Ottaway Visiting Professor to be introduced to New Paltz campus

1306 Alissa Quart

Author and multimedia narrative journalist Alissa Quart, this year’s James H. Ottaway Sr. Visiting Professor of Journalism, will be introduced to the campus community on Monday, Feb. 9, at 6 p.m. in the Honors Center in College Hall.

College President Donald P. Christian will interview her about her life and work. The event is free and open to the public.

Quart joins the SUNY New Paltz faculty in spring 2015 to teach an upper-level journalism seminar called “Narrative Nonfiction in the Digital Age.”

Quart is the author of three critically acclaimed non-fiction books: “Republic of Outsiders: The Power of Amateurs, Dreamers, and Rebels;” “Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers” and “Hothouse Kids: The Dilemma of the Gifted Child.” Her books have been published in 14 languages.

She is currently co-editor of Economic Hardship Reporting Project with Barbara Ehrenreich, a non-profit devoted to developing and supporting journalism about inequality. Her current multimedia project, “The End of the Middle,” is about America’s struggling middle class and is supported by the Magnum Foundation. Her first book of poetry, “Monetized,” will be published this year by Miami University Press.

Quart has written for The New York Times Sunday ReviewThe AtlanticThe Times MagazineElleThe NationLondon Review of Books (New York) and many other publications. In addition, she served as a contributing writer/editor at Columbia Journalism Review and Mother Jones, and was formerly a senior editor of the multimedia e-book publisher The Atavist. The transmedia work she co-conceived, wrote and produced for The Atavist, “The Last Clinic,” was nominated for an Emmy and a National Magazine Award in 2014.

Quart previously taught at the Columbia University School of Journalism and was a 2010 Nieman fellow at Harvard University.

For information about the event, contact Lisa Phillips, assistant professor of journalism and Ottaway coordinator, at phillipl@newpaltz.edu.

About the James H. Ottaway Sr. Visiting Professorship
The James H. Ottaway Sr. Visiting Professorship, SUNY New Paltz’s only endowed professorship, is named for the founder of Ottaway Newspapers Inc., now the Dow Jones Local Media Group, which operates print and online community media franchises in seven states. The flagship newspaper of the chain is the Times Herald-Record in Middletown, N.Y.

Thirteen well-known journalists have preceded Quart as Ottaway professors. Four have been Pulitzer Prize winners, including Renée C. Byer, a photographer for The Sacramento Bee; former New York Times investigative reporter and columnist Sydney Schanberg; Bernard Stein, an editorial writer with The Riverdale Press; and John Darnton, a former Times foreign correspondent.

Other past Ottaway professors were science journalist and author Sonia Shah; NPR Foreign Correspondent Deborah Amos; New York Times investigative reporter Andrew Lehren; award-winning broadcast journalist and media consultant John Larson; Ann Cooper, a former public radio reporter who headed the Committee to Protect Journalists; Byron E. Calame, a longtime Wall Street Journal editor and reporter who has served as The New York Times’ public editor; Roger Kahn, the author of 20 books and one of America’s foremost literary journalists; Trudy Lieberman, one of America’s best consumer reporters; and Martin Gottlieb, the global edition editor of The New York Times.