Op-Eds, Media Interviews and Social Media: Faculty Scholarship in the Public Square

Join the Georgetown University Scholarly Communication Committee for a panel discussion on faculty scholarship and the popular media. This special event will take place on Friday, October 6, 2017 at 10 am in the Murray Room on the 5th floor of the Georgetown University Library and will feature:

Panelists:

  • Autumn Brewington, Op-Ed Editor at the Washington Post (2007 - 2014) and Editor of the Wall Street Journal's Think Tank (2014 - 2016)
  • Marcia Chatelain, Associate Professor, Department of History, Georgetown University
  • Danielle Knight, Producer, “1A”, WAMU 88.5 American University Radio and NPR
  • Deborah Tannen, University Professor, Department of Linguistics, Georgetown University

Moderator:

  • Sanford Ungar, Director, The Free Speech Project, Georgetown University

 

In addition to traditional scholarship, Georgetown University faculty communicate through a wide variety popular channels, including op-eds, television and radio interviews, magazine articles, and social media. In this symposium, we will explore how faculty bring their research and scholarship to the attention of the public and work toward informing and influencing public discourse and policymaking.

The symposium will address the following issues:

  • What are the benefits of bringing research and scholarship into a public forum for the public, the university, and the individual? What are the liabilities/downsides?

  • How do faculty translate their expert knowledge and complex research into formats that can reach a broad audience?

  • What are the characteristics of effective op-eds, television or radio interviews, and social media postings?

  • How can faculty get started in communicating through the media?

  • Given the value of contributing to public discourse, what incentives and support do we have to encourage faculty to participate in public discourse?

 

Autumn Brewington is a visiting editor at Lawfare, the national security and legal affairs Web site. A graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism, she worked at The Washington Post from 2001 to 2014. After more than a decade in The Post's editorial department and seven years as editor of its op-ed page, she joined The Wall Street Journal to launch a blog of outside contributors writing about Washington politics and policy issues. She edited and managed The Journal's Think Tank blog until December 2016, when she began freelance editing and writing.

 

Marcia Chatelain is Associate Professor of History and African American Studies at Georgetown University. The author of South Side Girls: Growing up in the Great Migration (Duke University Press, 2015), Chatelain is a public voice on the history of African American children, race in America, as well as social movements. In 2014, Chatelain organized her fellow scholars in a social media response to the crisis in Ferguson, Missouri, entitled #FergusonSyllabus. #FergusonSyllabus has led to similar initiatives online and has shaped curricular projects in K-12 settings, as well as academia. A frequent public speaker and consultant to educational institutions, Chatelain delivers lectures and workshops on inclusive teaching, social movements, and food justice. Chatelain has contributed to TheAtlantic.com, Time.com, Ms. Magazine, and The Chronicle of Higher Education, and she has also been quoted in articles in the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post, and the Chronicle of Higher Education; she has appeared on local television and national outlets including C-SPAN, MSNBC, CNN, BBC-America, and PBS. Chatelain hosts, “Office Hours: A Podcast,” in which she talks to millennials about what is most important to them. Chatelain is a proud graduate of the University of Missouri-Columbia, where she was a Harry S. Truman Scholar, and she holds a Ph.D. in American Civilization from Brown University. In 2016, Chatelain was named a “Top Influencer in Higher Education,” by The Chronicle of Higher Education. She is currently the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C.

 

Danielle Knight is a producer on 1A, a new national public radio talk show on WAMU distributed by NPR. Prior to joining the show, she was a producer for The Diane Rehm Show on WAMU and NPR. She is a former congressional correspondent and associate editor for U.S. News & World Report magazine. Previously, Knight was a freelance reporter for The New York Times and PRI’s Living on Earth, and covered energy and the environment for Inter Press Service newswire, reporting from Ecuador, Mexico, Russia, South Africa and Tanzania. She’s been a finalist for both an Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) award and a Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business Journalism. Knight holds a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.

 

Deborah Tannen is university professor and professor of linguistics at Georegtown, where she has been on the faculty since 1979.  Outside academia, she is best known as the author of You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation, which was on the New York Times best seller list for nearly four years, including eight months as No. 1, and has been translated into 31 languages. Her book Talking from 9 to 5: Women and Men at Work was a New York Times Business best seller. Her books You Were Always Mom’s Favorite!: Sisters in Conversation Throughout Their Lives and You're Wearing THAT?: Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation, were also New York Times best sellers.  She is a frequent guest on television and radio news and information shows, including The Colbert Report, 20/20, Good Morning America, The Today Show, PBS NewsHour, Charlie Rose, Oprah, Hardball, Nightline, and many shows on CNN and NPR such as Morning Edition, All Things Considered, The Diane Rehm Show, and Fresh Air.  She has been featured in and written for most major newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, Newsweek, Time, USA Today, People, The Washington Post, and The Harvard Business Review.  Her 25th book (of 12 authored and 13 edited or co-edited), You're The Only One I Can Tell: Inside the Language of Women's Friendships, was published in May.

 

Sanford J. Ungar, president emeritus of Goucher College, is director of the Free Speech Project at Georgetown University. He has been director of the Voice of America and dean of the School of Communication at American University. During his journalism career, he was a staff writer for the Washington Post, Washington editor of The Atlantic, managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine, and co-host of “All Things Considered” on NPR. He is the author or editor of six nonfiction books, including The Papers & The Papers: An Account of the Legal and Political Battle over the Pentagon Papers, which won the George Polk Award. Ungar earned an AB in Government magna cum laude from Harvard College and a master’s degree in International History from the London School of Economics. He teaches undergraduate seminars on Free Speech at both Georgetown and Harvard.

 

10 am - 12 pm

Meg Oakley, Director Copyright and Scholarly Communications, 202- 687- 0302, meg.oakley@georgetown.edu

Murray Conference Room, Georgetown University Library, 5th Floor, Georgetown University
RSVP by