{"id":6497,"date":"2023-04-28T14:16:07","date_gmt":"2023-04-28T18:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/?p=6497"},"modified":"2023-10-20T13:32:01","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T17:32:01","slug":"faculty-spotlight-alyxaundria-sanford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/2023\/04\/28\/faculty-spotlight-alyxaundria-sanford\/","title":{"rendered":"Faculty Spotlight: Alyxaundria Sanford"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Alyxaundria<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Professor Alyxaundria Sanford remembers traveling to New York for the first time to intern for the \u201cToday Show.\u201d While there, she became interested in national news and the variety of topics covered in a morning broadcast. After getting a taste of being a journalist in the city, she knew she would be back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, Sanford studied journalism at Ohio University, where she focused on broadcasting. After graduating in 2008, she became a news producer in Dayton, but she had grander ambitions. In 2009, she returned to New York to attend graduate school at CUNY.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always been that headstrong and go straight to what I want,\u201d said Sanford. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While working on her master\u2019s degree in 2009 at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Sanford did freelance production work and internships with ABC for \u201cGood Morning America,\u201d \u201cThe View,\u201d and the Brian Ross Investigative Unit. She went back and forth in the industry between 2014 to 2017, as journalism wasn\u2019t always stable for her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite working in other fields, Sanford remained passionate about journalism. Knowing that she needed the network, she enrolled in a second master\u2019s program at  CUNY\u2019s Craig Newmark School of Journalism in 2017. At Newmark, she was in the social journalism program, now called engagement journalism, which finds ways to serve communities that are excluded from mainstream news. Her CUNY connections would eventually lead her to teaching. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI knew I always wanted to provide education and give back knowledge, not just to younger students, but students of all ages,\u201d said Sanford. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sanford started teaching graduate students at Newmark in August 2022 and then undergrad at Hunter in spring 2023. She currently instructs Neighborhood News, a course where students produce original Hunter\/CUNY-related stories and can publish them in the Hunter Athenian<\/em>. She invites professional journalists to speak to her class, as she wants students to see \u201creal-life examples\u201d of what they could be in the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sanford said that she\u2019s proud of the pieces her students have produced thus far. They\u2019ve covered topics and events such as Hunter USG\u2019s Purple PEERiod Project, student organizations, and President Jennifer Raab\u2019s upcoming departure from the college in June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI love to see the passion in the students,\u201d said Sanford. \u201cI don\u2019t feel like anyone in the class isn\u2019t serious about journalism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sanford wants students to know that it\u2019s okay to take a break, whether it be short term or long term. She herself has seen both the highs and lows of working in journalism, and credits the time she took away from it with teaching her how to navigate the industry better, along with figuring out the types of roles she wants to take on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI needed that break to really realize that I loved it and that this is what I wanted to do and was meant to do,\u201d said Sanford. \u201cI came back stronger than ever.\u201d  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Professor Alyxaundria Sanford remembers traveling to New York for the first time to intern for the \u201cToday Show.\u201d While there, she became interested in national news and the variety of topics covered in a morning broadcast. After getting a taste of being a journalist in the city, she knew she would be back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6507,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,1,253],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-news","category-homepage_news","category-prof-profiles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6497"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6512,"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6497\/revisions\/6512"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}