Amanda Crawford will be joining the faculty of the News/Editorial Department in the School of Journalism & Broadcasting this coming fall.

Crawford has been working in the professional field for over 15 years, and has established a diverse resume that includes jobs at People magazine, the Baltimore Sun, Bloomberg BusinessWeek and various freelance reports.

She said there is an advantage to having professional experience as a journalism teacher, because any particular problem or story can be used as a teaching moment.

“You can draw from your experience in the real world and in the newsroom to give examples to your students,” she said.

Crawford has previously taught at the University of Maryland and Arizona State University. While at Arizona State, she also pursued her master’s degree of mass communication, after receiving her bachelor’s degree in journalism at the University of Maryland.

Crawford’s career has led her into an array of scenarios and stories that dealt with everything from hard news to music and healthcare. She now plans on relaying that in her curriculum.

“I think that to be equipped to be a journalist in today’s new media environment, you have to have a lot of different skills and a lot of ability to transcend different topic areas,” Crawford said. “It is the time to be both a niche specialist and a generalist.”

Josh Meltzer, photojournalist-in-residence of the Journalism & Broadcasting Department, was the head of the search committee reviewing the candidates for what is now Crawford’s position. He said her wide range of work makes her a strong addition to the department.

“She’s done everything, so she’s capable of teaching anything, and that’s one of the things we wanted: someone who can teach any of the classes,” Meltzer said.

Crawford will be teaching news writing and reporting, feature writing and advanced reporting for her first semester. She said she is looking forward to working with the students as they build their journalism experience.

“The school is doing wonderful things, and I hope to help to continue helping students learn to be good journalists in the writing part of it,” she said. “I’m really looking forward to the opportunity of working with student reporters. I think that there’s a lot of interesting news stories that can be written out of Kentucky.”