Faculty Page: Peter Ellertsen
pellertsen@sci.edu
When I'm not teaching or editing web-based publications for SCI/Benedictine, I interpret the log schoolhouse in the historic village at Lincoln's New Salem State Historic Site, play the Appalachian dulcimer and do research on 19th-century American folk hymnody and Illinois music history. Click here to see my resume.
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Syllabuses and weblogs |
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Benedictine University: Fall 2008
Springfield College: Fall 2008
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Blogs we visit in class ...
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Studying communications
at
Springfield/Benedictine
Public
relations intern (at left holding paper towels)
learns valuable workplace skills at
fund-raising event.
AS WE GROW our professional communication arts program at Benedictine, our mission is to equip you for careers an industry that's constantly changing. You'll always have new technologies to master. So you'll need a thorough grounding in print and broadcast journalism, new media, ethics, layout, design and strategic planning just in order to keep up. Plus the values you get from literature and the arts. To help you adapt -- and keep adapting -- to a constantly changing world, we'll help you learn the basics. Liberal arts and pre-professional students have been doing that since St. Thomas Aquinas was in grad school. We just do more of it with digital technologies now.
But as a liberal arts college, we'll give you something else. We'll show you how to adapt.
Liberal arts? How does that help you adapt? Well, here's how it worked for me. The same month I got my Ph.D. in English literature, I was out in the "real world." Covering a coal mine strike, to be exact. It was an abrupt transition, from poetry readings and Shakespeare to interviewing courthouse politicians, sheriff's deputies and criminal defense lawyers for a small daily newspaper down South. But it turned out my liberal arts education was exactly the background I needed.
In a word, it taught me to be flexible. In 15 years of newspapering, I covered the courts, police beat and the "cop shop," state and local government, a U.S. Department of Energy national research lab, nuclear reactor technology, the agricultural implement industry, federal ag policy, economic development, politics and government including two state legislatures, the Iowa presidential caucuses and a Chicago city election (considered by some the highest office in the land). Then I "went over to the dark side," doing media advance and research on public policy issues for an elected Illinois state official. Now I edit online publications on software that hadn't even been dreamed of back when I left grad school and started banging out police news on an Underwood manual typewriter.
But every time I've tackled something new, my liberal arts background has given me the flexibility to master it. That kind of flexibility is what I hope to pass on to my students in the news-editorial courses at Benedictine.
My on-campus publications --
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CITATION MACHINE: for English 111-12 (and other) students -- Click here for help on your Works Cited or references lists. Just: (1) follow the prompts for MLA or APA style; (2) fill in the blank fields; (3) copy and paste the completed entry into a Microsoft Word document; and (4) edit for extraneous commas, periods, angle brackets, etc. Landmarks for Schools of Raleigh, N.C., has a permission form for teachers -- and others -- to use to request permission to use copyrighted information before they make multiple copies from the Internet.
"What makes a good newspaperman?
The answer is easy. He knows everything. He is aware not only
of what goes on in the world today, but his brain is a repository
of the wisdom of the ages. He is not only handsome, but he has
the physical strength which enables him to perform great feats
of energy. He can go for nights on end without sleep. He dresses
well and talks with charm. Men admire him; women adore him; tycoons
and statesmen are willing to share their secrets with him. He
hates lies and meanness and sham, but he keeps his temper. He
is loyal to his paper and to what he looks upon as the profession;
whether it is a profession, or merely a craft, he resents attempts
to debase it. When he dies, a lot of people are sorry, and some
of them remember him for several days."
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Writing and editing links
WHAT'S ACADEMIC WRITING ALL ABOUT? Link here to "Overview of the Academic Essay" by Kathy Duffin of Harvard Univerity's Writing Center.
IT AIN'T ROCKET SCIENCE ... Why do we write the way we write in college? Link here to find out. A UNC- Chapel Hill tip sheet "Effective Argument" tells why -- and how.
Mass communications
American Indians and Alaska Natives
College 101' and other stuff
Assessment and testing
 | "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. It's a really stupid thing to want to do." -- Elvis Costello |
Music, poetry and folklore
The contents of this page reflect the work and opinions of the faculty member who constructed it and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Springfield College in Illinois.