S.I. Newhouse School, Syracuse University

 

Johanna Keller

Founding director, professor and visiting editor

In 2003, Johanna Keller arrived at the S.I. Newhouse School in Syracuse and was tasked by then-Dean David Rubin to create the first arts journalism program at an accredited school to train journalists to communicate about culture.

Drawing on her past experiences as a journalist, arts administrator, teacher, and national advocate for arts journalism, she and Rubin envisioned an intensive one-year masters program in which students are proactive in choosing courses and setting goals for their careers.

Keller and Rubin launched the Goldring Arts Journalism Program in 2005 and it has been influential in inspiring other universities to develop similar programs.

At Syracuse University, Keller has received numerous teaching awards, including the 2008 Meredith Award, and the 2007 Excellence in Graduate Education Award, for which she was nominated by the Goldring students. An associate professor of communications and newspaper-online journalism, she was appointed to the Renee Crown Honors Program in 2004.

Keller specializes in writing about music and culture for The New York Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education Review, London Evening Standard, Los Angeles Times and other media in the U.S. and the U.K.

She received the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award and the Front Page Award from the Newswomen’s Club of New York for essays in The Times. She has served twice on the Pulitzer Prize Jury at Columbia University.

Keller was editor of Chamber Music magazine and during her tenure, the publication received its first of six national awards for excellence in editorial and design.

She holds degrees in music and in literature, and studied at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France.

 

　

Steve Daly

Professor and visiting editor

As a reporter and senior writer at Time Inc.’s Entertainment Weekly Magazine for nearly two decades, Daly covered the Hollywood movie scene.

Daly has conducted in-depth interviews with scores of leading filmmakers, including Martin Scorsese, Peter Jackson, Roman Polanski, Mira Nair, John Lasseter, Jane Campion, Robert Zemeckis, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood, and James Cameron.

He has charted the vicissitudes of the Oscar-season demolition derby and the craft of screen acting in takes on such iconic performers as Johnny Depp, John Travolta, Jane Fonda, Meryl Streep, Samuel L. Jackson, Sally Field, Jodie Foster, George Clooney, Jack Black and Nicolas Cage.

Daly and Pixar Animation Studios founding father John Lasseter co-authored the 1995 Hyperion book “Toy Story: The Art and Making of the Animated Film.”

Since fall 2007, he has taught criticism and feature writing for Syracuse’s Goldring Arts Journalism Program.

 

　

Janet Anthony

Program Coordinator

Janet Anthony, a native of Syracuse, has been a member of the Syracuse University staff since 1994 and has been with the Goldring Arts Journalism Program since 2006.

She is career development coordinator for the program and works with to provide Goldring students assistance to ensure success in this field.

Janet was previously a grants specialist in the office of sponsored programs.

 

　

　

Goldring Arts Journalists

 

Jason Berger

Film and television

Jason Berger is a film and new media journalist. After spending his formative years watching an endless stream of movies, he has attempted to channel that into a productive career. This goal has taken him to many different areas of the film industry.

Since graduating from Vassar College, he has worked for New Line Cinema, been a personal assistant to the late actor Christopher Reeve and worked as a film editor.

He is now at Interview Magazine, as well as a contributing writer for multiple online publications. Jason is fascinated by the way in which technology has affected stories in film, both in the way they’re told and the way they’re received, and is interested in how this art form continues to evolve.

There is nothing he enjoys more then rambling endlessly about the movies he loves (or hates). A collection of his work can be found at his website, foxberger.com.

 

　

Phillip Crook

Fashion

Look for the guy in the seersucker suit. Although he’s grown accustomed to New York sweater weather, Phillip Cook is excited to hit Charleston’s streets in Charleston style and check out the local costumes and social scene, and if you see him, you need to tweet about where you saw him.

As a native of Raleigh, southern sartorial charm is nothing new to this fashion journalist. Phillip spent the spring interning at ELLE.com and, for the past year, acted as editor of the student-run fashion blog Cuse Clothes Line.

While earning his B.A. in news editorial journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he also worked as an arts reporter at The Daily Tar Heel and a features intern at The Raleigh News & Observer.

Look for Phillip as he takes in the city’s famous shopping and scours the sidewalks for style-savvy Charlestonians.

 

Adam D’Arpino

Music

Adam D’Arpino arrives in Charleston fresh off a year of exploring and writing about the vibrant cultures of Syracuse and New York City.

In the fall, Adam interned at Bentley-Hall Inc., publishers of Making Music magazine and International Musician, where he penned musician profiles and features.

