Leigh Wright is a very well-known professor on Murray State’s campus. She is a professor is Wilson Hall on campus. HerCampus met up with Wright to get some more insights on one of campus’s favorite professors.
HC-Where is your hometown?
Murray, Kentucky, by way of Knoxville, Tennessee and Paris, Tennessee
HC-Where did you go to college?
Murray State University (BA in journalism and political science, MFA in creative nonfiction)
HC-What are some of your journalism experiences?
I worked as a reporter, features editor and senior writer of The Paducah Sun newspaper for 16 years and freelanced for Posh magazine for four years. I covered education for the Sun during my time as a reporter and senior writer. I served as features editor for 13 of my 16 years at the Sun. I’ve also completed faculty internships at the TCPalm.com in south Florida and at WTVF Newschannel 5 in Nashville, Tennessee.
HC-What inspired you to go into your field?
Honestly, journalism was the LAST thing I wanted to do. My father had worked on the production side of Kentucky Educational Television and later in administration of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and my mom worked as a reporter/advertising rep for the Lexington Herald/Lexington Leader. She then taught high school and college journalism from the early 1970s until 2012 when she retired from Murray State. I took the journalism class at Murray High as an elective my senior year and realized that what I had been trying to run from was exactly what I wanted to do. I love to write, and I love to meet new people and experience new things. As one of my editors said once, I’m willing to try almost anything once if it results in a good story. I enjoyed being able to know the news before everyone else, and I’m naturally curious about everything. Even in college, I thought I wanted to go to law school and become a lawyer or work in political communications, but the newspaper bug bit me. My original plan was to work at the Sun for two years and then go to either law school or grad school, but I loved being able to tell the stories about people and issues in far western Kentucky, so I stayed in the profession for 16 years before entering teaching. I still enjoy writing and reporting stories for print, broadcast and online platforms.
HC-What roles do you play on Murray State’s campus?
I’m an assistant professor of journalism and head of the journalism sequence. Each fall, I coordinate a high school media workshop that attracts approximately 300 high school students to the campus. I am the adviser to Omicron Delta Kappa national leadership honor society.
HC-Was is you favorite memory from teaching?
Election Night 2016. I took my Reporting for Print Media students to the Calloway County Courthouse to collect election returns and write a story. Students could choose whether to write about either the presidential race or the Murray City Council race. I made them press passes and gave those to them at the courthouse. I watched my students interview candidates and election workers as they used the skills that they had learned in my classes. They were so professional, and they said they felt like real reporters. After we reviewed the results, we came back to WIlson Hall where we watched the presidential election returns and ate pizza. They were riveted to the results, and we talked about how journalists had covered the election. The next class session, they asked if we could cover Trump’s first 100 days in office for the capstone reporting project in the next class in the sequence because they had developed an interest in politics during the election. This class also developed such a supportive community as they worked on their projects and produced the capstone multimedia website.
HC-What classes do you teach?
JMC 100T Transitions, JMC 194 Newswriting, JMC 304 Multimedia Writing, JMC 397 Reporting for Print Media, JMC 305 Copyediting, JMC 492 Feature Writing and JMC 597 Advanced Reporting (capstone). Of course, I do alternate several of these classes with other faculty in the department, so I don’t teach all of these in a semester. That would be super-human!
HC-What is something you would want everyone to know about you?
I really want my students to succeed in their profession and in their life. I strive to be there for them and help them navigate life’s ups and downs in college and beyond. I guess that’s my mom side coming out.
HC-What advice could you give to a college student to help them be successful in their college career?
The professor answer: Attend classes, do your work, be present in your classes, participate, get internships and learn from every experience. Time management is important! Also, remember to eat meals and get a few hours of sleep.
The mom answer: You are enough. I have to tell myself this sometimes when I get wrapped up in trying to be everything to everybody. College is fun, but college is stressful. You have to take the time to care for yourself, ask for help, and know that you are still growing and evolving as a person. I also tell my students to breathe when they seem stressed or upset. That’s so much easier said than done when you have projects for every class, work, etc., but it helps to take a few minutes and check in with yourself to let yourself know that everything will work out at the end of the day.