Gump to take over for Fisher in senior semester
Renowned journalist Deborah Gump will join Scott Farrand to head the print journalism’s “senior semester” program, which produces Carolina Reporter, a weekly paper.
Gump is the former director of print for the Washington, D.C., Committee of Concerned Journalists. She is a longtime colleague of USC School of Journalism and Mass Communications professors Carol Pardun and Doug Fisher. When Pardun heard that Gump’s term at Middle Tennessee State University was ending, she jumped at the opportunity to bring her to USC’s program.
“She’s a terrific journalist with huge professional experience,” said Pardun. “The most logical place for her was senior semester.”
Fisher is already teaching five courses, and Pardun said Gump’s entrance will provide him some relief.
Pardun said last semester’s visiting professor, Rob Wells from Arizona State’s Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications, attracted several business journalists to USC. She hopes that Gump’s two-year professorship will bring even more influence.
Pardun believes Gump has the ability to inspire students and establish growth in the print journalism sequence, which is notoriously smaller than the other sequences in USC’s College of Mass Communications and Information Studies.
Only seven students are currently enrolled in the fall’s senior semester, which will give Gump the chance to get to know them individually and still have time to work with other school organizations.
“I hope I am engaged with as many students as possible,” said Gump. “If they’re in my classes or not, if they want to talk about the future, I want to talk to them.”
At Middle Tennessee State University, Gump was the John Seigenthaler Chair of Excellence in First Amendment Studies. She has also been a visiting professor at Ohio University, senior editor of the Marin Independent Journal, national news editor of the San Jose Mercury News and a reporter for the Times-Union from Rochester, N.Y. Gump created EditTeach.org, an interactive editing education program that provides resources to professors, students and professionals.
Gump met Pardun while working on her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Gump will tailor the program to fit the students and the audience. She said one of the great things about the program is that it can be completely different and can adapt to the community.
“It’s really wide open with what we can do for senior semester given the tradition and the potential,” Gump said.
The flow of information and convergence of print and online journalism necessitates constant change in the journalism curriculum, which is experiencing an overhaul, said Pardun. Gump’s experience with new media will fit well with the coming curriculum.
“The days of strictly working in a classroom and with ‘fake’ stories is ending,” said Gump. “Universities are now a part of the information flow for communities.”