He also contributed to Syracuse University student publications, The Daily Orange and The Newshouse, as well as the Syracuse Post-Standard.

In the spring, Adam interned at Beyond Race Magazine, a New York City-based magazine that specializes in covering progressive music and culture, where he served as a music, film and live music critic. He also profiled indie-rock band Plants and Animals for the magazine. The experience allowed him to keep his finger on the pulse of New York City’s emerging music scene.

In Charleston, he looks forward to escaping the Snow Belt, exploring and enjoying South Carolina’s gastronomic culture, and, of course, taking in everything the festivals have to offer. In addition to writing, Adam enjoys playing guitar, rooting against the New York Yankees, and overanalyzing his favorite television shows.

 

Sonaite Debebe-Kumssa

Theater

After having the opportunity perform at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in the summer of 2002, Sonaite Debebe-Kumssa found herself fascinated by how art can create connections across languages, cultures and continents.

Sonaite continued to explore this question by traveling to places including London, England and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She attended the University of South Carolina in her hometown of Columbia, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in theatre in 2008. She then entered the Goldring Arts Journalism Program at Syracuse University.

While in Syracuse, Sonaite interned with Kyle Bass, the dramaturg at Syracuse Stage. During her time there, she had the opportunity to design dramaturgical displays for the theater lobby, interview playwrights about their works and write articles that explained how the plays in Syracuse Stage’s season were connected to the Syracuse community.

Sonaite hopes to continue advocating for the theater from within and is interested in running her own theater at some point.

 

　

Leah Dennison

Food and music

Leah Dennison is a multidisciplinary writer and lover of many things, including seafood, puns, Steinbeck, beverages that are brewed and/or fermented, cats, Ireland, folk music and bluegrass and kittens.

She most recently interned at Syracuse’s alternative weekly, the Syracuse New Times, where she wrote with an emphasis on music, food and drink.

During her year at the Newhouse school, Leah launched her blog, “A Word in Progress,” at leahdennison.wordpress.com, which she maintains, and which links to much of her published work. She also served as a lead producer and contributing writer for The NewsHouse, a state-of-the-art student website with the latest in Syracuse news and reviews.

As an undergraduate, Leah studied linguistics at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, where she completed her bachelor’s degree in three years. She still enjoys reading anything by Noam Chomsky and Steven Pinker.

After these few weeks in Charleston, Leah will be moving to Nashville where she hopes to find employment, locate the nearest Irish pub and pick up the banjo — preferably but not necessarily in that order.

 

　

Janna Dotschkal

Travel and culture, visual arts

Janna Dotschkal is an avid world traveler who is fascinated by the art of multimedia storytelling. Last summer, she packed her car and left her home state of Texas to develop her academic love of culture.

She has spent the past year at Syracuse working to develop both her writing and photography skills. She hopes to use these to tell the stories of the less privileged worldwide. She can often be seen with a camera slung over her shoulder or crawling to some unusual spot to get the right shot.

Janna graduated from Baylor University last May. In the fall of 2007, Janna benefitted from studying abroad at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, which allowed her to travel all over the U.K. and Europe. Janna has also ventured to Nairobi, Kenya, where she witnessed extreme poverty. Immediately after the trip, she created one of her first video projects raising awareness about boys who sniff glue on the streets of Nairobi.

After her stint in Charleston, she plans to move to the Washington, D.C. area for an internship.

 

　

　

Carren Jao

Visual art

Carren Jao has been a freelance writer for more than two years. She has been published in a number of national lifestyle magazines in her hometown of Manila, Philippines. Since then, she’s written on a range of topics from contemporary art to parenting tips.

Along the way, she’s met a host of incredible personalities. She’s realized that whatever the subject matter, telling a story is her No. 1 priority.

She loves exploring and she thinks getting lost is the best way to find yourself again. Check out her work on http://carrenjao.blogspot.com.

 

　

　

Bethany Larson

Pop culture, travel, and dance

Bethany Larson is a writer, television junkie and dance enthusiast who tends to insert at least one pop culture reference into every conversation.

She is an editorial intern at Flavorwire, a national arts and culture website based in New York City, and a television columnist for Ozarks Unbound, a news website based in her hometown of Fayetteville, Ark.

Although she has enjoyed living in New York for the past eight months, Bethany is a Southerner at heart. She has desperately missed sweet tea and people who say “y’all.”

