Reflecting--Eastern Oklahoma sunset and cabin

 

Reflections, 14 by 21 watercolor, 300 pound paper

Dreams of solitude and quietude away from traffic. Largest painting in a long time. 
Commission completed, once framed. Thankful for the challenge.
It's time to get away. 

Detail

 

Media discussion day in International media class

Questions:
1. Which way is up? Why do we say something "went South?" Upside down world map. How does this effect us?
2. From a year ago, why do Americans distrust the media? Is it just Trump? Gallup poll results.
3. Authoritarian China--the press must serve the party; Any parallels today?
4. America's ethnocentric, eurocentric, xenophobic press--what it chooses to cover and not cover internationally--chart
5. America before illegal immigration--map.

All this and visuals, on the class blog, click here:  Clarkinternational

Oklahoma Sunset

A first attempt, very fast, wet into wet, somewhat sloppy, 9 by 12 study for a larger commission for  a favorite former student.

Red River country

Red River Valley, today's watercolor, 9 by 12 140# Fabriano Artistico

"From this valley they say you are going... ."
The Red River valley, a broad sweep of sometimes desolate dust and mud, sand and scrub growth, rattlesnakes and catfish, and a meandering course of red clay-colored water. In drought you can walk across it and not get your feet wet. In flood stage, it can take out bridges between Oklahoma and Texas.
If you've lived any time in southern Oklahoma or North Texas, the Red River may be taken for granted, but it is more than a boundary, it is a presence you can't ignore. 
Long ago, I wrote this....
-->

My students

flow through my life

like the grains of sand

along the north bank

of the Red River.

They are journalists

who individually

are vital pieces

of type in a long story.

Swept by the current,

the grains are sculpted

into sand bars

or drifts snagged

against old trees.

The river water

submerges most

of the sand,

or dissolves it,

carrying it downstream.

But in the sand bars

on the north bank,

the sun glistens off

the crystals in individual grains.

The students attract attention,

and bring vivid

relief and beauty

to a muddy world.

The sparkling grains

stand out like memories,

before time carries

them down-river.

Lots of memories and years and miles. Always on my mind. Thus this Saturday's watercolor, "Red River Valley."

"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