New Pollner professor hails from Germany

By Sarah Swan
J-School Web Reporter

Henriette Lowisch

Henriette Lowisch, a senior editor at Agence France-Presse in Berlin, will be the Fall 2006 Pollner professor, the Journalism School announced in mid-March.

Lowisch said her reaction was a mixture of shock, elation and disbelief.

“I jumped up and down like a soccer player who has scored the golden goal, but seriously, I didn’t expect it,” Lowisch said.

As the new Pollner professor, Lowisch will teach a class, give a lecture and work with the Montana Kaimin.

Carol Van Valkenburg, chair of the Print Department at the J-school, said what really impressed the committee about Lowisch was her international experience.

“She has spent most of her working life in Europe, though she has also worked in Washington [D.C.],” Van Valkenburg said. “We were looking for someone who obviously has strong professional credentials, but also who is unlike some of the other Pollner professors we already had.”

Lowisch comes to the J-school with a long list of credentials.

After nearly 10 years of schooling, Lowisch received her Hauptdiplom (Master’s equivalent) and graduated magna cum laude from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet in Munich, Germany. Lowisch’s 20-year career spans Europe, and includes reporting, teaching, writing a novel, reporting for the AFP from Washington D.C. and working her way up to the senior editor position at AFP.

Lowisch said she happened to come upon the Pollner professorship by chance while looking for foreign correspondence classes on the Internet.

“ I saw it and knew right away that this would be perfect,” Lowisch said. “To understand why, you have to know that I am leading a double life. Six months out of the year, I work as a senior editor for AFP in Berlin; the other six months I live in Washington, D.C., and get to do other things I love to do, like writing longer and slower stories, and teaching.”

The T. Anthony Pollner Distinguished Professorship is named for T. Anthony Pollner, a 1999 J-school graduate who died in a motorcycle accident in 2001. Pollner was an active member of the Montana Kaimin and also was a Web designer. His family established an endowment in his honor to create a position for a visiting professor one semester each year. Lowisch will be the sixth Pollner professor at the J-school.

Having just completed a novel (quite a feat for a wire service person who’s used to pressing everything into 600-word stories, according to Lowisch), she said she wanted to get back into teaching, and the professorship offered her that chance.

Lowisch joins the J-School this coming fall with plans to teach a course in foreign correspondence.

“In a time of war and alienation between the United States and the rest of the world, I hope to deepen students’ interest in reporting the world, while acquainting them with the difficulties that arise from working in an unfamiliar environment,” Lowisch said.

Van Valkenburg said the course will be of interest because it’s not something the J-school has as part of its usual curriculum.

“A lot of students always talk about how they want to do freelance and that kind of world is difficult to get into,” Van Valkenburg said. “I think what she will do is to expose them to journalism on a world scale and [it’s] something that I think a lot of our students one day aspire to do.”

Lowisch said she is looking forward to her semester in Montana, describing it as “a new dimension of thought — a new vantage point from which to observe the United States.”

Van Valkenburg said the Pollner professorship has offered multiple benefits.

“It does a couple of things,” she said. “It really exposes students to a new person who is still working in the media. It provides them with great contacts for when they graduate and are out in the working world, and I think it also energizes the faculty.”

Van Valkenburg added that for the faculty, it’s great to be able to sit down with someone who is still doing journalism every day and talk to them about their experiences.

“It’s just proven to be a wonderful opportunity for both the students and the faculty,” Van Valkenburg said.

As the excitement begins to settle, Lowisch, she says she is still surprised with the J-school’s selection because of her unfamiliarity with the U.S. university system.

“I think the University made a great choice, but I wouldn’t call it a safe choice,” Lowisch said. “After all, I could be a European snob that ends up boring everyone out of their wits. I’m not. Promise.”

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