Pace Paw Print

Issue date: 4/9/08 Section: Feature

This week we meet Professor Allen Oren, the Associate Professor in the Media and Communication Arts Department and Director of its Journalism Program. Find out what Professor Oren does besides teach and what's his favorite section of the paw print.

Sandy Ng: Most recent book read?

Allen Oren: I'm reading Barrack Obama's first book, the autobiographical "Dreams from my Father." It's very sensitively, almost poetically, written and whomever you vote for as president, you have to wonder what it would be like to have a seemingly genteel president, a politician with a touch of the poet.

SN: Most recent clip published?

AO: I had clips the first half of my career, which were in newspapers and magazines. The second half has been on air in TV, and most recently I did a documentary and series for MSG Network on the 125-year history of Madison Square Garden. I was nominated for three Emmys for that work, and won an Emmy for the series.

SN: What else do you do aside from teaching?

AO: Well, I try to practice the journalism I teach, as I mentioned in the last question. But if you mean what hobbies, I've become especially interested in photography lately, regularly picking a different New York City neighborhood and walking a few hours with camera in hand. The joke about golf is "It's a good walk, spoiled." My photo treks seem like a good walk, improved.

SN: Zodiac sign?

AO: I'm born on a cusp, but since most horoscopes say I'm a Leo, and since I like the leadership qualities that go with that, I've been posing as a Leo most of my life.

SN: Favorite class to teach?

AO: Probably a class I created called "Journalism at the Movies," where we watch and discuss a dozen different films about journalism from the past 70 years. I started the course partly because of my background as a film critic for many years and partly because I believe, for example, that you learn more and remember more about a rock reporter's life from the film "Almost Famous" than from any textbook.

SN: How many years at Pace?

AO: Three years ago I got my gift watch from Pace for 20 years of teaching. At 30 years you get a rocking chair. If I get that far, I'm hoping not to want to rock, at least not in the chair.

SN: Favorite music?

AO: I like classical. I like jazz. I like classic rock. But the music I like most is my son's. These days he's working at Google during the day, but also is trying to make it as a singer-songwriter and lead of the indie rock band Rails to Russia.

SN: Favorite newspaper or magazine?

AO: Among papers, I subscribe to the New York Times and the New York Sun, which is a newer, very literate, more compact paper that I think of as New York Times Lite. Among magazines, my main subscriptions are to Time, the New Yorker, and National Geographic.

SN: Favorite section of the newspaper?

AO: The first sections I read every morning are News, Sports, and Arts, in that order unless something special happened, like a new show opening on Broadway, or Isaiah Thomas' tired show closing at the Garden (I hope).

SN: Hero?

AO: Am I getting too old, too cynical? I find it very hard to label someone a hero.

SN: Favorite dish?

AO: I could list a bunch of favorite entrees, but anyone who knows me knows my favorite foodstuff is bread, beginning with a large toasted bagel for breakfast each morning. The old saying goes, "Man does not live by bread alone," but I could.

SN: If you can be anyone for a day, who would it be?

AO: It depends what day. It would be the prophet Isaiah if it were the day swords were beat into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks, and nation did not lift up sword against nation and no one learned war anymore.

SN: University you graduated from?

AO: I got my Masters in Journalism from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. I got my BA in Psychology from Queens College of CUNY. I've always said journalists and psychologists have a lot in common: they both try to understand people, but one gets paid to keep it private while the other gets paid to make it public.

SN: A favorite teacher in the past?

AO: In Journalism graduate school I was impressed by the head of the Magazine Department, a former Poetry Editor of the New Yorker. It showed the type of journalist that I wanted to be, that I was drawn to a Poetry Editor. After graduating, I became an instructor in his department for two years. He soon retired to write poetry in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

SN: Do you read the Paw Print and if so, what is your favorite section?

AO: I read every issue of the Paw Print. My favorite sections are the articles written by my former Journalism and Communications students, which probably constitute about 40 percent of the paper. They're good, too.

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