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Thursday, December 11, 2008

2:00 – 4:00 p.m.

Laurel Village Conference Room

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Rebecca Luther

Title: Senior Editor

Department: Office of University Publications

Job Description: 

I edit the university magazine, Sombrilla, and a bunch of other jobs that come through our office. Our office helps create periodicals including the research magazine, Discovery; COLFA’s annual magazine, Ovations; the College of Business annual report; and the quarterly AlumniNotes. Every semester I work with Dr. Graham and the Graduation Coordination Office on the commence-ment program, which is fun but also stressful: that’s a lot of names to get right.

Background:

I am an Alabama native. Four generations of my family have attended Auburn University—War Eagle!—so I feel right at home at UTSA where the school colors also are orange and blue (though my family and friends back home are continually amazed that I work at a Division I school with 28,000 students that doesn’t have a football team, yet). After college, I studied magazine publishing at New York University’s Summer Publishing Institute. My husband and I met when we were both working at the now-defunct Birmingham Post-Herald. He grew up in Texas and talked me into moving here. I often feel like Elizabeth Taylor’s character in “Giant,” thought Liz eventually did get the hang of being a Texan, didn’t she? I love San Antonio, but even after being here 10 years, I still don’t think of myself at a Texan. I expect to spend the rest of my career here, but I will never own a bumper sticker that says, “I wasn’t born in Texas, but I got here as fast as I could!” Please don’t buy me one as a joke.

 Experience:

My first real job in communications was at a biweekly community newspaper. After two weeks on the job, when I had reorganized all the wedding and engagement announcements into one file, my boss recognized my attention to detail and decided I was editor material, so I became an editor. 

In my career, I’ve written stories about debutantes, Chernobyl victims, treehouses, clotheslines, tornado survivors, public restrooms, rock bands, civil rights leaders, people named after Bear Bryant, etc. Two of my favorite interviews of all time were the researcher who taught Koko the gorilla how to communicate in sign language and the designer who made custom furniture for Marilyn Monroe. For a period of time, I ghost-wrote a society column because the actual society editor was, for various reasons, rather unreliable. I’ve been yelled at by restaurant owners, building contractors, members of the Junior League, one woman who named her son after Bear Bryant, another woman who named her daughter WarEagle, and once, a Methodist minister.

Before joining UTSA in 2000, I freelanced as a writer for a year and hated it because I need to have my fingers in the whole editorial process. I interviewed for editor jobs at UTSA and another company here in town and chose UTSA because it was important to me to work someplace that was an integral and contributing part of the community, not just a place that happened to be located in San Antonio but could easily uproot and move its headquarters to another city.

Describe your job:

No matter the stereotype of the nutty professor, I find the Ph.D.s at UTSA far less ornery that most Junior League members, so I think I have it pretty good here.

What is the most unusual job related case you have worked on?

I feel like every project that comes through our office is unique and that no job is too small. Remember those three-sided, promotional pens that had the name of one of the UTSA campuses on each side? The first batch got sent back to the vendor because they had misspelled ITC as the Institute of Texas Cultures.

A lot of people would be surprised to know that, as a former food editor, I get a big kick out of proofreading the dinner menu for the President’s Dinner every year.

As far as the most unusual thing we’ve done in Sombrilla, it might have been the dog story we did in 2003. A lot of people might think, quite understandably, that devoting six pages to faculty members and their dogs was a waste of space in a university magazine. I think our alumni readers probably got a kick out of knowing that the professor who gave them such a hard time in his Shakespeare class has a huge soft spot for Yorkies.

What job skills to you use most often?

Participating in Gage Paine’s First Tuesday Conversations Series definitely has helped me to improve my listening skills, which obviously is crucial for interviewing sources for your stories. Like everyone else who works here at UTSA, I have more that I want to do than I can get done in my workday. So I used to try very hard to limit my time interviewing people based on how long the actual article was going to be; I’d get my predetermined list of questions answered and then I was out of there. Now, I’ve learned not to rush through my interviews because you never know what you might learn if you just shut up and listen.

There are so many great stories at UTSA. Last month, I had the privilege of interviewing George E. Norton, assistant vice president for admissions, because this semester George defended his dissertation and will be graduating with his doctorate in educational leadership during the December commencement ceremonies. George’s story is a neat one because he actually began work on a doctoral degree at another university years ago and decided after coming to work at UTSA that he really wanted to finish it; I think that’s a great precedent for an administrator to set. My story about George will be one of the Commencement Closeup stories that will be posted on UTSA Today. It’s very humbling when you think that George is just one of more than two dozen doctoral candidates who will graduate this month, and just one of several thousand students who will walk the stage this commencement. So there are thousands upon thousands of great stories that come through this university, and I wish we had the resources to tell more of them.

How do you unwind? 

I read as much as I can. I think you have to be a good reader to be a good writer. I majored in English in college simply so that I would get to do a lot of reading. My favorite job I ever had was as a clerk at Tower Books in Tacoma, Wash. I was in charge of the true crime, young adult and puzzle book sections. I like to think that if I’d stayed, I would have worked my way up to the literature section. Ah, well. Instead, I pored my energies into making sure we had the best true crime section in the city. True crime is really popular in Washington State, probably because of Ann Rule, Ted Bundy, the Green River Killer and other connections. Plus, anyone who’s ever hiked alone in the dreary, damp woods in Washington knows what a spooky setting it is. Any “Twilight” or “Twin Peaks” fans?

Shashi Pinheiro just loaned me “A Suitable Boy,” which is almost 1,500 pages long and should keep me busy through Christmas.

When I don’t have my nose buried in a book, I’m learning, with my 21-month-old son, about the infinite joys of playing with sticks and rocks in the back yard. And teaching him to be a reader, too. Every night before bedtime, we go outside to say goodnight to the moon. And I don’t think it would surprise anyone to know that his bedroom is decorated with an alphabet theme; this kid will know how to spell.

What advice would you give to other Student Affairs staff?

Never forget—no matter how many times you hear the words “premier public research university”—that the university is all about people. Behind every lab, center, program, initiative, project, etc., there’s a real live human being who has a story to tell. And the students you serve are the lifeblood of our community—even though they get the worst parking spaces. 

Thank You Rowdy

Thank You Rowdy has a special mission in Student Affairs - to travel across UTSA recognizing the good work of staff members. Within the Division of Student Affairs, Thank You Rowdy is presented from one Student Affairs staff member to another in recognition and appreciation of work done well - taking extra assignments to provide support, offering unsolicited assistance, or completing tasks in a unique way.

Whatever the situation, contributions like this are made every day and Thank You Rowdy helps us recognize them.

Thank you Rowdy reflects UTSA's spirit of community and reminds us to remember it takes everyone to make UTSA a great place to work and to learn.