"What do you teach?"--An itinerary of years and courses--III

1990--Journalism--the late Woody Gaddis, Lu Hollander, Nancy Brown, Ginny Dodson, Susan Gonders, Dennie Hall.

 Front--Mark Hanebutt, me, the late Charles Simmons. 

Journalism Department, Central State University--August, 1990.

Editing, press theory, feature writing. Rooms 212, 210, 214, communications building. From 10 to 15 students each, I think. Those were my first classes.
My office as new chair had a divider for an adjunct, which I tore out with a hammer. I was one of five full-time faculty--one with release time to advise The Vista, with two adjuncts, and two secretaries, one for The Vista and another splitting duties with the yearbook, The Bronze  Book. We had three classrooms and a dingy, moldy darkroom in the basement, plus The Vista offices in 107, and the Bronze Book behind that.  There was one computer in the department.
The rest of the building included the Communication , department (broadcast, speech and debate) which had the same enrollment as ours but more faculty members and more classrooms, the university public relations offices (where our darkroom is now), the university photographer, KCSC, and  the technology/visual offices where offices are now.

Journalism--late 1990s.

I considered my job as chair to teach, and to grow a department so that our students had equal treatment. I'm fortunate to have helped that come to pass over the years.
Other duties which reduced my actual in-class teaching load from three to then two a semester, plus summers, included 19 years as chair of the Journalism Department and then the merged Mass Communication departments--a fight that took me five years; internship director for several years; yearbook director, interim Vista adviser one summer; and directing the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame, now my 20th year.
In the early years, I'm relying on memory, but since 2002 the record is on university computers, so I'm guessing there are about 42-45 different courses at what is now UCO. 
My early mainstays were editing(pre-computer)  and feature writing (last taught in 2o14). Since 2010 blogging for journalists is every semester, and since spring 2013 I've taught 10 intersession twitter for media classes.
More important to me in the roughly 80 semesters I've been a professor, are I'm guessing about 4,000-4,500 students I've been privileged to have in class, many of whom have become good friends and professional colleagues.

#clarkclass, most recent twitter class,  me at left,

After 27 years, it's much different, and as I started counting semesters and different courses taught, I realized there are no photographs of me actually teaching. But there are a  few group shots, mug shots reflecting my aging, and photos with award-winning and favorite students or many at graduation--which is more appropriate. I have several of those, but there are too many to single out one or two here.
The different classes, noting that many have been conducted (I like that better than "taught") repeatedly:

• Fall, 1990-- Editing, press theory, feature writing. 
• 1991-1999--Basic photography, reporting, editorial writing, advanced editing, introduction to advertising, community journalism, journalism of Will Rogers, photo essay, journalism of Larry McMurtry (trip to Archer City bookstore), victims and the media, journalism ethics, newspaper journalism, advanced feature writing, internships, Bronze Book director.
• 2000--Oklahoma centennial journalism, New Mexico study tours, cowboy journalism (Fort Worth train trip), senior workshop, media writing, the press in film,  (Co-taught with Dr. James Baker of history--Vietnam and the press, war generations-WWII and 'Nam,  America's 21st Century wars), 21st Century media leadership, photo essay documentary, Vista adviser, blogging and the media, international media, twitter for. media, history of journalism.

 

Mass Communication, 2016-2017

What do you teach?--An itinerary of years and courses-II

In 1986 when I arrived on the OSU campus three weeks after the fall semester began--a favorite professor had quit just weeks before--I was assigned editing. 

OSU Journalism Professor Clark, and high tech

There was no Internet, no computers, and lots of students.
 You'd lecture to 60 students on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then  hold afternoon labs of 15 students each for the rest of the week. 
I relied on a textbook for structure, and then scrounged for editing exercises in the labs--pen and paper work. My grading was tough--it made some sutdents cry who'd never had a "C" before. Visuals were overhead transparencies. Lessons included headline writing and counting, and more. Print journalism had only recently changed to offset printing. Not much else.
When I  began critiquing the sloppy editing in student newspaper, "The O'Colly, by golly," to teach editing, it was much to the chagrin of the staff, who didn't know me and was replacing their fav prof. Today, some of those students are great friends.
Next I taught basic photography--no digital cameras, advanced editing (students redesigned state newspapers--cut and paste, etc. No computers.). I taught reporting, and also a class in journalism management. On the side, after the O'Colly business manager died, I was interim O'Colly manager for a semester. 
What helped me most was my very recent newspaper experience--organizing the courses was most difficult.
Oh, and those were tie and coat era days too. 
During this time I was working on my doctorate on campus. It wasn't complete when the job came open at UCO as chair of the small journalism department, because the former chair, Dr. Ray Tassin, had retired (Tassin had ironically been my reporting teacher even more years ago when  was an English major at then Central State College).  
Then began a long new adventure, including many more favorite students, but I'll not go into detail on those more than 40 courses, next.

