'Divided Baltimore' Class Welcomes Guest Speaker Stephen Janis, Author and Journalist, Oct. 31
October 27, 2016
Contact: Public Affairs
Phone: 410.837.5739
The University of Baltimore's class, "Divided Baltimore: How Did We Get Here? Where Do We Go?," will host guest speaker Stephen Janis, author and journalist, during its Monday, Oct. 31 session. Janis will give a presentation entitled "The Media, Symbolism and Zero Tolerance," followed by a question-and-answer session with the audience. The class will be open to the greater community, but seating is limited and only students formally enrolled in the course are guaranteed a seat. The class will begin at 5:30 p.m. in the H. Mebane Turner Learning Commons Town Hall, 1415 Maryland Ave.
Janis is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work has won acclaim in both print and television. As the senior investigative reporter for the former Baltimore Examiner, he won two Maryland/DC/Delaware Press Association Awards for his work on the large number of unsolved murders in Baltimore and the killings of sex workers. As an investigative producer for WBFF Fox 45, he has won three successive Capital Emmys - two for Best Investigative Series and one for Best Cultural Historical piece. He is currently an investigative journalist for The Real News Network, a non-profit news service based in Baltimore. He also teaches media literacy at Towson University.
Prior to becoming a journalist, Janis ran several independent record labels/production companies which produced hits like “Let Me Clear My Throat,” by DJ Kool and “Hard Knock Life” for Jay-Z. Janis also co-wrote music with John Waters for the motion picture Cecil B. Demented.
He is the author of two books on policing, co-written with two former Baltimore homicide detectives: Why Do We Kill?: The Pathology of Murder in Baltimore and You Can't Stop Murder: Truths About Policing in Baltimore and Beyond, along with two novels, This Dream Called Death and Orange: The Diary of an Urban Surrealist.
Janis is one of several guest speakers scheduled for this semester's "Divided Baltimore" class, which is being taught by Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences lecturer Ron Kipling Williams, M.F.A. ’16. Now in its third semester, the interdisciplinary course was launched by the University last fall as a way to build on an historical understanding of how Baltimore became segregated, what that means for people who live on either side of the divide, why it is in everyone's self-interest to correct the problem, and how we might do so.
Learn more about the "Divided Baltimore" course.
The University of Baltimore is a member of the University System of Maryland and comprises the College of Public Affairs, the Merrick School of Business, the UB School of Law and the Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences.