Many students know Carol Fletcher as a Professor for the School of Communication, but what many students may not know is that Carol Fletcher is now the new head of the School of Journalism.
How long have you been teaching at Hofstra?
I started teaching full time at Hofstra in 2000 but I was an adjunct for about twelve to thirteen years before that. I also taught a couple of semesters part-time at NYU and was also a TA at Berkeley.
What did you do before you came to Hofstra?
I worked in the magazine industry at various times a reporter, editor and writer for primarily Women and Science magazines. I always had an interest in Science and Health so I started working at Discover Magazine when it was first founded and then one job lead to another, I also wrote freelance for woman’s magazines like Glamour, Working Woman and Working Mother as well as defunct Woman’s Magazines.
What made you want to become a professor?
At first I tried doing part-time I thought it would be fun to give it a try, but then I found I just loved it.
How were you chosen to become the new Head of Journalism Department?
Well as you know unfortunately Bob Papper decided to retire, so the Dean then asked the faculty for input and decided that I would be lucky enough to take his place.
What does the new job entail?
What it entails is helping students and faculty with schedules and classes, working with faculty to advance an agenda for the department and fulfill the needs of the department as well as communicating those needs to the Dean’s office and in turn communicating to the faculty information from higher up in the University.
What are you most excited for with this new job?
Two things it’s a chance to learn about a lot of things I didn’t know a lot about before, about the University about the school and about the Department. When you are busy teaching your classes every day and your advisees you don’t know what another faculty member in the Department is doing for research or in the classroom; now it is a little bit more my job to know those things and I am learning a tremendous amount about how wonderful our faculty are and how many things they are involved in, and the second thing is it is a really exciting and challenging time to be involved in media because so many changes are going on in the industry and we as a faculty have to respond to that and that poses a lot of challenges and I am really excited to see how we can work to do that.
Is there an interesting fact about yourself you would like to share with the Hofstra Community?
When I retire I want to move rural Pennsylvania and raise Alpacas. I also have traveled all around Europe and parts of South America and parts of Africa, one day I’d like to go to Asia.
Is there anything you’d like to say to the School of Comm students?
You are so lucky because you have wonderful faculty and even more wonderful colleagues so take advantage of it join a club today get to know a faculty member, start writing for the student media, start producing, join PRSSA and just take advantage of everything in this building because it’s pretty incredible.