You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'Inspiration' category.
My Spring Class was great!
I really enjoyed this, the biggest class I have ever taught. These students were a pleasure to teach. The really stretched themselves and went beyond their comfort zones. I am going to be awarding a lot of good grades because these folks delivered. I am really proud to have known and taught them. We had a good time. This is a fine bunch of young people!
For our final I bought pizza and drinks for the whole class, except for one student who is a Vegan and so I got her a Vegan dish. It wasn’t just them learning from me. I learned from them and will be making changes that I think will make me a better teacher. Besides learning to teach better I learned some fun things. For example, I plan to go back to Vegan restaurant when I return from vacation (which starts tomorrow.)
But first, on Friday my wife and I will be in Seattle for the birth of our sixth grandchild! I will be back at SJSU on June 9th.
These are the video and audio blogs of students in this class:
- Christina Baumann
- Joreen Bones
- Erin Cabreros
- Anita Campbell
- Candy Cervantez
- Virginia Chavez
- Video Blog
- Related RSS Feed
- Cheng Fang Chiang
- Elizabeth Foley
- Andrea Frainier
- Justine Geiszler
- Sinh Le
- Katie Lichty
- Rachael Lin
- Courtney Lorusso
- Lyell Marks
- Suzzette Medina
- Matthew Mountford
- David Nguyen
- Video Blog
- Related RSS Feed
- Patricia Plascencia
- Steve Ragan
- Leslie Richman
- Jennifer Sabaten
- David Salisbury
- Patrick Tam
Who could say enough good things about Joe Swan?
Former SJSU photojournalism professor Joe Swan, 78, died Sunday. Joe taught in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications from 1963 to 1991. I remember having an 8 a.m. class with Joe when I was a student at SJSU about 28 years ago, in 1980. Joe was full of great stories about his days at Grit Magazine. I doubt I was the only one in the class who had no idea what Grit Magazine was or had never heard of Grit Magazine before that class but we all listened enthusiastically because Joe was a first class story teller.
Joe was a Texan. He spoke with a Texas accent. Joe was a perfect southern gentleman. Years later; I remember walking around campus with Joe. There was a female university police officer having some issues with two males who were athletic looking and much bigger than her. Sensing that the police officer might be out matched, (despite the fact she had a gun and they did not) Joe turned to me and said, “it looks like we might have to get involved here.” At that time Joe was having some health problems. Neither of us was a formidable force. Neither of us were fighters. Those guys looked a lot bigger and tougher than us! Thankfully the officer was able to handle the situation handily. That’s Joe, he was not a bystander if anybody, especially a lady was, or even appeared to be in distress.
I have Joe to thank for working at San Jose State University. Before I came to SJSU I was a photo lab tech at the University of California San Francisco. I had my BA in photojournalism. Joe told me about a photo lab tech job that had just opened up at SJSU in the then Department of Journalism and encouraged me to apply. That was 1988. That photo tech job evolved into one supporting computers.
Joe had an ear to the ground for jobs for his former photo students. When I was there as a student, Jack Fields was a visiting professor. Jack taught most of my main photojournalism classes but Joe was the full time professor. Joe taught some of the other photojournalism classes as well as courses like the morning magazine class. After Jack left Joe taught all of the photojournalism courses.
Joe watched over and cared for his students like they were his own kids. Many of us owe our careers to Joe. Sometimes he knew of job openings before the people who were doing the hiring would know they had a vacancy. Joe would hear through the grapevine someone was going to leave a job. Our students and graduates would have their applications in the hands of editors before the outgoing photographer had even given notice.
Besides my current position there are two other jobs I landed that I owe credit to Joe for, including my time as a photographer for the Manteca Bulletin.
Recently the Spartan Daily ran a story on Joe. It had a photo of him in the hospital and it said, “Within the last year, Swan, 78, has had both legs amputated and has been on dialysis, a process of filtration used when the kidneys stop working, because of complications from diabetes.” The photo I have above, in this blog post, is how I will remember Joe.
He was one of the nicest people I have ever known. Joe a real role model for aspiring journalism students as well as for new faculty. We lost one of the best!
Edward R. Murrow
My wife Sue and I just watched the prescient 2005 movie Good Night, and Good Luck. This movie is about Edward R. Murrow’s battle with Joe McCarthy, but despite the fact that it is set in the 1950’s it seems quite timely given our so-called battle against terrorism and some of the actions of recent years, especially the Patriot Act. The movie opens and closes with Murrow’s speech in 1958 to the Radio and Television News Director’s Association convention in Chicago. The speech makes timely reading today.
This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box.
I recommend this movie to all students of Journalism, Political Science and to all students of our times. To all America, good night and good luck.
If you do not take video podcasting seriously, think again!
This is the best video podcast episode I have ever seen. It is lovely and succeeds on so many levels. This episode of the Grape Radio Podcast shows what happens when folks who are working in this medium take their medium seriously and make a commitment to quality. In a word, it is lovely. This video podcast episode tells a story elegantly, throughly, romantically and accurately. It is a fine example of new media journalism, as fine as I have ever seen.
