Lauterer honored by University

Lauterer honored as UNC Faculty Engaged Scholar

Jock Lauterer, senior lecturer and director,  Carolina Community Media Project, along with seven other faculty members at the University, was recently selected as the first class of UNC’s Faculty Engaged Scholars. In this two-year program, the scholars will learn how to connect their faculty work with the needs of a community, and they will apply their skills to make a difference.

Lauterer will receive a financial stipend of up to $7,500 per year for each of the two years to further his connection to North Carolina through his work with community newspapers from Murphy to Manteo. He was selected as an Engaged Scholar for his Bucket Brigade, which consists of his journalism students who are creating content for the Spring Hope Enterprise – a weekly newspaper serving the community in southern Nash County – while its editor-publisher Ken Ripley recovers from double hip replacement surgery.

“As the nation’s first state university, Carolina has a strong tradition of serving the people of North Carolina and the nation,” said Michael R. Smith, appointed Carolina’s first vice chancellor for public service and engagement in 2006. Smith is also dean of the UNC School of Government. “The Faculty Engaged Scholars program will support faculty members who want to join their many colleagues who already are collaborating with communities to apply their scholarly work to the state’s challenges.”

However, the Bucket Brigade is only one of Lauterer’s ties to community journalism as he has taken to North Carolina’s roads each summer since 2001 to offer free, onsite workshops to small newspapers in what he calls his “Community Journalism Roadshow.”

His work outside of Carroll Hall is an outreach initiative of the school dedicated to the proposition that strong community media help strengthen communities, and that communities with a vital civic life and a sense of place are key to high livability in a free democratic society.

The chronicles of Lauterer’s summer travels and his work with the Spring Hope Enterprise can be read on his blog at Blue Highways Journal .