Bethany graduated cum laude from the University of Arkansas in 2009 with a Bachelor of Arts in history. She enjoys cooking, dancing, road trips, Facebook and reading. For her latest articles and thoughts on arts, culture and entertainment, visit her blog at http://bethanyelarson.blogspot.com.

 

　

John Leimbach

Architecture

John is drawn to culture’s interaction with the built environment; how we design, build, move through, and experience spaces and places. That’s why he writes about architecture and travel, turning rich visual environments into words.

John holds a bachelor of architecture degree from Ball State University, where he participated in study programs in Italy and Miami Beach.

He spent five years as an intern architect and marketing coordinator for various Los Angeles area architecture firms. When not writing, John often can be found with a camera in hand, fostering an interest in photography, particularly using medium format toy cameras.

John has a particular affinity for the American west and its treasure trove of national parks, wide-open roads and land art, but is always happy to find himself back in his hometown of Chicago.

He writes for The Architect’s Newspaper and maintains a blog devoted to his travels and photography, www.informedmindstravel.blogspot.com.

 

　

Jessica Novak

Music

Jess is a lover of classic rock and jazz and has been since she heard Cream, Kool & the Gang and Jaco Pastorius when she was six years old.

When she was 18, she left her hometown without a zip code in northern New Jersey to study communication and music industry at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va. Directly after graduation, Jess came to the Syracuse Goldring program to pursue her master’s degree in arts journalism with a focus in popular music and jazz.

Jess has worked at the New York City pop music radio station WHTZ: Z100, The School of Rock and written for publications including Beyond Race Magazine, The Syracuse New Times, Haydenfilms.com and Newshouse.com.

She interned with CNY Jazz Central last fall and at Bentley-Hall Inc., publisher of Making Music Magazine and International Musician in the spring.

Directly following Spoleto, Jessica will join the School of Rock as communications associate.

To learn more, check out www.jessrock.com.

 

　

Kristen Rajczak

Theater and literature

 

Growing up in Buffalo, N,Y., Kristen never had trouble with self-expression. She started singing, dancing and writing as a little girl, hoping to be heard over her herds of cousins. She has been singing since age 3, when she first learned “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina,” and has performed in many choral and theater settings since. During high school and college, Kristen also played flute and piccolo in woodwind ensembles and concert bands. While her performances have now been relegated to karaoke bars, putting pen to paper – whether in fiction, poetry or newspaper stories – has become her favorite pastime.

She graduated in May 2009 with a B.A. in English from Gannon University, and served as editor-in-chief of The Gannon Knight newspaper as a senior. Kristen has interned in the features sections of The Buffalo News and the Syracuse Post Standard, and has written for Lake Erie Lifestyle magazine and thenewshouse.com. When not writing for publication, Kristen pours over vegetarian cookbooks, sends snail mail to her friends across the East Coast and wishes she were playing ball with her German Shepherd, Ruby.

 

　

Thomas Riemschneider

Theater

Thomas Riemschneider recently served as an editorial intern at Back Stage, where he reviewed off-off-Broadway and wrote pieces on playwright Jon Robin Baitz and actor Michael Urie. He wrote weekly reviews of Syracuse-area theater productions last fall and is honing his web design and social media skills.

He graduated from Valparaiso University in 2008 with a Bachelor of Arts in theater and thanks that fine Lutheran college for teaching him of the joys of choral singing and the superiority of German beer.

Far from considering himself above the “low arts,” Thomas was ecstatic to see a high school classmate and the location of his third-grade birthday party appear on the MTV reality show/cultural phenomena “Jersey Shore.”

 

Bonnie Rosenberg

Visual arts

Bonnie Rosenberg’s writing, web searches and even causal conversations revolve around visual art. She concentrates in contemporary art and revels in reporting about significant, sometimes scandalous, art world happenings.

She received a bachelor’s in art history and English literature from Saint Louis University. Her background in art history helps to inform her understanding of current works.

She is interning at CityArts, a bi-monthly publication in New York City. There, she writes reviews and news articles spanning a variety of topics.

 

　

Rebecca Schmid

Music

Rebecca Schmid freelances for BBC Music Magazine, Chamber Music America and American Record Guide. She regularly reviews operas and other events in classical music for the international online magazine, Music and Vision, and thenewshouse.com.

She has worked as a contributing writer for The Post Standard and The Scarsdale Inquirer. In addition to her writing pursuits, Rebecca has produced videos of musicians and concerts in the Syracuse area. She is a board member of Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music.

