![\"Countdown](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/DEP-018-UComm-Commencement-Graphic-FY22_bookish-300x76.jpg\")
The journalism<\/a> major, who admits \u201cit doesn\u2019t take very much to get me interested in something, and once I\u2019m interested in something, I really dive in,\u201d took the project further and linked to the original court documents, summarized what events preceded the suit\u2019s filing, offered an overview of what each says, and noted the effect or potential effect on Connecticut residents.<\/p>\nThe state attorney general \u201cis the person who\u2019s representing our state legally, and he\u2019s the one going up against the federal government on behalf of the state. We need to know what he\u2019s doing,\u201d Harvey says. \u201cNational politics can seem disconnected from everyday life, but this is exactly what your state is doing about it and that makes it important.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even though Harvey\u2019s database analyzed and organized 39 lawsuits filed last year between Jan. 20 and December \u2013 and was published by major state news outlets – she says her work wasn\u2019t anything more than what her 13 classmates offered during the fall 2025 semester of Publication Practice.<\/p>\n
Newfound Skills in Action<\/strong><\/h4>\nPublication Practice, in the course catalog as JOUR 4016, is unique each semester with a different instructor and topic to give mostly journalism majors the opportunity to delve into a single topic, become experts in it, and publish significant pieces that consider different angles of the overarching theme.<\/p>\n
Harvey took the class twice, in spring 2025 when the class looked at sewage issues in Hartford, and again in fall 2025.<\/p>\n
It was in the fall session, taught by associate professor Amanda J. Crawford, that Harvey published the piece on Tong<\/a> as part of the class\u2019s larger project, The Balance of Power<\/a>, a multimedia research and reporting project examining the history of executive power in the U.S.<\/p>\nBalance of Power recently won the 2026 Provost\u2019s Award for Excellence in Community-Engaged Scholarship in the Student Team category.<\/p>\n
Crawford says she considered focusing on Connecticut\u2019s wealth divide \u2013 and still has plans of doing that one semester \u2013 but with the turn of the calendar to January 2025 and flurry of executive orders and tests of presidential power that followed the inauguration, she decided to pivot to current events.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn journalism, you don\u2019t really have the ability to not think about current events, especially ones that are being debated and talked about in the press and shaping everyday life in our communities,\u201d she says. \u201cIt just seemed like there was a wealth of issues that students could dig into both as reporters and as scholars learning about this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since the class is open to only students who have proven themselves through previous work, it doesn\u2019t teach the skills of being a reporter, photographer, or videographer, Crawford notes. Instead, it puts to work the skills learned in prerequisite classes like Newswriting I and II.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve gotten so much out of my courses here, whether those were my basic news writing courses, which taught me how to actually write stories, or more in-depth classes like feature writing. This course too really emphasized the importance of doing extensive research for a story,\u201d says journalism and political science<\/a> major Dan Stark \u201926 (CLAS). \u201cI always do some level of research, but this was a very long process.\u201d<\/p>\nReal-Life Reporting: Beats, Interviews, Drafts<\/strong><\/h4>\nStark and his fellow students were grouped onto different beats, or coverage areas, that allowed them to home in on part of the larger subject of governmental power, looking at it by subject area: immigration, higher education, science, and others. His beat was executive powers and their expanded use to enact change.<\/p>\n
One story<\/a>, he says, required upward of 30 sources. Assembling that \u201cgiant document\u201d of notes into a coherent, meaningful, and readable story was an organizational challenge.<\/p>\n\u201cWhen I submitted my first draft, it was broken into a lot of pieces – sections about rule of law, energy, First Amendment issues,\u201d Stark says. \u201cThe feedback I got from Professor Crawford was to merge some of these sections into broader themes. When writing a big story like this, sometimes you\u2019re dealing with a lot of topics that might seem like they don\u2019t go together. But, when you look at them more deeply, you can start to see these themes that emerge.\u201d<\/p>\n
The final version of that story clocked in at 2,700 words – for reference, this one is around 1,500 words.<\/p>\n
To kickstart students with their interviews, Crawford arranged for political science associate professor Virginia Hettinger, UConn Law professor Jon Bauer, and former UConn President Thomas Katsouleas, an expert in the history of higher education and its relationship with the federal government, to come in and give open interviews to the class.<\/p>\n
