![\"Professor](\"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/magazine\/sites\/13\/2020\/03\/Linda-Levin-1280x854.jpg\")
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If you were lucky enough to take a class with journalism professor Linda Levin in the 1980s and \u201990s, you surely remember her. Maybe you\u2019re even still in touch with her. Her no-nonsense teaching style, her devotion to her students, and her pure enjoyment of teaching are her unforgettable legacies.<\/p>\n
Linda Lotridge Levin never wanted to be a teacher.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Don\u2019t be a teacher!\u2019 I heard this 10,000 times a day from my mother,\u201d Levin recalls. No matter. Levin wanted to go to medical school. But her mother\u2014a driving force in her life\u2014would not send her. It was the 1950s and Levin\u2019s mother thought the expensive degree would be a waste of money since she believed her daughter would probably get married, have babies, and never work as a doctor. \u201cSo I had to choose another major,\u201d Levin says. \u201cI had a typewriter and I didn\u2019t mind writing.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a student at Michigan State and later Boston University, Levin was inspired by two professors who \u201cknew so much\u201d and also gave life to the material, and she emulated them. Years later at äçÐÄvlogÃâ·ÑBÕ¾, Levin taught about Joseph Pulitzer by donning a full beard and suit to depict the iconic journalist and publisher. \u201cI wanted it to be fun,\u201d she says. \u201cIf you can\u2019t have fun, why go?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was always highly engaged,\u201d recalls Brett Davey \u201990, currently the director of marketing at South County Health. \u201cShe never mailed it in, not even once. It\u2019s clear how much she loved teaching and her students,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s a reason so many of us have stayed close with her decades after graduating. She\u2019s fun to be around. Always has been.\u201d<\/p>\n
But a professorial career was not initially on her radar. After graduating, Levin became a successful health and medicine reporter and enjoyed it immensely. She married Providence Journal reporter Len Levin and together they raised two girls. One day, Levin recalls, she was approached by an administrator at her daughter\u2019s elementary school. Would she be willing to teach an after-school news writing class to fourth-graders? She accepted the challenge. \u201cI hated it! They wouldn\u2019t settle down,\u201d she says. \u201cI was always yelling at the little pissers.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1983, Levin was offered a position teaching journalism at the äçÐÄvlogÃâ·ÑBÕ¾. This time, she was smitten. She\u2019d found her niche with college-age students. \u201cI had great students,\u201d she recalls. \u201cI loved them and wanted them to be successful.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was a one-of-a-kind professor,\u201d remembers Gregg Perry \u201988, president at the public relations firm the Perry Group. \u201cShe\u2019s sarcastic, funny, no bull. At the same time, she was caring and compassionate and wanted students to be their best.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steve Greenlee \u201991 was a journalism major in his sophomore year and had not yet met Levin. He knocked on her door to inquire about an internship and found a lifelong mentor. \u201cShe had no reason to help me,\u201d says Greenlee. When he landed a job as assignment editor at The Boston Globe<\/em> nine years after graduating, Levin was the first person he called. Now managing editor at the Portland Press Herald<\/em> in Maine, Greenlee credits his career to Levin. \u201cShe takes a lifelong responsibility for her students,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Levin thrived as a professor and in 2001 became the chair of the journalism department. She developed expertise in First Amendment issues, media law, and the history of journalism. The recipient of many industry awards, she has been a fellow of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, the American Press Institute, and the Annenberg Washington Program. Levin is the author of The Making of FDR: The Story of Stephen T. Early, America\u2019s First Modern Press Secretary<\/em>. She retired from teaching in the classroom in 2012. But those of us who were fortunate enough to study with her continue to consider her lessons on a daily basis. \u2022<\/p>\n \u2014Ann Martini \u201990<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If you were lucky enough to take a class with journalism professor Linda Levin in the 1980s and \u201990s, you surely remember her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":3679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[190],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spring-2020","architecture-looking-back","architecture-network"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3247"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7472,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3247\/revisions\/7472"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}