SUNY Oswego is saying farewell to journalism professor Brian Moritz as he shifts his career from teaching undergraduate students to master’s students at St. Bonaventure University in Allegany.
Moritz is an associate professor of digital media production and online journalism and started teaching at SUNY Oswego seven years ago.
“From the first time I stepped foot on campus to interview it felt like home.” Moritz said.
Moritz was hired just after he graduated from Syracuse University with his Ph.D. in mass communication. He went back to college in 2009 and received his master’s in media studies before going into its doctoral program.
Before becoming a professor, Moritz was a sports reporter for the Press and Sun Bulletin in Binghamton, where he also met his wife, Jen.
“We kind of come from the same place, we both have a real appreciation for journalism and publications and language and words,” Jen said. “I don’t think we are your normal couple, we are a little weird and we kind of embrace that because we come from such a similar place and are very similar people.”
Jen said she fully supported Moritz going back to school because “it was the perfect time to say ‘now or never.’”
After Moritz began teaching at SUNY Oswego, Jen said she noticed a positive change in her husband.
“He is more confident now in who he is,” Jen said. “Now that he teaches, it has shown him there is something he is really good at, and he can be confident in.”
Moritz is starting his new position at St. Bonaventure University as the director of journalism master’s, a completely online master’s program, after the semester ends. He received his undergraduate degree from St. Bonaventure in 1999 and said taking this job is “going to be full circle.”
“Where I learned how to be a journalist, now I get to teach [there], how cool is that?” Moritz said.
Though he is excited about the position, Moritz also said he was not planning on leaving SUNY Oswego.
“All the stars just kind of came together with this job, at this time, at this modality,” Moritz said. “It took a dream job like this for me to leave.”
Jen said she encouraged Moritz to take the job and knew it was something he could not pass up.
“I am so, so thrilled and proud of him,” Jen said. “[But] I am so sad for his students because I know he loves [them] … It’s a big change, but it is exactly what I think he could have dreamt of.”
Dennis Wilkins, a journalism professor at St. Bonaventure, also said he had fully supported Moritz in directing the program.
“I have wanted him back here [at St. Bonaventure] for a very, very long time,” Wilkins said. “The search committee saw the same thing in Brian that I had known about him and so did the dean.”
Wilkins taught Moritz during the first years of his career as a professor and has kept in touch with him over the 26 years since.
“Brian is the prototype of what a college professor in a journalism school should be,” Wilkins said. “He is the prototype of what a journalist should be.”
After having many different careers in journalism, Moritz said “it gets in your blood” and looks forward to continuing to teach in the field.
“I don’t know if [journalism] fits my personality or my personality evolved to fit journalism, but it all meshes perfectly,” Moritz said.
With the spring semester ending in three weeks, Moritz is fast approaching his last days as a SUNY Oswego professor. Though he will be missed, Wilkins is very pleased Moritz is joining him at St. Bonaventure in the fall.
“Brian’s now one of us, sorry Oswego,” Wilkins said.
Photo provided by Brian Moritz
