Mark Bittman to Teach at UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism

Former New York Times columnist Mark Bittman, bestselling nonfiction author and leading voice in the food systems movement, will begin teaching at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism this year.

Bittman, who has written more than a dozen books and hosted four TV series, including Showtime’s Emmy Award-winning climate change documentary, Years of Living Dangerously, arrived at UC Berkeley last spring to work with the on-campus UC Berkeley Food Institute.

Since then, he has co-hosted a food systems course called Edible Education, guest-lectured campuswide, and hosted California Matters, a web video series covering food, sustainable agriculture, policy and health.

Now, Bittman has accepted a two-year appointment, which includes a teaching position at the J-School, where he will serve on the School’s curriculum committee in addition to handling six-week mini-courses and a semester-long class in opinion-writing.

“Mark’s a hugely successful writer and an influential voice, and I’m glad to welcome him to the Journalism School,” said Edward Wasserman, J-School dean. “Having him gives us the opportunity to add something valuable to our curriculum I’ve been wanting to see–a course in column writing. We have students who are keenly interested in opinion, and I suspect we’ll draw interest from elsewhere on campus from non-journalism students who want to know how to write compelling, persuasive prose.”

As to what brought him to Berkeley, Bittman gives a humble reply: “I decided to come here because I could,” he said. “It was like I got in, right?”

Bittman will also be continuing his work on Edible Education — a joint project between the Edible Schoolyard Project, the UC Berkeley Food Institute, the College of Natural Resources, and UC Global Food Initiative, with support from the UC Berkeley’s Chancellor’s Office . In addition to teaching again in the spring, he’ll be helping develop Edible Education into a full online course.