MEDIA & IN JOURNALISM

AS I BEGIN MY THIRD TERM AS DIRECTOR, I look forward to leading the School through its re-accreditation visit in the next two years, and supporting a financial model transition within the College of Liberal Arts to support the School’s growth and strategic goals as the only comprehensive professional school of journalism and mass communication in the state of Minnesota. When I look back at the last six years and what we’ve accomplished—a Centennial celebration, a major building renovation, expansion of our faculty and programs, not to mention surviving (and thriving) through a worldwide pandemic—I feel proud of our team.

The years ahead will bring even more growth and change— as we engage in strategic planning, extend the reach of our digital reporting and storytelling programs, expand global exchanges and opportunities for education abroad, and identify online professional degree-program opportunities to serve the state of Minnesota and beyond. I am honored to do this work alongside our interim dean, Ann Waltner.

This Murphy Reporter issue shines a light on our journalism and media program, which has been a cornerstone of the School for 100 years (see page 4). Our faculty members are doing important work in journalism research, leading the conversation around topics like trust in the industry and the mental health of journalists. We continue to develop and offer students training opportunities and internships, so they not only feel prepared to leave the University with the skills they need, but also with the clips, reels and project work that will impress future employers (you’ll find an example of this work starting on page 12).

We couldn’t do this important work without our partners in the community who provide internships, without our alums who come back to Murphy Hall to mentor and speak, and without our donors, who so generously support our students and our work. If you’d like to start a conversation or help out at the School, please don’t hesitate to reach out: sjmc-dir@umn.edu.

All my best,

I AM PLEASED TO BE THE NEW (AND INTERIM) DEAN OF THE COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS. I have been at the University of Minnesota since 1987. I am a historian who works on China, with much of my work at the margins of history and literature. For example, my latest big project is an e-book on the 18th-century Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber and the 2016 San Francisco Opera production based on the novel. I am also interested in comparative history; I have taught and written about gender and the family in Europe and China, in collaboration with my colleague Mary Jo Maynes. Currently, I am finishing a book on Tanyangzi, a young woman religious teacher who lived in south China in the late 16th century.

In 2010, my scholarship took an unexpected turn. I became involved with the early music group Sacabuche and began writing scripts for multi-media performances. The first show we did traced the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci’s travels from Italy to China using the Ricci map that is held by the James Ford Bell Library. We have performed that show 17 times and have since designed four other shows. A subsequent show, done again with Sacabuche and this time incorporating my colleague John Watkins, took as its starting point a map of Venice by Jacopo di Barbari, held at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. We stopped performing during the pandemic, but are currently planning a fifth show.

I am a committed educator and believe that teaching is a future-oriented profession. We are teaching our students how to thrive in a world of the future that neither we nor they can fully imagine. All disciplines do not do that in the same way, but the liberal arts are well-suited for this moment—to teach students to understand and appreciate differences, to evaluate sources, to read and think critically. Please know you can always reach me at cladean@umn.edu.

Ann Waltner Interim Dean College of Liberal Arts

Elisia L. Cohen, Ph.D. Director and Professor