, McChrystal offered a public apology for his statements in the piece, according to a June 22 post on Politico.com, saying they were “a mistake reflecting poor judgment and should never have happened.” On June 25, an ABC news broadcast quoted an unnamed senior military official as saying that Hastings broke “ground rules” established for the profile of McChrystal by publishing comments that took place during what McChrystal and his aides thought were off-the-record periods. On June 26, The Washington Post quoted “officials close to McChrystal” who said that Hastings quoted the general in situations that were understood to be off the record.

President Barack Obama fired McChrystal on June 23 after a brief meeting in the Oval Office, replacing him with Gen. David Petraeus, according to a June 23 story in The New York Times. In a statement to reporters shortly afterward, Obama said it was necessary to fire McChrystal to maintain unity in the war effort, emphasizing that the shift was a change in personnel, not policy.

In the aftermath of McChrystal’s dismissal and amid high-profile news coverage of the Rolling Stone feature, news media critics and commentators theorized that Hastings’ identity as a freelance journalist, rather than as a beat reporter, enabled him to publish such a blunt and damning piece about a high-ranking general. In a June 25 edition of the WNYC radio program “On the Media,” host Bob Garfield asked Jamie McIntyre, former senior Pentagon correspondent for CNN, to describe the differences between a beat reporter who covers defense and a reporter who “just parachutes in for one story.”

“Well, the difference is the sort of one-off reporter doesn’t need to worry about whether he’s going to get future access or not,” McIntyre said. “Whereas the beat reporters, like I was at CNN, I needed access … . If you do what Michael Hastings does, they’re never going to talk to him again.” McIntyre explained the politics of cultivating ongoing relationships between reporters and military officials: “[T]he dirty little secret is yeah, we informally agree not to report a lot of things that we see and hear, some of it for legitimate security reasons, and some of it because it could just be embarrassing. And the tradeoff is we get a continued relationship with these people and we can get information.”

In a July 2 post on the Full Court Press blog of the Sidney Hillman Foundation, which supports and honors investigative journalism, Charles Kaiser compared the Rolling Stone McChrystal profile to other mainstream news outlets’ coverage of McChrystal, calling the other profiles “worshipful,” or “puff pieces.” The problem, Kaiser wrote, is that permanent Pentagon beat reporters wrote nearly all of the previous pieces on the general. Beat reporters “know from experience that anything resembling a tough article can make it a great deal more difficult for them to do their job in the future, if their Pentagon sources stop talking to them,” Kaiser wrote.

Others criticized Hastings for what they saw as a breach of journalistic ethics. New York Times columnist David Brooks, in a June 24 column, chalked the scandal up to a culture of overexposure and widespread “kvetching,” criticizing Hastings for featuring the general’s criticisms so prominently. “By putting the kvetching in the magazine, the reporter essentially took run-of-the-mill complaining and turned it into a direct challenge to presidential authority,” Brooks wrote. “He took a successful general and made it impossible for President Obama to retain him.” On June 25, Hastings responded via Twitter that Brooks’ criticisms amounted to an exhortation to young reporters not to report on what they observe for fear that it “might upset the powerful.”

In a June 27 appearance on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” program, CBS News Chief Foreign Correspondent Lara Logan criticized Hastings, who had appeared earlier in the program, for what she said was his deceitfulness in coaxing sources into revealing their real views to him. “What I find … the most telling thing about what Michael Hastings said in your interview is that he talked about his manner as pretending to build an illusion of trust and, you know, he’s laid out there what his game is,” Logan told host Howard Kurtz. “That is exactly the kind of damaging type of attitude that makes it difficult for reporters who are genuine about what they do … . I don’t go around in my personal life pretending to be one thing and then being something else. I mean, I find it egregious that anyone would do that in their professional life.”

In a June 28 post on his RollingStone.com blog, political writer Matt Taibbi defended Hastings, writing that Logan is “like pretty much every other ‘reputable’ journalist in this country, in that she suffers from a profound confusion about who she’s supposed to be working for” and is more interested in retaining relationships with high-profile sources than reporting the truth. “Meanwhile, the people who don’t have the resources to find out the truth … your readers/viewers, you’re supposed to be working for them--and they’re not getting your help,” Taibbi wrote.

Hastings responded to the military’s allegations that he broke unwritten journalistic “ground rules” in a July 29 story on AOL’s Daily Finance. “They were lying,” Hastings said of the unnamed sources who accused him of reporting during situations that were understood to be off the record. “What they said to The Washington Post, and, I think, to the Army Times, is fiction. And they know that.” Hastings also dismissed the idea that he took advantage of his subjects’ trust or naiveté as a “fake controversy.”

On July 2, Defense Secretary Robert Gates issued new orders clarifying the relationship between news media and the military. In a three-page memo, first reported by The New York Times, which obtained a leaked copy, Gates insisted that the military must be open and transparent, but said he was concerned that it had grown “lax” in its dealings with the media. The memo directed high-ranking Pentagon and military leaders to clear interviews with the Defense Department’s public affairs office “prior to interviews or any other means of media and public engagement with possible national or international implications,” according to the July 2 Times story.

Journalists expressed fear that military officials would become warier and less accessible to reporters, according to a July 6 story published by Yahoo News. ABC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Martha Raddatz said the order worried her. “When you add a layer like that, and when we’re in the field and they have to get clearance from someone else, I think it does make it more difficult,” Raddatz said. NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel described a “media blackout” that immediately followed the publication of the Rolling Stone piece, which Engel said forbade soldiers to discuss the McChrystal profile. Further, Engel said, the new rules are likely to produce a chilling effect that is widely felt among reporters. “General officers may be more reluctant to openly express their opinions if they know the Pentagon is tracking every interview,” Engel