UC Berkeley Journalism - Faculty

For the past decade, California's ties to the Pacific Rim have been blossoming. The journalism school is playing a role in developing these links through its Journalism and Asian Studies Program. Much of the credit for these efforts goes to Carolyn Wakeman, the faculty coordinator of the concurrent degree program. Wakeman has been at the school since 1989. Since joining the faculty, Wakeman has made many contributions to the Journalism and Asian Studies program. She created the Asia-Pacific Media Studies Center, which holds workshops and hosts visiting scholars and journalists. She also initiated the Hong Kong Studies Project, which includes an intensive seminar/field studies course, and sponsors frequent lectures by experts on politics, human rights, and the media. Wakeman built the school's Asia-Pacific materials archive, has organized several conferences for the school, and edited four issues of a school magazine, the Pacific. A popular lecturer, she has made presentations to dozens of organizations off campus, including the World Affairs Council, where she also served two years on the International Journalism Awards committee. "It's been an extraordinary intellectual journey," said Wakeman, "helping to develop a field of study that doesn't exist anywhere else. I do believe in its importance, in improving the way in which Asia is reported on and understood."

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by J-School faculty members

Visiting Professor's Journal:
On Teaching

by Kennedy Fraser
Koret Foundation Teaching Fellow

My months at the J-school have been like a drink of cool water after years in the desert. I’ve been earning my living by writing for 30 years, 20 of them at the old New Yorker. In recent years, I’ve been functioning in a magazine world that’s increasingly hard-boiled and dominated by the mass-market.

This is my second experience teaching writing; the first was some years ago, at the School of the Arts at Columbia University. Some of my students there were a little grumpy, as if infected by the same toughness that plagues some of the editors I’ve worked with lately. Perhaps I’ve changed since that first experience. I hope I have more to give.

My students here have been a joy to teach. I found them courteous, smart, idealistic and ambitious in the right way — that is, for doing the best possible work. I have learned a lot from them.

One of the great things the school offers its students is the opportunity to try out different journalistic crafts and disciplines — to find out who they are and where their strengths lie. As a teaching fellow, I have gone through something of the same process. I realize what directions I want to go in with my work and which professional dead ends I need to move away from. I’ve had a chance since I’ve been here to read and reflect. I also encouraged my students to read, especially what is lamely called “literary non-fiction.” If you are a writer who doesn’t read, who doesn’t continually find support in other writers, living or dead, writing would be an unbearably lonely business. I felt very depleted when I got here, as if I’d been drawing on my bank of ideas for years without having time to replenish myself. Last fall, I was writing a weekly column in the arts section of the New York Times. I enjoyed the challenge of coming up with ideas and meeting deadlines, but I wasn’t sorry I had to break off to fulfill my commitment at the J-school. After these months here I feel refreshed and able to tackle new projects and commissions that grow organically from my interests.

The school of journalism is a rare and admirable community. I have had stimulating conversations not only with my class, but also with many faculty members and visitors. Everyone who is anyone in the world of journalism seems to pass through sooner or later. I enjoyed spending time with NPR’s Terry Gross, and I was fascinated to hear the Young Turks at the new media conference. I have very much enjoyed participating in the Shakespeare class, led by Dean Orville Schell and Warren Weber, a scholar of plays and sonnets who is also a famous grower of organic lettuces.

Kennedy Fraser writes for the New Yorker and Vogue. She taught magazine writing this spring as a Koret Foundation Teaching Fellow.

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Visiting Professor's Journal: On Teaching

Visiting Professor's Journal:
On Teaching