Welcome to Knight Talks, the University of Florida Colleg of Journalism and Communication talk show produced by students for studen I'm Amanda Gauthier, a rising se studying public relations.

And our guest today is no other the Dean of the University of Fl College of Journalism and Commun Hub Brown; who has more than fifteen years experience in reporting, produci and anchoring for commercial loc and in public television.

Hi Dean Brown, thank you so much for being her It's great to be here.

So I would like to start by aski from your earliest interest in the communications field, did you always have a passion for storytelling?

No, no.

I think my earliest work in Comm actually was in high school.

So the high school that I attend Omaha, Nebraska had a radio station in the basem it was the NPR station for the And so I was part of a group of basic radio geeks that wound up in the basement of the high scho every day while other people were doing things outside and we were doing board shifts on the radio station, we would The first program I ever produce I produced when I was seventeen and that sort of began my interest in broadcasting in the beginning And storytelling came later when I could see what was possi what was available.

I started out in college as a political science major thinking, boy, I'm going to go to law school and all that fun stuff.

But as soon as I got to campus at Howard University, which is where I did my freshma as soon as I got to campus, I looked for the campus radio s and, I was back with my people a you know.

But that's when I think getting the Journalism bug happ That's when the storytelling sta and it just went on from there.

Yeah, that's how I feel as well.

I think when I started my career it was also joining people that liked the same interest, so it's great to hear that.

You earned both of your degrees University of Nebraska in Lincol How did your time as a Huskers s the path that you're on today?

You know, it's interesting.

I transferred to Nebraska, which was closer-- I grew up in Omaha-- I transferred down the road to L after that freshman year.

And a year and a half after that I was working in a television s and going out on assignment and shooting video and beginning to do those thing doing sideline camera at footbal doing, you know, all kinds of things like that.

And so it was the chance to go t that had a Journalism program that was really focused on getting their students out in the world, getting them into internships, getting them with their hands on equipment; that was sort of rocket fuel for me and really sort of set me in the direction of being a broadcast journalist I think that learning from exper it's one of the main things in Communications.

On that note, you've been in academia for a while and you started at the University of Nebraska.

What prompted you into going int rather than commercial media?

I had been in commercial media, commercial and public televisio for a number of years before getting sort of the teaching bug And so what ends up happening is and it happens to a lot of us wh are teaching: You're out there, you're doing a lot of work in t Somebody comes along and says, "Would you, I don't know, maybe like to be an adjunct for You know, we need somebody to teach this one course."

And you get in there.

And a storyteller likes a good s whether they're telling it or whether they're hearing it.

And the stories of the students what hook you into teaching.

That's what gets you into it; because you hear their ambitions you hear what they want to do, and you are the conduit to help them get there.

And that's how you sort of get a little bit, you know, a bit hooked.

And so, in Lincoln, I was working for the CBS affil and then later on for the public television-- the statewide public television and I did documentaries there, I did public affairs programs, those sorts of things, covered sessions of the legislat and all that.

But the stories around people developing and getting their tal and things like that in line at the College of Journalism was what sort of kind of hooked And so, yeah, you know, adjunct, and then I'm standing in for somebody for an entire seme and then I'm a lecturer and that's how it took off.

That's a great journey to start I think that it's really importa to build up that passion in students from their instruct so it's really nice to see that.

You mentioned that you were work with the CBS affiliate there and that you had so much experie in commercial media.

What are some of the most important stories during y covering political and state government news?

A lot of it was around, you know, big campaign issues and things like that.

I did a lot of politics, lots of races for governor, for U.S. Senate, saw the rise of a number of politicians out there.

that became major factors further on down the road.

And those were, a lot of those were the really, really big issu You do a lot of different-- if you're a general assignment you're going to do a lot of different things.

you might do the crash, you know the automobile crash or some crime or something like Or you might be the first report in the middle of some major sca And there's all kinds of stuff i including the stories that make people smile.

And really, for me, I think the a lot of the bigger stories were the ones that had that bro that had the impact for so many in, you know, in a region or in And I got to do a lot of that.

I did a lot of work around, you know, big state issues.

There was there was a big environmental issue some years b about a nuclear waste facility and what that was going to do to egg producers, local farmers in different plac and whether that was going to be that was going to affect their and it was part of a statewide i And getting to know the stories of the people doing that, in the middle of that, being affected by that, that's what's important about it There are, you know, what a lot who teach in, you know, in broadcast journalism said over the years are that: "There are no boring stories.

There are only boring treatments If you don't see the value of a for what it is for those individual people, you're going to need to learn mo about being a storyteller because it's really about the individual people in those That's what makes the biggest di And those are the types of stori that I would do.

Did you face any significant cha in your roles in front of or behind the camera?

Yeah, there are a lot of challen I think that one of the bigger c is being pigeonholed.

There were not and still are not nearly enough journalists of color out there doing this job.

And there was a time when I was maybe one of just one.

You know, the only Black reporte in a newsroom.

