A journalist with experience as an on-line editor with CNN and as a print journalist has been named as professor of journalism in the USM’s Media Studies Program.
Barbara Schlichtman, now a resident of Peaks Island in Portland, was the former legal news editor at CNN Interactive in Atlanta, and was responsible for the daily and future news planning for the legal news section of CNN.com.
“I look forward to developing journalism courses at USM that will strengthen students’ writing skills, give them the legal knowledge required of journalists and convey the satisfaction that a career in journalism can offer,” Schlichtman said.
She taught a course titled “Women in the Media” at USM during the fall semester, 2000.
Schlichtman assigned and developed stories and maintained collaboration between interactive and broadcast divisions of CNN. Prior to joining CNN in 1999, Schlichtman had been the on-line news editor for The Advocate Online in Baton Rouge, La., for two years.
From 1994 to 1997, she was the bureau chief for The Advocate in River Parishes and Florida Parishes. She started her career in journalism at Community Newspapers, Inc. in Milwaukee, Wis., and moved to an alternative weekly paper in Milwaukee, City Edition, in 1993.
Schlichtman earned an undergraduate degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, Columbia, where she also received her law degree in 1992.
She was the recipient of two first place awards in editing in 1998 from the National Federation of Press Women.
Funds sought for memorial to professor
On Aug. 4, Marcia Carner, a USM art instructor and wife of English Professor Frank Carner, passed away after a three-year battle with cancer.
In honor of the beloved instructor, a fund has been created to raise money for the creation of a memorial garden on USM’s Portland campus.
Donations are greatly needed from caring members of the USM community to remember Marcia.
To make a donation, send checks “in memory of Marcia Carner” payable to USM to Jean Tetreau, USM Advancement Services Office, 51 College Avenue, Gorham, Maine 04038
Connecting generations on reproductive rights
The personal stories of women who struggled to get birth control or abortions in the days before Roe v. Wade will be shared with younger generations in an all-day conference, Sept. 22, at USM.
“The Shoulders We Stand On: Unmasking Our Grandmothers’ Radical Roots” is being sponsored by Planned Parenthood of Northern New England (PPNNE), The Maine Women’s Fund, and USM’s Women’s Studies program to give young women a personal look at the history of the choice movement as experienced and recounted by older Maine women.
“The Choices We Made” will feature Maine women speaking about their experiences in obtaining or securing the right to birth control and abortion prior to 1972.
Following a period of question and answer, keynote speaker Melisa Marin Lindamood will share her involvement with the choice movement as a national youth advocate and activist, including details of her solo cross country bike trek for choice. Lindamood, director of governmental affairs and communications for the American Medical Women’s Association, graduated from the University of San Francisco in 1996 and earned an M.A. in policy studies at Johns Hopkins University in 1999.
Organizers of the conference say the day-long event focuses on the power of our history to move us forward.
“This conference will honor the heroic fight of women who suffered and fought for the right to control their own bodies before Roe,” said Luisa Deprez, chair of the Women’s Studies program. “Expanding the awareness of young women, many of whom have no context for a time without reproductive freedom and birth control access, will create an opportunity to re-energize a movement that has spanned at least three generations.”
Afternoon breakout sessions will provide training, tools, and concrete ways participants can counter anti-choice activism and protect hard-won reproductive rights.
Joanne D’Arcangelo, PPNNE’s vice president for Public Policy, will talk about the power of collective action and issue a call to young women to organize.
D’Arcangelo notes that, “A fuller understanding of the current threat to reproductive rights will help unleash the power of collective action in protecting the right to choose. By bringing women of all ages together to share stories, we’ll cultivate new voices and build an even stronger base of support to defend an essential and fundamental freedom — the ability to make childbearing decisions free of governmental intrusion.”
For more information and to register, call PPNNE at 781-2201 or Women’s Studies at 780-4862.