Jessica Brown is a professor at Loyola University Chicago, where she teaches for the School of Communication as the Senior Professional in Residence. Before her career at Loyola, Professor Brown worked as a journalist at sports desks and graphic arts departments for several publications across the country. I had the chance to sit down with her to discuss what it means, to her, to be a woman in a field typically dominated by men.
Photo courtesy of https://www.luc.edu/soc/jessicabrown.shtml
SK: Where did you get your start?
JB: I did my undergraduate at Illinois Wesleyan, which is in Bloomington, Illinois, and I did my masters in journalism at Newhouse school in Syracuse. So from there I started working in journalism.
SK: Once you got done with your masters, did you jump right into journalism?
JB: Yes, because we had to have an internship as part of the degree, and I just stayed on at the local newspaper after I graduated. I started at the sports desk, as a copy editor and I was there for probably two and a half years. Then I took a job in Rockford, Illinois, at the paper there in the graphic arts department and I was only there for one year. And then I took a job on the sports desk at the Orlando Sentinel for a few years.
SK: Did you always know you wanted to go into print?
JB: Yes. The internet was sort of a thing, but digital wasn’t as big of a thing. I like design — that’s where most of my training was — and web design is fine, I just like print design so much more. But I spend most of my time going between copy editing and design editing.
SK: From the sports desk, how did you jump into teaching?
JB: Well Orlando Sentinel was, at the time, a Tribune company, and the goal was to end up at the Chicago Tribune. But then it was bought by Sam Zell and they started laying people off, and I didn’t want to get laid off, so I wanted to leave how I wanted to leave. Not that I was going to get laid off [laughs], I just didn’t like the uncertainty! Then I saw this posting in Chicago. I wanted to come home eventually, so I thought maybe this was the time to get out of newspapers.
SK: You’re known as being the senior professional in residence for the School of Comm. Can you explain a little bit about what that position means and what it entails?
JB: It’s a weird title. There’s all these different ranks in higher education, and there’s the instructor rank, which can often mean someone who doesn’t have a PhD. For me, I don’t have my PhD, I just have my master. And for people who work in professional fields, often don’t stay in school for doctorates. Especially for journalism…you work as a journalist. So it’s just a rank for someone who is not tenured or PhD. The ‘senior’ is just the next promotion level, which I got last December. It also means someone who’s worked in the field that they teach, so it’s not just someone who’s studied, but also someone who’s worked in that field.
SK: Do they have a senior resident for every school at this university?
JB: I think School of Communication might be it— I don’t know any other school’s at Loyola that has that naming convention. Because communication has so many people who work in the profession, as opposed to English or philosophy, they just have special ranks and names for different positions.
Photo courtesy of @donheider on twitter https://twitter.com/donheider/status/591021575538929665
SK: The School of Comm has a slightly larger amount of females in both administration and faculty positions…has that always been the case since you’ve been working for Loyola? [source]
JB: That is one of the really awesome things Dean Heider accomplished. He just left this summer, and one of the things he did was to be really aware of having diverse faculty and staff. When I first got here — this is my eleventh year — it was not so much…diverse. He came here the year after I did and then things just sort of changed. You’re right, it’s not the case across the board.
SK: Have you felt, within your own career, that you have had to work harder, or strive for different goals, because of your gender identification?
JB: I haven’t felt it so much here, but working in sports and news, it was a daily struggle. I have never met another black female designer. I started to meet some at conventions, but those are national conventions. I shouldn’t have to go to one of those to finally meet folks who work in the field I want to work at. When I was working, I had a female colleague who was a graphic designer, she was Latino. And I had a male college who was a designer, he was African American. I never worked with another black woman on either of the sports desks.
SK: That’s a lot, to feel that every day.
JB: When you’re in a minority, you get used to being a minority. You don’t get used to being uncomfortable with it, you just get used to it being a thing. And you sort of figure out how to navigate it. You figure out who the allies are, and you figure out the political system and the culture. Because you just want to do your job, and sometimes other people make that harder for you…whether it’s intentional or just part of the culture where people are unwillfully blind to things. And in sports there’s a whole other level of testosterone-filled environments. That’s not just from your coworkers, but that’s also just what sports is. You gotta be tough to stay in that environment for a long time.
SK: At a university with a significantly larger female population, what does it mean to you, that you get to be in this position and be a role model for young professionals?
JB: It’s nice to see so many women. But it’s weird, because sometimes being at Loyola gives you a false sense of how many women are in journalism. Or are in it and are thriving and feel like it’s not an issue anymore. Higher education can do that, because across the board more women are going to school and as a woman you get a false sense of, “There are women everywhere!” and then you get into the field and ask, “Where did they all go…?” [laughs] That’s something we have to be mindful of! I’m in this organization, Association for Women Journalists, and we did a panel here on sexual harassment for students — especially if they’re in internships or on social media, because you’re not gonna learn that in a classroom. How do you deal with someone calling you these things? And you’re reminded, oh yeah. It’s still a thing, even though there are so many women in the classroom. I’m so pleased that so many women want to do this, and I hope that they continue to want to do this once they get out there. But I worry, should I be having different conversations in the classroom? And then if there are men in the classroom, should I be balancing not alienating people? Or saying you’re the reason something is wrong? Those are really difficult things to manage in a classroom.