Or one of two, that sort of thin And the urge was often: "Well, you know, there's something going on in the African-American communit Why don't you go cover that?"

You know, and my response to tha "Well no, I'm pretty familiar wi issues in that community, but you aren't.

Maybe you should cover that and learn something."

Because I think it's important for everybody to be able to be about issues in all kinds of diverse communities.

Educating people to work in situations where you do have to sort of flex that Understanding diversity, equity inclusion-- that's for everybody And that is a skill that African-American students, Hispanic students, Asian student and white students can all lear and be conversive in different kinds of cultures.

And so I said very early on: "No.

Yes, I'll do those stories occasionally like everybody els But, you know, I'm going to do the government stor I'm going to do the politics sto I'm going to do the stories that to have other types of impact.

And not just on particular communities.

There are lots of blindspots in journalism.

You know, the the old stories around the fact that so many times when journalists would do stories about how the economy is affecting people, and we see that now with higher and they go into a grocery store and they interview only women who they assume are, you know, mothers who are buying groceries for their families and things l Well, men buy groceries, too.

Men raise families, too.

Why aren't you interviewing othe And not just some guy who's looking to buy a car, but some guy who's looking to make ends meet, you know.

Break out of the molds.

That's what's the biggest challe And so when you talk about what those kinds of challenges are, the biggest challenge is to brea from those old ways of thinking that really have hamstrung us in this country.

What does D.E.I.

: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion play into role in a top academic instituion?

What it means is that across the we are looking forward and not b What it means is that we look forward in this in this college and in this University to an America where there is goi and demographics say this, where there is going to be no on dominant majority of people in this country.

That's what's going to happen.

It's demographics and you can't And the fact of the matter is, we should embrace it.

We should be embracing these kin of things, mainly because it is number one, the future.

And number two, it creates tremendous opportunities for eve to be able to actually get into and understand each other stori learn from them, and use those understandings to generate new knowledge, to generate new a and to move forward in the futur You know, to understand that this is the way towards a better nation with more opportunity for every Which courses did you teach and what did you most enjoy about t What I taught the most, especially in 25 years at the New House School of Public Communications at Syracus were the broadcast journalism co The two courses that I most taug the television news reporting co and the television newscast cou And at New House, if you were a broadcast journal every broadcast journalism major had to take those two cou in addition to some other ones.

And so pretty much everybody went through the program in tha And in the newscast course, whic one I probably taught more than it really was about crafting a s from beginning to end.

It was about producing.

It was about figuring out how best to take a show and mak really relevant with all of the stuff put in there.

The reporting course was one that I really, really enjoyed a because that's the storytelling And that goes back to what I spe most of my time doing professionally-- was crafting a from beginning to end and understanding that telling a broadcast story is really about understanding that visuals are a language of its own, and that every story has a beginning, middle, and an end.

Every story has a way to pull yo If you use it, you know, it's just a blank palette; and whatever is on that canvas, it's what you put there.

And television news stories are both art and science in a very, very interesting way and I so I've always really enjoyed teaching that.

How did your experience as Assoc for research, creativity, international initiatives, and d play a role into preparing to be the Dean of the College of Journalism and Communication It was excellent preparation.

And I think that one of the reas is because We had a number of different ini that we wanted to sort of move forward with faculty, staff, and students.

And you really do have to figure how to get buy-in, you have to figure out how to bring people along and figure out how to really sta course on something you really w because in the academic institut things can move kind of slowly-- maybe too slowly.

And so you get a sense of how to move things a little bit quicker and you get of a little bit of a grocery li "Hey, if I were ever Dean, this is what I would do."

And so at the New House School, it was it was a real challenge to move things, like it is in any institution, but there was an awful lot of re We were able to lift the interna initiative profiles of the scho We were able to do a lot in the space in terms of increasing the amount of curricu that students experienced in D. as well as increasing the number of students and faculty and staff.

And in the research space, professional schools always have a challenge in terms of keeping the researc level up and prominent; and giving people incentives, giving faculty incentives to do more and more, and to work together and to find ways to maybe genera or regenerate a project.

Those are big challenges and those were very rewarding to be able to get done.

So you've been at the CJC for about a year now.

What are some of the highlights Well, I think the biggest highli is just getting to know the stud getting to understand, you know, the ambitions of students and to see that there's an incredibly talented bunch of students here.

They just have this limitless en and they're doing some very original things and it's very cool to watch-- and it's very cool to be able to that help enable them to do more And so that's been probably one of the biggest highlights f is just to get to know the student community.

We have an amazing faculty and s Seeing the level and the impact of the research, which really does inform teachin It's a valuable thing for the students of this colleg to have and to experience.

Seeing that has also been very stimulating for us.

And, you know, the big highlight are really sort of moving proje We will be opening up a social listening lab in the F and I'm excited about that.

I think that's going to be a gre And we have a few other projects that are in the wings once we get that off and running And so, being able to make a dif in those kinds of areas-- that's really why I'm here.

That's what we want to do.

So how do you define your role a What are some other top goals that you plan for the college?