Then, in their individual reporting, students could use any, all, none, or part of the interviews as needed.<\/p>\n
U.S. Sen. Christopher Murphy, ACLU of Connecticut legal director Dan Barrett, and Tong, the state attorney general, also joined the class for hour-long interviews.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember the vibe of the room the day we interviewed Murphy. We were all pretty nervous,\u201d says journalism and political science major Sara Bedigian \u201926 (CLAS), who is in this semester\u2019s Publication Practice class that\u2019s reporting on mental health. \u201cProfessor Crawford was like, \u2018You\u2019re on the higher ed question. This person\u2019s on this question,\u2019 and we all sat around the table and asked the questions. It was nerve-wracking, but afterward, I was like, \u2018Wow, that was so fun.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Finally, Onto Publication<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Balance of Power recently won the 2026 Provost\u2019s Award for Excellence in Community-Engaged Scholarship in the Student Team category.<\/p>\n
Crawford says she considered focusing on Connecticut\u2019s wealth divide \u2013 and still has plans of doing that one semester \u2013 but with the turn of the calendar to January 2025 and flurry of executive orders and tests of presidential power that followed the inauguration, she decided to pivot to current events.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn journalism, you don\u2019t really have the ability to not think about current events, especially ones that are being debated and talked about in the press and shaping everyday life in our communities,\u201d she says. \u201cIt just seemed like there was a wealth of issues that students could dig into both as reporters and as scholars learning about this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since the class is open to only students who have proven themselves through previous work, it doesn\u2019t teach the skills of being a reporter, photographer, or videographer, Crawford notes. Instead, it puts to work the skills learned in prerequisite classes like Newswriting I and II.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve gotten so much out of my courses here, whether those were my basic news writing courses, which taught me how to actually write stories, or more in-depth classes like feature writing. This course too really emphasized the importance of doing extensive research for a story,\u201d says journalism and political science<\/a> major Dan Stark \u201926 (CLAS). \u201cI always do some level of research, but this was a very long process.\u201d<\/p>\n Stark and his fellow students were grouped onto different beats, or coverage areas, that allowed them to home in on part of the larger subject of governmental power, looking at it by subject area: immigration, higher education, science, and others. His beat was executive powers and their expanded use to enact change.<\/p>\n One story<\/a>, he says, required upward of 30 sources. Assembling that \u201cgiant document\u201d of notes into a coherent, meaningful, and readable story was an organizational challenge.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I submitted my first draft, it was broken into a lot of pieces – sections about rule of law, energy, First Amendment issues,\u201d Stark says. \u201cThe feedback I got from Professor Crawford was to merge some of these sections into broader themes. When writing a big story like this, sometimes you\u2019re dealing with a lot of topics that might seem like they don\u2019t go together. But, when you look at them more deeply, you can start to see these themes that emerge.\u201d<\/p>\n The final version of that story clocked in at 2,700 words – for reference, this one is around 1,500 words.<\/p>\n To kickstart students with their interviews, Crawford arranged for political science associate professor Virginia Hettinger, UConn Law professor Jon Bauer, and former UConn President Thomas Katsouleas, an expert in the history of higher education and its relationship with the federal government, to come in and give open interviews to the class.<\/p>\n Then, in their individual reporting, students could use any, all, none, or part of the interviews as needed.<\/p>\n U.S. Sen. Christopher Murphy, ACLU of Connecticut legal director Dan Barrett, and Tong, the state attorney general, also joined the class for hour-long interviews.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember the vibe of the room the day we interviewed Murphy. We were all pretty nervous,\u201d says journalism and political science major Sara Bedigian \u201926 (CLAS), who is in this semester\u2019s Publication Practice class that\u2019s reporting on mental health. \u201cProfessor Crawford was like, \u2018You\u2019re on the higher ed question. This person\u2019s on this question,\u2019 and we all sat around the table and asked the questions. It was nerve-wracking, but afterward, I was like, \u2018Wow, that was so fun.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\nReal-Life Reporting: Beats, Interviews, Drafts<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Finally, Onto Publication<\/strong><\/h4>\n