Phone: 4332, Office: Academy 311
njones
BA, French/Journalism, Moravian College; Graduate fiction courses, George Mason University; MFA, Creative Writing (fiction), University of North Carolina at Wilmington
Nancy Jones earned a BA in French-Journalism from Moravian College, Bethlehem, Pa., in 1997. She began her newspaper career in 1979 as editor of the Bangor Daily News, a community newspaper in Bangor, Pa., serving a ten-municipality region known as the Slate Belt. There she not only covered municipal and school board beats but also wrote features, columns, and editorials, and supervised the layout of the paper on a daily basis. After four years at the Daily News, she joined the Easton Bureau of the Morning Call, Allentown, Pa., as a reporter. At the Call, then a 130,000-daily and 184,000-Sunday paper, she continued to cover news and features for the Slate Belt and also picked up the Warren County, N.J., Easton School Board, and City of Easton beats. While at the Call, she developed expertise in environmental issues and added the Delaware River Basin Commission to her responsibilities.
Jones's
environmental expertise led her in 1989 to a job as special assistant at the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, where she worked on press communications
and wrote speeches on issues ranging from the Exxon Valdez oil spill and the
health of the nation's bays and wetlands to global climate change and scientific
risk assessment. After
two years at EPA, Jones became communications director for the
Newspaper Association of America, representing the nation's major daily
newspapers, and served as speechwriter, media spokeswoman, and press liaison on a broad list of concerns related to the newspaper
industry. In 1995, Jones became a freelance writer, reporting for
Presstime, NAA's
monthly magazine; the Sustainable Use of Land Project; and a number of
smaller assignments.
After taking a number of graduate fiction writing courses at
George
Mason University, Fairfax, Va., and attending the Breadloaf Writers
Conference, Middlebury, Vt., she enrolled in graduate school full time in
August 1995 and earned an MFA in creative writing (fiction) in May 1998.
Her thesis, the novel Molly, was published by Crown in March 2002. Jones continues to write both fiction and nonfiction and is
presently working on a draft of her second novel, an expanded treatment of her short
story, "The Suicide Club," which appeared in Ms. magazine in May/June
1998.
Phone: 3014, Office: Olin 334
rleeper
BA in Philosophy and Religion; MA in Communication; a Juris Doctorate from the University of Missouri-Kansas City; MA and PhD in Political Science from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Roy Leeper's research interests lie primarily in First Amendment law, media ethics, and public relations theory. He has published a number of articles and book chapters in, among other publications, Communication Law and Policy, the Free Speech Yearbook, Communications and the Law, Journalism Quarterly, and the Public Relations Review.
Phone: 3994, Office: Academy 309
mcmullen
B.S., Moorhead State University; M.F.A., Bennington College
Catherine McMullen is an assistant professor of English and print journalism at Concordia College. From 1981 to 1994 she worked as a columnist and feature writer for The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead. She continues to write columns for The Forum. As a feature writer in The Forum’s Lifestyle Department, McMullen covered a wide variety of subjects. She most enjoyed writing stories that illuminated how social issues and policies affected individuals, and she most enjoyed writing features that lent themselves to narrative. For these stories and others she has twice won the Sweepstakes Award of the National Federation of Press Women, as well as numerous regional awards from the North Dakota Newspaper Association and the Minnesota Newspaper Association. In 1993 she was named Humanitarian of the Year by Temple Beth El in Fargo for “showing understanding, exemplifying tolerance, and fostering sensitivity among all people in our community” through her Forum columns.McMullen was a fellow at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg, Fla., in 1994. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mass Communications from Moorhead State University, and a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Literature and Writing from Bennington College in Vermont. Her thesis was a nonfiction narrative about the murder of her great-aunt. In addition to teaching, McMullen serves as adviser to The Concordian, the weekly student newspaper.
B.S., South Dakota State University; M.F.A., Emerson College, Boston Patrick Springer has an extensive background as a print journalism reporter. He is a reporter for The Forum, in Fargo-Moorhead. He has covered an array of public affairs beats, including police, courts, higher education, health care, politics and state government. He also has written about medicine and the environment. He has written numerous series and special projects, including a series on health effects from radioactive fallout in Minnesota and the Dakotas, economic development in North Dakota, and cancer. He was special projects editor for The Forum during 1995-96. He was a reporter for the Argus Leader in Sioux Falls, S.D., from 1981 to 1985. There he covered city hall and the South Dakota Legislature, as well as Native American issues. He has been North Dakota stringer for Newsweek since 1986, and previously worked as a stringer for Time and United Press International.
Springer was awarded a fellowship to the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism at the University of Maryland in 1988 and a Bush Foundation fellowship from 1996 to 1998, when he took leave to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from Emerson College in Boston. His thesis was a collection of personal essays, Across the Bad River, exploring racial and cultural differences between European Americans and Native Americans in the Dakotas. He earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Journalism and Economics from South Dakota State University in 1983. He has won numerous regional awards in news writing and reporting from the North Dakota Newspaper Association and the Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists.
Journalism Department