Masters - Knight Center for Environmental Journalism

Category Archives: Masters

Any MSU School of Journalism masters student can enroll in an environmental journalism class to fulfill graduate requirements or electives.
Students can also complete a specialized master’s degree environmental option that combines environmental journalism, science or policy courses. Students learn advanced reporting techniques for covering complicated environmental issues. The environmental option appears on a graduate’s transcript.
FAQ for masters program.
Students must be admitted into the M.A. Program in Journalism and have selected the Environmental Option. The MSU environmental journalism option requirements are here.

Knight Center and affiliated faculty teach a rotating schedule of graduate-level environmental journalism courses. Consult schedule of courses for the latest offerings.
Graduate students are encouraged to join the student Environmental Journalism Association and report for Great Lakes Echo, the Knight Center’s award-winning non-profit environmental news service.
They are encouraged to augment their study with environment classes and programs elsewhere at MSU such as through the Environmental Science and Policy Program.

Apply

Applications to the School of Journalism’s masters program are accepted on a rolling basis. Students should submit an electronic application and send GRE scores and two copies of their official undergraduate transcript. International students should submit TOEFL scores. Send to:

MSU Admissions Office
250 Administration Building
Michigan State University
East Lansing, Mich. 48824

Applicants should also send the following:

three letters of recommendation
a 750-word autobiography
a 1,000-word statement of purpose
a resume
and an indication of interest in an assistantship or other financial aid
to the Journalism School:

MSU School of Journalism
c/o the Graduate Secretary
School of Journalism
305 Communication Arts Building
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1212

For questions, contact graduate student coordinator Nancy Ashley, ashleyn@msu.edu

Aid

Limited graduate assistantships are occasionally available, depending on faculty research grants. Students may also qualify for scholarships.

Julia Balashova

Professor Julia Balashova heads the master’s program in popular science journalism at St. Petersburg State University in Russia. She is affiliated with the Knight Center as a Fulbright Scholar doing research at MSU this academic year.

By Julia Balashova
Schools of journalism in Russia offer a variety of specialized master’s programs. For example, those at the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Saint Petersburg State University include International Journalism, Political Journalism, Business Journalism and Sports Journalism. Several years ago, we started a new master’s degree program called Popular Science Journalism, and it is the only such specialization in Russia.
Training science journalists is necessary for the country, society, science and the media themselves. Global media markets demand science journalists. However, until recently, Russian universities were not engaged in preparation of science journalists. The contemporary trend, named “science with and for society,” means establishing communication between separate areas of the elite scientific and societal spheres. Continue reading →

Kevin “Fitz” Duffy

Knight Center student Kevin Duffy recently accepted a research assistantship at the University of Maine in Orono.
Duffy, a second year master’s student at Michigan State University’s School of Journalism, currently reports for the center’s Great Lakes Echo. He was a co-recipient of the Knight Center’s Don Caldwell Memorial Scholarship in Environmental Journalism in 2015.
In August, he will join an interdisciplinary research team to investigate the perceptions of aquaculture — the fresh or salt water farming of fish, shellfish or aquatic plants — and to identify the best practices for communicating aquaculture’s role in coastal economies and food systems.
Continue reading →