Landmark of the sad state of Oklahoma

Landmarks: the State Capital building from inside the Blue Belle Saloon

If there is a symbol of Oklahoma's sorry condition, it may be the historic old State Capital printing building in Guthrie.
This is personal to me for two reasons. I have many fond memories of the place, having taken University of Central Oklahoma journalism and photography students there when it was The State Capital Publishing Museum. And I'm a newspaper man.
It's full of antique hot metal publishing equipment, presses and more, dating from pre-statehood. It had operating Linotypes, job presses and more, which delighted my students as a peek into the early days of journalism in this state. 

My students in editing and advanced editing classes on field trips helped with printing and more, getting  hands-on education. You can literally smell history inside.

Then several years ago, the boiler in the building quit and the state and Historical Society couldn't afford to replace it. It's been closed since.
I read  a valuable article by Laura Eastes in this week's Oklahoma Gazette, "Historic Guthrie building's future is uncertain," about a possible developer wanting it, and the city wanting it to be restored as a museum.
That brought to mind a recent visit to Guthrie, an easy Saturday trip on the back roads, and we ate at the

It's a sad sign for our state

equally historic and reopened Blue Belle Saloon,  just across the street from the impressive old building. That's when I took these photos, waiting for a prompt to write about them. 
To me, the dangling sign on the front of the locked and decaying building says everything about the sad state of Oklahoma.

First guest blog post...relaxed purple cows

I don't use guest bloggers, though I might eventually if I figure out how to make money off it.
In the meantime however, friend and retired journo Jon Denton replied to my post about iced tea...with an editor's eye catching something I missed.
"Everybody needs an editor," I used to yell.
Jon wondered if his scree was too long for a comment on the post. Well, yes, but not too long for a guest post.
I've edited it a little, but enjoy, this first guest post on my blog: (And thanks, Jon.)

            Terry … As always I enjoyed your Coffee With Clark blog ... This time on iced tea (or is it ice tea?) It made me want to dig out my flip-flops and head to a hilltop back porch where it is always sunny and warm, whatever the weather.

            Not sure this qualifies as a blog, especially given it's nature. I'm critiquing a guy with a bunch of initials after his name … and a good friend, too, or at least he has been.

            I don't understand the whole business of blogs. They are kind of like purple cows. Most people would rather read one than be one. But I notice how often bloggers relax when they write.

            Take your first graph in the tea story: "You know we're in trouble in mid-February when you crave and the first iced tea of the year."

            An alert editor would have toggled a correction and moved on, probably without mentioning it. Or he might have guessed your meaning and put “a hot dog” between “crave” and “and.”

            That’s what editors do, and exactly why you don’t need one. It’s my experience that editors edit from the top down. They are rational. They make sense first and if the story is worthy, let the message begin.

            That might not sit well with true bloggers. They seem to write from the inside out. Same thing goes for the blogger-challenged among us. We write cryptic texts on our cell phones.

            My daughter, who did college kind of like others do lunch, recently texted this: “Do u wanna eat today @_1?” She was a communications major until she decided she liked steak instead of ink. Her intent was clear, about the lunch, too.

            That reminds me of another story that is appropriate, if a bit off topic. When I was just out of college I got my first job at the Guthrie Daily Leader. The editor kind of grinned when I asked him about the pay. “Son,” he said (he was all of 10 years older than me … People didn’t last long at the Leader), “Son, we give you $70 a week and all the newspapers you can eat.” I didn’t know whether to laugh or what, so I signed up. That was the beginning of a fierce reporter-editor relationship which led me to quit two years later in a fit over 60-hour weeks, Saturdays and Sundays included … Lots of ink on the hands … Very little steak.

            Back to blogs.

            Once again we are in a literary mood when content trumps style. That attitude was popular during the American Revolution. The newspapers and flyers of the day were not always literate but they were passionate. It was not how they wrote. It was what they said. And it changed the world.

            It is my view that we pay too much attention today to how we say things. Do that and we fall into the camp of the politically correct. It’s a cautious trap, an earthly version of writers’ purgatory.

            Blogs and texts offer a relaxed template. Good writers master both, as you demonstrate with your focus on the weather and tea, then hapless, war-wrecked Syria. Nice contrast … sweet tea and a sour conflict.

            Please keep writing and encouraging others … Thank you for the relaxed blogs … And as some say, never let an editor get in the way of a good story.  – Jon Denton, Mustang