SK: What are some steps that the faculty here has taken to try and navigate that?
JB: We have a diversity committee — which I’m in charge of — and I try to give them some tools for ice breakers or if people want to talk about identity or bias, and how it might be reflected in your work in ways that may be low risk. So, talking about yourself first, or if there’s something happening in the world, bringing that into the classroom. And not making it part of some week like “It’s black history month! Let’s learn about black people!” where it should be part of your everyday conversations. The fact that we do communications, and the fact that something is happening everyday in every field, those are the easiest and most obvious ways to bring those conversations into the classroom.
SK: What are some things that male students can pick up on, as they’re getting their own degree, that can help their female colleagues? What are things they should be prepared for as they go into the workforce?
JB: Being an ally is super hard because you’re sticking up for someone you don’t have to stick up for. What are the consequences of allyhood? What does it look like, really? Is it calling your friend at the end of the day, after everything’s happened? Or is it saying something in the moment? What is the risk you’re taking if you do that? Because you can opt in and out of being an ally whenever you want. That’s the privilege of that space. I’m cisgender, heterosexual, so I can opt in and out of LGBTQ issues whenever I want, and what that looks like. Teaching people how to be allies, you’d think it comes naturally, but it looks one way to you, saying “oh, I’m sorry that happened to you,” three days later. When where were you, when I was getting abused in this way? Those are tough, because you get branded with that person as part of a group, and it might not want to be a place you want to live in.
SK: What would you say, has been your greatest achievement within your own career so far?
JB: I’m so blessed to be teaching here! I applied for it on a whim! I saw it on the Society for News Design job posting. I was an adjunct at Newhouse when I applied for this, so I was a little familiar with being a teacher in the classroom, but I’ve learned so much about multimedia being here — like I started off in print and now I do so many other types of storytelling. Loyola’s given me the opportunity to learn, whether it’s been going to conferences, or workshops — things I never would have been able to do in a newsroom, because it’s so fast, and you spend so much time working that there’s no time to grow in other ways. I’m super grateful for that. This job is really flexible, so I might have a weekday off and I can live my life in a way that I couldn’t when I was working eight hour, nine hour day that was set. Maybe I had a weekend off, maybe I had two days in a row off, and it became a quality of life issue. My quality of life is much better here. And that has value. And that’s something we should teach students. You like how much you’re getting paid, but are you working eighty hours, and are you expected to be online all the time? Those things start to chip away at your quality of life and it might not be worth it for a salary.
SK: Because we tend to learn more from our mistakes than we do our successes, what would you pinpoint as a failure you have come across in your career, that you could offer wisdom from for readers?
JB: I always remember this story when I was working in Syracuse. I started off in sports, and then I ended up in the graphics department, and we were doing a feature layout on Carmelo Anthony — he’s an NBA player who went to Syracuse, so he’s a big deal. When he was a student there they did a centerpiece on his hair, and in the photo half of his hair is cornrowed, and the woman who was doing it — she was in the process of continuing the braid — you could tell from the hands that it was a black woman. The headline said, “Good Hair,” and I thought to myself, people are going to make a negative association with that because, you know, black folks and having natural hair isn’t seen as good hair versus light hair which is straight and fine. I said, you know what, I’m not in sports anymore — not my problem. [laughs] You should have people who should see that! So I didn’t say anything, they printed the page, and people didn’t like it. Later, the editor talked to me about it, which I thought was a little unfair. It’s like…it’s not my job. I’m not the race police! People of different identities don’t want to be in spaces because of their identities. It wasn’t malicious, they just weren’t aware that it was a thing. That’s why you need more people across the board, because it shouldn’t have gotten that far. It’s super tough being the only one of someone in a space because you’re put in a position to speak for that group, even if you feel like it’s not appropriate for you to speak for that group, or you feel like you shouldn’t have to speak for that group. But you kind of take that on…in addition to kind of hoping that you’re just there to do your job. I still don’t know if I’m mad at myself for not saying something, I just…didn’t feel like saying anything. I was like, twenty four years old and was probably just like, whatever. [laughs] It’s hard to know when to speak up when you’re different. You might always be speaking up, and you can get tired. That’s the thing that I’ll always remember in my life: that stupid centerpiece and that stupid headline.
SK: Do you have anything else you’d like to add or say?
JB: It’s really important that women don’t get jaded. You’re always going to try and find the balance between just wanting to do your job and representing a bigger group of people. That’s for anyone, no matter what you are — could be race, could be your physical ability, could be any number of things. You don’t know who’s looking at you, or being inspired by you, or who’s watching you. There’s just always so many things you’re balancing beyond the fact that you just want to show up and do good work.