She is a graduate of Brown University in music and comparative literature. As a Fulbright scholar in Vienna, she studied the autobiography of Ignaz von Seyfried, a contemporary and rival of Mozart.

Rebecca is a classically trained singer and has performed professionally in Austria and Switzerland.

 

　

Nigel Smith

Film

A Toronto-bred Canadian, Nigel Smith divides his time between his studies at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School and his internship with indieWIRE, the web’s leading site for independent film news, in the Big Apple.

In addition to his classes and internship, he freelances for the Canadian newspaper and online journal Xtra!. Highlights of his work for the publication include a profile of George Takei of “Star Trek.”

Nigel also finds time to teach journalism to a class of 7th-grade students at Huntington K-8 School for Syracuse University’s Literacy Corps.

Nigel earned a BFA in acting: theatre performance from Toronto’s Ryerson University in 2005. Nigel landed leading roles in a number of independent features.

While his focus is on film journalism, Nigel continues to be an avid lover of the stage. For more about Nigel, and to view his work, visit www.nigelmsmith.com.

 

　

Courtney Thompson

Theater

Courtney Thompson is a theater and dance journalist hailing from Decatur, Ill.. For the past few months, she has split her time between Syracuse and New York City where she interned with Dance Magazine.

At DM, she scanned the Internet for the latest in health news and dance fashion and wrote for the magazine, online newsletter, and Daily Dance blog.

Last fall, Courtney interned with the marketing and publications department at Syracuse Stage, the leading professional theater in Central New York. She wrote press releases and feature stories.

Courtney attended Millikin University and earned bachelor degrees in English writing and theater with a minor in dance. She has trained in classical ballet, pointe, jazz, modern, tap, and musical theater dance.

When she leaves Charleston, Courtney will move to Aspen, Colo., where she will immerse herself in the world of classical music as the PR/marketing intern for the Aspen Music Festival and School.

 

Tamara Vallejos

Music

Tamara Vallejos is a Los Angeles native and alumna of Washington State University. She has lived in five different states in the past two years in the pursuit writing opportunities.

This, her first visit to South Carolina, will make it six. An avid fan of road trips, she would rather visit a new state than travel abroad, which means she can’t wait to soak up the local culture.

Tamara boasts an intense passion for independent rock and pop music, and has written on the topic for NPR.org, Spin.com, and FILTER magazine, among other publications.

Tamara dreams of one day opening her own wine bar and tapas restaurant, complete with live music.

 

　

Gemma Wilson

Theater

Gemma Wilson is a theater and culture journalist based in New York City. She spent the spring interning at playbill.com, and the fall interning for The Syracuse Post-Standard. She published articles both in the daily paper and in CNY Magazine. She also writes for her own blog, standingontiptoe.wordpress.com.

A lifelong singer, Gemma studied voice from the age of 13 with various teachers, including Marni Nixon. She graduated with a BFA in theater from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she studied at the Atlantic Theater Company School.

After graduation, she spent three years as assistant to legendary Broadway producer and director Hal Prince, and worked with him during his productions of “Phantom of the Opera” in Las Vegas and “LoveMusik” on Broadway. She also assisted during the development phase of the new musical “Paradise Found,” which opens at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory in May 2010.

When not in Syracuse, Gemma splits her time between her adopted home in Brooklyn and her original home in Seattle so she can hang out with Juicy, the family pit bull.

 

　

Sarah Zimmerman

Design, travel and culture

Poetry is Sarah’s first love, but in 2002 she began an affair with journalism and continues courting both today. Coming from a nomadic childhood, she is used to being the new girl with a great appreciation for fresh places and faces.

Born in the South with family roots in Knoxville, Tenn., Amelia Island, Fla., and Spartanburg, Sarah is excited to venture to the Lowcountry.

She most recently moved from New York City, where she was associate editor of Floor Covering News, to Syracuse, where she’s working to obtain her masters in arts journalism with a focus in design at Syracuse.

Outside the classroom, Sarah has interned with design organizations AIGA and Print, and worked closely with SU’s COLAB. With a strong focus on multimedia, she’s also used the past year to re-up on emerging technology, such as soundslides, video, social networking and Web design.

She spent this year volunteering as a seventh-grade journalism teacher at Huntington Public School helping students produce a school paper, The Scratching Post.

Her current fascinations include the homeless, Flavor Paper and knee socks.

Sarah is an avid lover of dance, food, metal, accessories and all things creative. She continues to freelance, with work appearing in Go, FCN and on her latest blog The Street Change Project, http://streetchange.wordpress.com.