SKILLS

University and high school  teaching · Lecturing · 

Coaching & Mentoring · Lesson Planning 

The University of Southern California

About the school and its journalism program:

Located in Los Angeles, USC is home to more than 48,000 students and over 4,400 full-time faculty. I am a part-time faculty member at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, where students  develop the leading-edge multi-media reporting skills — and the foundational journalistic values and ethical standards — that helps prepare them for their careers.

Courses taught:

JOUR 206: Community Reporting

This course gives journalism majors hands-on experience in writing digital news and social media. It is taught in the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism's state-of-the-art Media Center in Wallis Annenberg Hall.

JOUR 207: Newswriting & Reporting I 

The course, which is a core requirement for journalism majors, aims to sharpen students' writing, reporting, and critical thinking skills, as well as teach them about news values, ethics, copy editing, interviewing, fact-checking and how to accurately report on and write about a diverse world on deadline. 

This course covers the basics of writing and reporting hard news stories, including courts and local government. By the end of this course, the goal is for students to understand what makes an event newsworthy — worth covering — and have
the capability to produce accurate, well-written, well-sourced news stories on deadline. 

Additional roles:

• Current: Member of the journalism school's curriculum committee.
• Previous: Writing coach in the media center.
  

California Scholastic Press Association

About the workshop:

The workshop is a two-week summer program for high school students who want to get hands-on journalism experience in classes taught by media professionals and educators (all volunteers, and many alums of the program itself). It returned to San Luis Obispo for its 71st workshop in 2022.

Personal relationship to CSPA:

• I am an alum of the class of 2008. 
• I remain close with many of my peers from the program and my mentors. 
• I now go back every summer to teach

Current role:

Instructor and member of the board of directors.  We  oversee the annual summer program and the workshop’s operations.

Courses taught: *

• Critic/Review Writing
• Breaking news
• Multiplatform reporting (using Snap, TikTok, etc. for journalism)

* varies per year depending on needs of the program

Learn more:

CSPA is a non-profit organization. Instructors and board members are unpaid volunteers. It relies entirely on student tuition and charitable contributions to cover its operating costs. Learn more and donate here.