On November 6th, the Journalism Program held an information session on its course offerings for the Spring 2025 semester. Hosted by Director Sissel McCarthy, with faculty in person and on Zoom, the event aimed to showcase spring courses and other opportunities within the department. McCarthy highlighted that there are 115 journalism students as of now, majors and minors, before exploring the course offerings for the spring.
Professors Anna Sterling and Charity Elder will teach Reporting and Writing, which explains the roles of journalists and aims to prepare students for other courses in the sequence. Professor Kristopher Brooks will teach the online version of the class, aiming to help students reimagine the way they tell stories.
Professors Polly Leider and Lesley Cosme Torres will teach Reporting and Writing 2, which builds on the first course, exploring multimedia and storytelling, pushing students to pick a beat and hone their skills. Both professors want to help students to connect with the intimate aspects of journalism, and to explore their passions while working on projects for this class.
Professors David Alm and Coralie Carlson will be teaching News Literacy in a Digital Age, which focuses on the skills needed to discern what’s worth paying attention to in the news. Both professors see this skill as necessary for everyday use, in a world where the lines between fact, opinion, misinformation, and everything in between are blurring. This course satisfies one of the three required writing intensives all Hunter students must complete.
Professor Lambeth Leigh Hochwald introduced Entertainment Journalism, which involves looking at the entertainment side of journalism, highlighting a trip the class once made to The View for hands-on learning. She also made a note of how business and editorial decisions are made in regards to covering the entertainment industry.
Professor Roxanne Scott introduced Neighborhood News, which focuses on issues relevant to the school community, and is one of the classes with a publication, the Athenian.
Professor McCarthy also presented her class, Studio News Production, which teaches broadcast journalism and produces a real show whose episodes are posted on YouTube.
Professor Eric Umansky will teach Social Justice Journalism, a class that will explore injustices in our society, and has students producing an eye opening story on the topic of their choice. Exploring how other journalists handle the issue, the class will seek to highlight issues that may have previously gone unnoticed.
Professor Jeanie Ahn will teach From Classroom to Career. This course will help students land solid jobs in the industry by preparing them for interviews and helping them to anticipate the realities of the working world. Ahn said she hopes to use her experience as someone who entered journalism in her late 20s and then moved up the career ladder to help the next generation of journalists get a headstart. Emphasizing collaboration, Ahn said there will be workshopping for students to be able to prepare for the job.
A new program was introduced, CUNY CIE, a grant to the Film and Media Department to help students get well-paid jobs. With the grant, the department will hire an industry specialist and pair hybrid advisors with students. This program will take 200 students, and help them build their resumes and portfolios, prepare for interviews, and ease the transition from classroom to career.