Faculty

PROFESSORS

 

Rosemary Armao returned to her hometown as the newest faculty member of the Journalism Program in 2008. For more than 32 years she was a newspaper reporter and editor at various wire services and newspapers. She has trained journalists and worked on media development projects throughout eastern Europe and Africa. She is a former executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors and former president of the Journalism and Women Symposium.

 

 
Thomas Bass is the author of The Eudaemonic Pie, Camping with the Prince, Vietnamerica, The Spy Who Loved Us, and other books. Cited by the Overseas Press Club for his foreign reporting, he is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, Wired, Smithsonian, The New York Times, and other publications. His teaching in the Journalism Program includes courses in narrative journalism. visual culture, science writing, and the political economy of the media.

 

William Rainbolt has been at UAlbany since 1984, and has directed the Journalism Program twice: 1984-1988, and 1999-2008. He has reported and written for several daily newspapers and as a freelance writer and historical novelist. He also is a member of the Documentary Studies Program and holds a Ph.D. in history.

 

Nancy Roberts is a Professor in Commincations and Director of the Journalism Program. She received her Ph. D. from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and specializes in "mass communication." Nancy's work focuses on communication and journalism history, especially the history of alternative periodicals; literary aspects of journalism; and magazine writing and editing. She has published numerous books and articles, including The Press and America: An Interpretive History of the Mass Media, with Michael Emery(deceased) and Edwin Emery (deceased), 9th edition, Allyn and Bacon, 2000; 8th edition, Allyn and Bacon, 1995; and “Professionalization of Journalism” (by Nancy L. Roberts and Giovanna Dell’Orto) in Encyclopedia of Communication and Information, vol. 2, ed. Jorge Reina Schement (New York: Gale, 2002), 497-499.

 

 

LECTURERS

 

Steve Barnes is senior writer and restaurant columnist for the Albany Times Union, where he previously was arts editor and critic. Educated at Boston University and a past recipient of a National Arts Journalism Program fellowship, he has always focused on cultural coverage and arts criticism, with a recent specialization in food and dining. He was once booed by an arena full of people after Billy Joel mentioned him by name from the stage.

 

Donald Forst has been a copy boy, cop reporter, court reporter, financial editor, project director, rewrite person, editor-in-chief on 14 newspapers and one magazine.  These publications include The New York Times (Culture Editor), Newsday (Managing Editor), New York Newsday (Editor-in-Chief), The Los Angeles Herald Examiner (Managing Editor), The New York Post (Assistant City Editor), The Houston Press (Reporter), The Boston Herald (Editor-in-Chief), The Village Voice  (Editor-in-Chief), Boston Magazine (Editor-in-Chief).  Vast experience in print journalism makes Forst confident that in this time of ever expanding technology, accurate, in-depth reporting is at the heart of meaningful presentation of news.  FYI: Forst loves his friends with passion and despises his foes without regret.

 

Dennis Gaffney is a freelance journalist who’s worked in print and video for 25 years. His byline has appeared in such publications as Mother Jones, the New York Times, History Magazine, The Nation, Reader’s Digest and The Boston Globe and his wrote a book “Teachers United” on the history of the teachers’ movement. He is at work now on a popular history book about the Civil War. On the other side of his professional life he is a former writer and video producer for WGBH, Boston’s PBS station and he’s written for “Antiques Roadshow” and the history documentary series, “American Experience.” He is also president of the Albany Library Board, a basketball and dancing enthusiast. And, he plays the ukulele.

 

David Guistina is anchor of Morning Edition on WAMC/Northeast Public Radio, host and producer of the Legislative Gazette, a statewide program about New York state government and politics, host and moderator of WAMC’s Student Town Meetings and producer of the Media Project, a nationwide program about issues confronting the media. He fills in as host of WAMC’s Roundtable program occasionally and three times a year he can be heard on-air raising money for WAMCs fund drives. Younger people know him as the host of Masterminds, a cable channel quiz show for Capital Regional High school students. He teaches broadcast journalism at UAlbany. He lives in Voorheesville with his wife Karen and their three cats.

 

Ronald Helfrich lectures in the Journalism Program at  UAlbany and in Science and Technology Studies at RPI. In college, he studied classics, religious studies, film, American studies, cultural anthropology, sociology and history. His current interests revolve around social and cultural theory, intellectual history, cultural history, media theory, film and TV. Since 2000 he has been a devotee of Joss Whedon, creator of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Angel,” “Firefly” and “Dollhouse.”

