E-mail: JournProf@comcast.net

Spring 2008 Course Syllabus:
Jour 201 - Survey of Mass Communications

R. Thomas Berner
Adjunct Faculty

R. Thomas Berner is a professor emeritus of journalism and American studies at the Pennsylvania State University. Urged by his wife, the ninth-generation Pennsylvanian agreed to retire to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in July 2003. He now freelances as a writer, photographer and distance education teacher.

Before embarking on a 28-year career teaching at Penn State, Berner worked for a variety of small-town dailies in Pennsylvania and served in the U.S. Navy.

He is the author of The Fundamentals of Journalism, The Literature of Journalism: Text and Context, Writing Literary Features, Parents Whose Parents Were Divorced (translated into Chinese), The Process of Editing, The Process of Writing News, and Language Skills for Journalists. After returning from his second Fulbright lectureship in China, he published The Best Times We Spent Together: Stories from China, which is a collection of feature stories written by his Chinese students. He has also published a collection of his photographs, A Smart Eye in China. In 2007 he and his wife collaborated on a children's book, The Cottontails and the Jackrabbits. He has also published one novel: Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Jimmy Olson saves Las Vegas.

During his last four years at Penn State, Berner served as the College of Communications’ director of continuing and distance education. He has designed and taught three online courses.

In 1994 and 2005, Berner was a Fulbright lecturer in Beijing.

On the Web:
Penn State light-hearted
Penn State serious
Editorial consultant