Four Faculty Members Joining Department in Fall 2006

Four faculty members will bring new teaching specializations and decades of professional experience when they join the Journalism Department full time in Fall 2006. This, in turn, will enable the department to address two other issues raised in the Academic Program Review: the need for the department to expand its curriculum, and the need to add faculty members with significant professional experience and research agendas that are relevant to journalism in a global information age. The new faculty members are:

Assistant Professor David Cuillier. Mr. Cuillier is finishing his dissertation in communication at Washington State University. His topic is public attitudes toward freedom of information. Mr. Cuillier has published articles in the academic and professional literature concerning information-access issues, and has won teaching and research awards from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. He has 12 years of newspaper experience, including extensive work in computer-assisted reporting, and will develop a CAR class this fall. He also will teach Advanced Reporting and Reporting Public Affairs.

Assistant Professor Linda Lumsden. Dr. Lumsden had 12 years of experience as a journalist before earning a doctorate at the University of North Carolina. Her graduate studies and dissertation focused on journalism history. Dr. Lumsden, who currently is a faculty member at Western Kentucky University, has written two books on historical topics that have been published by university presses. When she joins our faculty she will teach journalism history, which will become a required course, and also will develop a course in race, class, and gender. Dr. Lumsden also will teach classes in the core skills curriculum.

Assistant Professor of Practice Jay Rochlin. Dr. Rochlin has two decades of experience in magazine journalism and also is an award-winning photojournalist. In Fall 2005 he taught an advanced photography course for the department, in which students produced online photo galleries. He will continue teaching this course after joining the faculty full-time. In Spring 2006, Dr. Rochlin, whose Ph.D. is in education, began working with Professor Iris Chyi to develop an online magazine that has become the department's fourth capstone course. He also will teach other classes in the core skills curriculum, including Feature Writing.

Professor of Practice Terry Wimmer. Dr. Wimmer may be the only academic in the country with a Pulitzer Prize and a Ph.D. He won the Pulitzer for leading an Orange County Register investigation that uncovered abuses at a fertility clinic. He contacted the department last summer about a position on our faculty because he wants to teach in a unit that focuses solely on journalism. Dr. Wimmer visited the university to talk with the faculty and the students shortly after the APR committee site visit. He requested a clinical appointment so he could focus on teaching and professional service. He will be helping the department design a new course in investigative reporting, as well as teaching basic skills courses.

UA Journalism News Home