So as Dean, I think you have to do a number of different thi You have to be an enabler as a D You have to make sure that you can help provide opportunity.

You have talented people in the college-- tons and tons of talented people faculty, staff, and students.

And what you want to do is bring people together, have conversations, move forward on our goals and objectives, and be the enabler to try to get things, resources to people, get energy to folks to be able t the things they really want to And so that's really at the cent of it for me.

It's important to listen.

It's important to understand where people want to go and what their desires are and engage conversations about how to move that forward.

Leading a college is really abou staying in conversation-- staying in communication with pe and facilitating what we as a community want.

You're also involved with organizations such as the Hearst Journalism Awards, the National Association for Black Journalists, the National Association for Hispanic Journalists, and the Broadcast Education Asso What value do these organization bring to our field, and what prompted your participa Well, I think every one of those is a little bit different.

The Hearst Awards are considered the Pulitzer Priz of Journalism for college stude They're the highest awards in th for what college journalists do.

And we want to be a part of that here at CJC because CJC is a prolific winner in Hearst competitions.

This year alone, CJC was number in the country overall and number one in the country in the intercollegiate writing comp And so those are very big kudos.

Those are very big things.

We want to be a part of that.

As for the advocacy organization like N.A.B.J., N.A.H.J.-- the voice of professional journalists of color is going to be more and more important as time goes on.

It's incredibly important at the I think we need to be, you know, participants in N.A.B.J.

and N.A and the other journalism organiz for journalists of color, the Asian American Journalism Association, the Native American Journalists Association, the National Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association.

Those organizations, if they're then what is lost is a voice-- for how journalists of color, journalists from diverse backgr interface with the profession of journalism.

It is different, it hits differe And there are different professional experiences.

And to have organizations that advocate for those groups.

is an important thing in our fie Without it, I think that we end up with a profession that is less likely to do what it purports to do, which is to tell the story of pe around the country.

And so we we need to be a part of those kinds of things I've long been a member of the Broadcast Education Association and I think that B.E.A.

has been I think, incredibly important in advancing the interests of of and television journalists and the work that they do; and to lift the quality of the c to continue those kinds of conv and to have a conversation between the academy and the pro A lot of folks want to want to h conversation about: "Well, you know, are we much, much more academic or should we really go the professional route?"

And our tradition in journalism education has always been that these two things go hand in that telling somebody they must be a total research institution or a total professional institut is telling them what arm they can live without.

And I think that that's the kind that you don't want to do in a situation where you have bo What you want to have in B.E.A.

and in other places like that is a voice for academics who are who are working on professional and professionals who want to ma that transition into academia.

So we've learnt everything about Dean Hub Brown.

But who is Hub Brown outside of the Dean position?

Well, I'm a father and a husband I have three daughters and they're in three different place My oldest daughter has a child of her own, so I'm also a grand My middle daughter is still in central New York going to college at Syracuse Uni And then my youngest is with us here in Florida.

And my wife is very much involve and she's a very professional person in communications as well working at the University of Flo And so, we're a family doing a l really, really big things.

I'm a nerd about a lot of things I read a lot of nonfiction and I of a sports guy-- I love basebal And so I will rejoice in the fac that I am once again at a university that has a baseb And so yeah, a bit of a sports f as far as that's concerned; and just love to spend a little downtime with the wife and kids and cook out.

You know, I'm the guy who cooks the meat-- so there is tha So yeah, it's just basically hav and those sorts of things and getting a chance, when I get a c to relax, just to pull back and catch up on the reading of major and things like that.

Like I said-- bit of a nonfictio but still, I enjoy just catching The communications field is a competitive and evolving field.

What advice would you give stude that are getting started?

I would say first of all: Don't be shy about getting out t asking for help, finding your p finding like minded voices out t who might want to work on projects with you.

A lot of our journalism these days is pretty much a tea Especially on the broadcast side it's very much team oriented.

And so I think that finding thos is an important thing.

Be informed.

When we are doing this-- and it doesn't matter whether it journalism or public relations or advertising or whatever it i we are the folks who are out the communicating with an audience, telling stories about an audienc In order to do that, you have to be informed about what is important to that audien So not knowing what the news is, not knowing what's going on in a is going to be a hindrance to y You need to be able to know it.

And you need to be able to know communications discipline whatso You're talking to people about their lives; you need to understand what their lives are like.

And so that's one of the bigger things.

And the corollary to that is learning to be in the mass communications business is learning that all of this stu is not about you.

It's about the people.

It's about the folks that you are out there communic and for; and on whose behalf you do this work.

Because a more informed public is a public that is better able buy the products your advertisers are selling, better able to understand the causes that your public rela agency or organization is workin better to understand the issues so that they can be more informed citizens.

So understanding that it's not a is going to be very, very important when it comes to that.

Well, thank you so much for all your amazing responses.

I think that we've gained a lot of great insight.

It was incredible to learn about all of your jour in education and in the broadcasting world.

And thank you, our viewers, for joining us.

Until next time-- and goodnight.

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