Caleb Deschanel was a Managing Editor from 1964-65 and an Editor-in-Chief 1965-66. He is a cinematographer and film director who has been nominated for six Academy Awards. Jim Freedman was a Features Editor 1964-65 and an Editor-in-Chief 1965-66. He is a professor, author and founder of an international consulting firm.
Joff Masukawa wrote for The News-Letter during his time at SAIS, from 1985 to 1987. Now he is an independent commercialization strategist who assists small, rare and speciality drug companies develop their business strategies as president and founder of Diligentia Strategy.
Known as “Mr. News-Letter” on campus, Richard Waring was a valued member of the paper throughout his Hopkins career, from 1970 to 1974. He rose through the ranks, occupying positions of staff reporter, Managing Editor and Executive Editor. During his senior year, he was the sole Editor-in-Chief of the paper. After graduating, he worked as a reporter for two newspapers in Massachusetts and then attended law school. He continued to work in private law practice until 1986, which is when he joined the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine. Since 2000, he has worked as an attorney for the National Association of Government Employees, a union that represents Massachusetts state employees.
We began our love of good beer at Hopkins, back in the early ‘90s. In human terms, that was a generation ago — we each have kids and stepkids of our own attending and looking to attend college. In beer terms, eons have passed. The nascent microbrewery scene has blossomed locally in Baltimore and far and wide across the country into a varied world of brewpubs, craft breweries and highly specialized nano-breweries. Heck, some of our favorite independent breweries are no longer that, as they have been purchased by other breweries or even some of the multinational breweries. Our 30-year journey has been quite the trip.
Rachel McGuckian attended Hopkins from 1986 to 1990 and was a four-year varsity letter winner in field hockey, and an All-University Athletic Association selection and co-captain her senior year. There was a dearth of writers interested in reporting on women’s sports in the 1980s, and during her freshman year she occasionally wrote articles for The News-Letter at the request of either staff, coaches or the athletic department. She was invited to become a regular staff writer her sophomore year, and was named Co-Sports Editor (along with Josh Orenstein) her senior year. She was one of the first female Sports Editors in Hopkins history.
Nicole Winfield was a news reporter for The News-Letter from 1991 to 1992. She is now an Associated Press foreign correspondent based in Rome covering the Vatican in Italy.
John Griffith was a News Editor 1952-53 and one of the Editors-in-Chief 1953-54. He is a professor emeritus in the Department of Health Management and Policy at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health.
Matthew Dujnic attended Hopkins from 1992 to 1996. He knew on the day he arrived that he wanted to work on campus publications. But news wasn’t his bag, so The News-Letter wouldn’t see him until junior year, when he was roped in as the Editorial Cartoonist. Freshman year, The Black and Blue Jay got him instead — he was a writer and editor (and cartoonist) there for all of his four years. He became somewhat renowned for his weekly comic strip in The News-Letter, jhu.edu.
Arthur Cleveland worked on The News-Letter in various roles on the business side of things, including as publisher and business manager from 1958–1962. Since then he has worked at The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Post and The Newspaper Advertising Bureau, among other jobs.
Jack Lipkin was a production assistant, Copy Editor, Managing Editor and Editor-in-Chief for The News-Letter from 1989 to 1992. He now works in a communications role at Novartis. Mira Vayda Edelman was a Copy Editor, Features Editor, News Editor and Editor-in-Chief for The News-Letter from 1989 to 1992. She is now a lawyer at Dish Network in Denver.
Lena Denis was a staff writer for The News-Letter from 2007 to 2011 and recently returned to Hopkins as the Geospatial Data, GIS and Maps Librarian in Data Services at our own Sheridan Libraries.
Okay, I’ll admit it — like many college students, I was partially in it for the free food. When I was a News & Features Editor at The News-Letter, Wednesday evenings were brutal — a long, mad dash to put the paper to bed before sunrise. The Gatehouse’s heavy door was a portal to a place past exhaustion, where a manic giddiness usually set in while my editor friends and I stared blankly at an InDesign page that refused to lay itself out.
Being a part of The News-Letter, as a contributing underclassman all the way through to being Editor-in-Chief, was a singular piece of my Hopkins experience. It ranks with having graduated as a working engineer for the Federal Aviation Agency.
Jessica Valdez attended Hopkins from 2001 to 2005. During her freshman year, she was a writer for The News-Letter. She became a News Editor her sophomore year and was Copy Editor her junior year. After receiving her PhD in English from Hopkins in 2012, she taught in the writing program at New York University Shanghai for one year. She has since been a professor of English literature at the University of Hong Kong for seven years.
Professor Richard Rose began his education at Hopkins in September 1951 and graduated in June 1953. In his two years as a student, he wrote news stories and features for The News-Letter. He currently lives in England and boasts 4,000 books in his library at home.
Charles Kruzansky was a Managing Editor, Baltimore sports reporter and a restaurant reviewer for The News-Letter from 1980 to 1982. Kruzansky was very busy with local Maryland and national political campaigns and was a Political Science major. He went on to business school at Columbia University and then went to work for the New York State (NYS) Legislature on their Ways and Means Committee. After five years of learning all about NYS government, he went to work for Cornell University as a lobbyist.
Benjamin Kupferberg graduated from Hopkins in 2015 and from SAIS in 2016. He worked for The News-Letter all four years he was an undergraduate, from 2012-2015. He started by breaking coverage on Professor Steve Hanke’s uncovering of hyperinflation in Iran, which gave The News-Letter national attention. He was then a News Editor and worked alongside Evan Brooker and Nash Jenkins, “some of the finest men to ever grace the Gatehouse.”
Michael Szeto was part of The News-Letter from 2007 to 2010, during which he was Associate Online Editor. He received a Juris Doctor degree from New York University School of Law and currently serves as university counsel in Stanford University’s Office of the General Counsel.
Tom Connor was a Features reporter for The News-Letter from 1974-75. He is Creative Director/Chief Operating Officer at Weinrib & Connor, Inc., a full-service advertising and marketing agency.
Marie Cushing attended Hopkins from 2006 to 2010 and worked on The News-Letter as the inaugural Layout Editor, Your News-Letter Editor (now Leisure), News & Features Editor and Editor-in-Chief. After graduating from Hopkins she taught for a decade in Memphis and now serves as a research specialist in education for the University of Virginia.
