There’s no such thing as the Ivory Tower. Colleges and universities are not isolated enclaves, and they really never were. Public engagement has always been, or should always have been anyway, an essential part of the core mission of higher education. But how do we reach the public? This age of constant media babble and a vast explosion of online and print publications have transformed the traditional pathways of publication, prestige, and engagement. Academics – experts in so many things – need to be part of the conversation. In fact, the variety of media voices has only made expertise and authority more important.

In this workshop, Dr. David Perry will help you reframe your expertise in ways that are compelling for both readers and, critically, the editors who decide whether or not to commission and publish your work, while remaining true to your work and your goals.

As a medieval history professor at Dominican University, a small teaching-oriented school in the Chicago area, Perry began publishing opinion essays and commentary in 2013. Now with over 600 published pieces in dozens of outlets (including The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and so many more) on both historical topics and personal ones like mental health and parenting, Perry will offer his templates for both essays and the pitches to editors that sell the essays both as a practical tool for you to use and as exercises to rethink how to apply your skills as an academic to new genres, media, and communities.

This is an active learning workshop. Bring one or more ideas for a public-facing writing project that you might like to try. It doesn’t have to be directly connected to your academic discipline or field. Perry will present for about half the time and try to answer all your questions—including about counting this work for tenure and promotion, dealing with the good and bad of social media, and how to fit this kind of work into an academic career—and then you’ll do some writing of your own and get feedback over lunch.