I’ve done it! I just moved back to Madison, Wisconsin, almost exactly 18 years after I left. I have joined the School of Journalism & Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as an assistant professor, where my focus is digital media studies. I’m surrounded by an outstanding group of colleagues and students and can’t wait for the semester to get rolling—which it will, in one week.
This semester, I’ll be teaching Media Fluency for the Digital Age and shadowing the Introduction to Mass Communication class, which has 400 students. It also means that I’ll be returning to blogging, as well as teaching students about it.
It is exciting to be back here. When I moved to New York in 1995 and then onward to all the places I’ve lived, I never expected that I would come back to Madison, let alone to be on the faculty of this university. To make things even more poignant, my parents went here as well. Coming here again closes a loop in my life, completes a phase or two and starts another. I’m delighted, I’m excited, I’m excited.