Professor Barbara Nevins Taylor
A letter from Professor Barbara Nevins Taylor, Program Director
The Journalism Concentration got off to a strong start in fall 2024 and kept up the pace through the spring 2025 semester. We began by offering five students the Inner Circle Fellowship, which provided monetary stipends and special workshops. One of the fellows, Fairuz Omar Raya, was chosen for The New York Times Corps and enjoyed a year of mentoring with a Times journalist. In the spring, Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal included four of our journalism students in a fellowship cohort that provided monetary stipends and a six-week mentoring program at Dow Jones’ Midtown offices.
Our Introduction to journalism classes were over-tallied and in one fall class, we were pleased to include three students from the City College Academy of the Arts high school in Washington Heights as part of the early college program. In the spring, College Now ran an Introduction to Journalism class with one of our instructors, and it was so successful that College Now ran a summer program for another set of high school students. One of the high school students was accepted for a Hearst summer internship.
Guest speakers visited all our classes, and we took student journalists off-campus to give them real-world experiences and opportunities for networking. Our classes visited New York City Hall and met with council members Shaun Abreu, Eric Boettcher, and Diana Ayala, as well as working journalists in the press room. Students also visited CNBC, and CUNY TV. One class attended a screening of a film by MCA BFA Film Program Director Deirdre Fishel.
A group of students with specific interests in sports and finance were selected for an NBC Universal visit to Goldman Sachs for a tour led by former New York Giants Captain Justin Tuck. Our ongoing relationship with NBCU brought NBCU Academy to campus in the spring. City College and our students were featured in a live streaming event, the Next Level Summit about careers and the future of sports broadcasting. The program turned the camera on to our group regularly and featured students got to ask questions on camera and receive answers from professionals.
In the spring, we also partnered with the Zahn Center for Innovation and the consulting firm Deloitte. The firm invited to students to their Soho offices and led interactive design thinking workshops.
Our students stood out in the Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Awards for the Northeast Region. Lizbeth Fuentes was a finalist in the video news category. The winner was a Harvard student who covered their encampment. Editors of our journalism publication Harlem View were finalists in the online publication category.
We look forward to expanding opportunities for students in fall 2025 and spring 2026. This fall we are launching our new Media Literacy class, which will be offered initially as an experimental Pathways course.