 

Michael Hill has been a journalist for 20 years and still loves it because he regularly gets out of the office to meet interesting people and learn new things. Working for The Associated Press, Hill has covered New York state government, politics, food, science, crime, demography and business. He has reported from caves, prisons, Ground Zero, archeological digs, courtrooms, churches and laboratories. He also writes features regularly for Adirondack Life magazine. Hill has taught UAlbany classes since 2004.

Dan Higgins writes “The Advocate” column for the Albany Times Union in which he uses the power of the press to shame businesses and government agencies into doing the right thing on behalf of readers with problems large and small. He considers it the best job in journalism. He has spent his career telling stories in Upstate New York, and has worked in radio, print, and online. He is from the suburbs of Buffalo, and received his bachelor’s degree from SUNY Potsdam in 1999. He is pursuing a master’s degree in creative nonfiction from Goucher College.

Ronald Kermani. As a recovering newspaper reporter and editor, and a veteran public relations and advertising executive, Ronald brings a blend of experiences and successes to UAlbany. Most recently, he served for seven years as the senior vice president for communications at the New York State Higher Education Services Corp. (HESC), the state agency that helps people pay for college. Before joining HESC in 2002, Kermani was executive editor at the Civil Service Employees Association, director of public relations and advertising for the New York State Trial Lawyers Association, and director of public relations at the New York State Public Employees Federation. For a dozen years, he was a reporter for the Albany Times Union. He covered a variety of beats, including the state Capitol for several years, and becamethe paper’s chief investigative reporter, specializing in white-collar crime and political corruption. Kermani frequently advises corporate executives on media relations, crisis communications, and public relations strategies.

Barbara Lombardo, an adjunct since 2008, brings more than 30 years of professional daily newspaper experience to UAlbany. She is managing editor of The Saratogian, in Saratoga Springs, and managing editor of three weekly community newspapers and a monthly glossy features magazine. She holds a BA in political science from Binghamton University and a masters in journalism from Ohio State University. She is a member and past president of the New York State Associated Press Association. She has won numerous state and national awards for her editorials and columns. She is proud that in 2008-09, The Saratogian earned more awards than any other newspaper in the state in the New York Newspaper Publishers Association and the third most awards in the country from the Suburban Newspapers of America.

Darryl McGrath

 

Holly McKenna has written for a variety of media outlets, including Reuters and the New York Times. She is working on three book projects and hosts the "Meet the Author" show for local authors on Time Warner's public access channel 17. She is working on a Master's Degree in Communication at UAlbany and has taught for three years at the university. She holds a BA in journalism from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. McKenna is a Long Island native.

Celina Ottaway is a contributing editor at Martha Stewart’s Body + Soul  Magazine, where she writes primarily about food. She writes about food and life at celinabean.com and reviews restaurants for the Albany Times Union. She is also the director of the Sourcing Project, a newspaper training program.

Shirley Perlman is a former national correspondent for Newsday. In her 18 years at the paper, she covered a broad range of stories including the O.J. Simpson trials and the Monica Lewinsky scandal.  She served as a member of the newspaper’s prestigious investigations team. She joined the UAlbany faculty in 2007.  Before that she was an adjunct professor at New York University and C.W. Post College. She also served on the adjunct staff at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.  Perlman attended the University of Buffalo and C.W. Post College and has a bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York.  She is a former president of the Press Club of Long Island.

Laney Salisbury, a Columbia Journalism school graduate, has reported from Africa, the Middle East and New York. She worked mostly for The Associated Press and Reuters until 2000, when she went freelance to write long-form narrative non-fiction. She is the co-author of “The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race Against an Epidemic” (Norton, June 2003) and of “Provenance: How a Con Man and a Art Forger Rewrote The History of Modern Art.” (Penguin, July 2009)

 

David Washburn has been a part-time faculty member at UAlbany since 1999. He has developed from scratch and taught classes such as Sports Journalism, Online Journalism, Desktop Publishing and Electronic Magazine. David is director of interactive services at Time Warner Cable, where he manages web sites, oversees email marketing and educates customers about new products. Prior to Time Warner Cable, David worked in the newspaper industry for 13 years, including eight years with the Albany Times Union and a month with USA Today covering the 1994 Winter Olympic Games.  When he's not working or teaching, David enjoys tennis and telemark skiing.