Category Archives: Speakers

Uzbek journalism educators visit Knight Center, J-School

Meeting with Journalism School director Tim Vos

For the past two weeks, the J-School hosted representatives from the Journalism & Mass Communications University of Uzbekistan as part of a capacity-building environmental and health reporting project funded by the U.S. Embassy in Uzbekistan.

Knight Center director Eric Freedman developed the project and secured the grant.

At the State News

Nozima Muratova, who led the delegation, is the vice rector for research and innovation at the 4-year-old university in Uzbekistan’s capital, Tashkent. Mukarram Otamurodova is a Ph.D. student who teaches an environmental, health and science course. Dilnora Azimova, who earned her master’s degree in MSU’s Health and Risk Communication Program, is a project consultant.

With journalism librarian Kathleen Weessies

They gave guest lectures in environmental reporting and health & risk communication classes, met with Michigan environmental and health communicators and reporters, and led a brown bag discussion of Uzbekistan’s media landscape for the MSU Center for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies.

Meeting with Steve Hanson, Associate provost and Dean of International Studies & Programs

They also visited the Detroit News, Crain Communications, Detroit Public TV and the State News and met with MSU’s dean of International Studies & Programs.

In addition, they toured three environmentally significant sites: MSU’s Horticultural Gardens, Saugatuck State Park and the Granger landfill in Lansing.

Freedman is scheduled to visit their university later this month under the State Department grant.

Fate of the Earth loses friend of the Earth

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Barbara Sawyer-Koch

By David Poulson

One of the delights of Michigan State University’s Fate of the Earth conference is the dinner for organizers and speakers the night before.

I always angled to get a seat next to Barbara Sawyer-Koch, a former MSU trustee, who with her late husband Donald Koch, an MSU philosophy professor, endowed this annual conference on sustainability.

It was their support that allowed MSU’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism to help bring top-flight environmental journalists to speak at the event and later meet with our students.

Barb, who died March 6, was an excellent dinner companion. Her interests were far ranging – music, travel, sustainability, international students and a deep love for MSU. They intersected – she spoke knowledgeably about the impact of climate change that she noticed in her travels. And while we did not know each other well, she thoughtfully remembered to accommodate my hearing deficit during those noisy dinners. Continue reading →

Environmental issues ahead for Southeast Michigan

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Eric Freedman

Regardless of which presidential candidate takes the oath of office next Jan. 20 and regardless of which party controls Congress for the next two years, the federal government has serious environmental issues to address in Southeast Michigan.

To examine some of those issues for Crain’s Detroit Business, Knight Center director Eric Freedman interviewed the Canadian Consul General in Detroit, the presidents of the Michigan Manufacturers Association and Michigan Environmental Council, the director of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor.

Here’s his story.

Knight Center faculty gives advice on explaining research

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Knight Center Associate Director David Poulson was cited recently in an article on expanding possibilities for STEM students.

His advice on explaining research: “You only need 2 sentences. Tell people the most interesting thing you do, then tell them why it’s important.”

The article was written by Ellie Louson of MSU’s Hub for Innovation in Learning and Technology. Poulson is a Hub Fellow this year. He and Louson were on a recent science communication panel put on for MSU’s Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center’s Summer Undergraduate Research Program.