NHPR Professionals Help Plymouth State English Majors Learn how “Humanities Work”
This spring, the Plymouth State University English program, supported in co-sponsorship by the Humanities, Cultures and Communication Administrative Unit, hosted the first in what we hope to be a semi-regular series, “Humanities Work.” For this inaugural gathering, PSU English alumna Zoë Kay ‘18 (Marketing & Events Coordinator, NHPR) brought a whole crew from NHPR, including:
Producer, All Things Considered, Michelle Liu
Health and Equity Reporter, Paul Cuno-Booth
Operations Manager, Joe Boehnlein
Senior Producer, Digital News Platforms, Dan Tuohy
Reporter, Olivia Richardson
Education and Demographics Reporter, Sarah Gibson
Vice President of Development, Christine Louis
The panelists who work both on-air and behind the scenes at NHPR discussed various facets of working in public media, from journalism and research to social media and public relations. These NHPR professionals included folks who studied History, Comparative Literature, and Theatre, as well as fields like Journalism, and they articulated various ways in which their work and interest in those fields both led them to working in public media and provided skills they rely upon to do work that seems, on its face, very different from what some of them studied as undergraduates.
First year English major James Oatis found the event “extremely successful and helpful,” especially because of how the NHPR guests “helped explain in depth the different type of writing that can be done for public relations, articles and other subjects.” He says he left the event with a better understanding of the “writing employment scene.”
Third year English major Makenna Horne “had a great time connecting with Zoë and spending time listening to everyone’s stories.” Makenna finds that attending presentations like these makes her “significantly more confident” about where her education might be leading her.
This event was conceived in the context of a long-standing alumni connections activity in our Studies in English course, spearheaded by Professor Abby Goode, and taught this semester by Professor Nic Helms. Built into this course taken by all English majors at the start of their program are multiple opportunities to interact with PSU English alumni as well as other past English majors (including current Plymouth State faculty and staff) to combat the incorrect stereotype that there’s “not much you can do” with a BA in English.
Kay noted that, “no matter the area of expertise, studying the humanities means diving into critical thinking, creativity, logic and reasoning, and compassion. It was clear when fielding questions and engaging in conversation that PSU students care deeply about those things.”
(photos courtesy Zoë Kay and Liz Ahl)
