By Sarah Meade
Michele Rosen has a wide range of experience in the communications field. She has worked as a content manager, a web producer, a newspaper reporter, a web site and magazine editor, and now a teacher. But which of those was her favorite?
“Well, I like teaching better than I liked any of those jobs,” she answers, adding, “And that’s not pandering, that’s truth.” Spoken like a true journalist.
Professor Rosen is a relatively new face on campus, having come to head the Communications department after the departure of Professor Kennedy last year. She previously taught at Rowan University, where she was a member of the Journalism department from 2004 to 2007. Already she’s made changes to the Rosemont curriculum in the form of two new courses being offered this fall, Intro to New Media and Media Ethics, and more changes are on the way. Currently, she explains, her main goal is to reevaluate the course requirements for the major. “One of the most important things is to get more specific in what courses people need to take,” she says.
While Professor Rosen was teaching at Rowan, she specialized in online and citizen journalism--about which she is clearly passionate. To explain citizen journalism, Professor Rosen often turns to a definition offered by Jay Rosen (no relation), creator of the popular news blog PressThink: “when the people formerly known as the audience employ the press tools they have in their possession to inform one another.” The “tools” mentioned include common Internet applications like blogs and wikis that can be used by anyone, not just journalists, to publish on the Web. In fact, Professor Rosen has her own blog, which she began while teaching at Rowan as a way of tracking new developments in online media. “It was driven by a desire to keep track of what I was finding,” she says.
However, much of her time online isn’t spent on her own blog. Anyone who has attended Professor Rosen’s classes will know by now that she is a self-proclaimed “news junkie.” So just how much time does she spend checking up on the news?
“I’d say two to three hours a day, if you added it up,” she says. “I’m worse now…” She stops and laughs at her choice of words. “…like it’s an addiction! I’m worse to some extent because of the election.” Though much of her news comes from online sources like The Huffington Post, a popular online newspaper, she does spend time watching television broadcasts as well. And yes, she is a fan of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.
Outside the classroom, she does yoga, photography, and continues to work on her creative writing. A recent graduate of Rosemont’s MFA program, she had one short story published last year, and has a few others that are, in her words, “still looking for a home.” When not teaching, writing, or blogging, she spends time with her family.
“I have a husband, a dog, and three cats,” she quips, smiling. “That’s an occupation in and of itself.”
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