Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward were forever immortalized in American history when the duo knocked President Richard Nixon from the oval office in the early seventies. The Watergate Scandal has been made into movies and taught in the classrooms of universities since the two Washington Post reporters won the Pulitzer Prize for their investigation. Now a certain group of Journalism majors will get a chance to put down the textbooks and hear this story for themselves.
Carl Bernstein has joined the faculty of Stony Brook University as Visiting Presidential Professor at the start of the fall semester. He’ll be co-teaching and guest lecturing courses in the School of Journalism and also courses in English, History, Political Science, Sociology, and Writing and Rhetoric. Along with teaching Bernstein will also be involved in fundraising on behalf of Stony Brook.
“We are so extremely fortunate to be able to have Carl Bernstein – a true American icon – share his experience and knowledge with the students, faculty and community of Stony Brook University,” said school President Samuel L. Stanley Jr. “Coupled with his perspective as a great historian, he brings to bear an incisive view of what is happening in the world today. I’m sure it will be standing room only when he’s teaching or lecturing on campus over the next two years.”
Not only does Bernstein bring a well of knowledge but he also has the ability to inspire future journalists with his fiery passion of bringing the unjust in the political spectrum to light even if it isn’t the most popular opinion -an ability few have the power to do.
“I’ve known for a while that I want to do more teaching, but I was determined not to be pigeonholed in a single academic department or discipline,” Bernstein said. “I wanted to be at a university that is breaking the traditional academic mold and structure. Stony Brook, its student body, faculty and location seemed ideal.”
Bernstein’s respect reaches far beyond journalism and the classroom. In the 1976 movie, All the President’s Men, Woodward and Bernstein were played by legends by the likes of Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford. The movie won multiple Academy Awards and Golden Globes.
[Source: Stony Brook, IMDB]