John Culkin
Born in 1928, John Culkin believed wholeheartedly in a media literate population, something that could be achieved through education not only within the classroom but also out in the streets. In 1969, Culkin left the priesthood to found the Center for Understanding Media, an organization dedicated to media education. Because he observed people watching more television than ever without properly understanding the medium that they were intimately engaged with, Culkin thought it imperative to arm children and adults alike with the critical tools necessary to separate information from misinformation. Eventually, the Center for Understanding Media would partner with the New School to create the first M.A. program of its kind.
And as John Culkin's closing indicates in this letter to Dean Allen Austill in 1975, courage was needed to not only start a program dedicated to Media Studies, but also to learn and do media; the following letter assigns a voice of authority and benevolence to John Culkin. Though it was no surprise, I was happy to read that the Center for Understanding Media and the New School found a way to be back "in cahoots." Sifting through documents in an archive can be just as captivating as watching a movie or reading a book, and something as simple as John's use of the word "courage" as a way to end his letters definitely resonated with me.
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