PROGRAM IN AMERICAN STUDIES

     "I graduated with a degree in American Culture in 1979. At the time I was not sure what direction I would take. After several years I returned to earn graduate degrees in American History and became a professor, first at an American Indian run college (NAES College) in Chicago, and for the last 19 years as a professor in the Native American Studies Department at the University of Montana, which is located in Missoula. My undergraduate experience prepared me well for what would become my life's work. American Culture taught me critical thinking skills and to read broadly, and not be bound by discipline. 

     My most recent book, UnFair Labor? American Indians and the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, was published by University of Nebraska Press last summer. I am currently working on a history related to the 1950s federal Indian policy of termination."

 

 

     "After nearly four decades as a professional writer of film, tv, novel, DC white papers and op-eds,  I now concentrate my work on consulting, editing, and mentoring younger writers. "

 

 

     "I graduated in 1978 and immediately went into Medill’s summer program.  I spent my twenties in newspapers in Norfolk, Va., and Louisville, Ky., uncovering waste and corruption, observing, “how people deal with reality.” Then I landed at the Oz that was The Philadelphia Inquirer at the end of its staggering run of Pulitzer Prizes. I never left. I played through the entire course, from suburban reporter to the city desk, feature writer, feature columnist, foreign correspondent (Berlin), full-time blogger, and finally got the job of my dreams: metro columnist. Along the way I was asked to fill in for a colleague who was writing a book and teach his urban journalism class at Penn where I taught for a decade. By then I had taken a job as an editor at the Inquirer, which was finding itself online as well as dealing with the collapse of print advertising and figuring out how to do less with less. I had some interesting jobs in too-fast succession: enterprise editor, news-features editor and most recently quick-strike on the I Team, which means handling a group of investigative reporters whose job is to jump in when news demands and provide fast, deep context for the events of the day, week or month.

     Through all of this my background in American Culture/Studies served.  The interdisciplinary nature suited me. So did what I'd learned about gathering historical materials and layering them with interviews and observation to come up with something of value. "