Culver joined the School of Journalism & Mass Communication in 1999 to prepare students for a changing media landscape. She credits her diverse professional background — spanning from police reporter to magazine editor to marketing manager — with helping her to make students adaptable writers and critical thinkers. Culver also serves as the associate director for the UW’s Center for Journalism Ethics.
What I’m reading at the moment:
Best American Magazine Writing, 2014
My assigned reading this semester includes:
In my Digital Media Law and Ethics class, we will analyze and critique the reporting and writing in Rolling Stone’s “A Rape on Campus.” I’m eager for them to explore what went wrong and why.
Periodicals and publications I enjoy paging through are:
Confession time: I’m much more of a magazine reader than a book reader. Always have been. So you’re far more likely to see me with the New Yorker or the Atlantic than anything with a glued binding.
Preference: curl up with a good book, or plug in to an e-reader?
I’m a digital junkie, but I’ve realized I do far better with print-on-paper when I’m trying to relax. If it’s leisure reading, I’ve got a magazine in my hands. If it’s reading for research or class, I have a computer or iPad in front of me.
My favorite place on campus to read is:
Anywhere that lets me look at Lake Mendota. Water is restorative.
The book I would read over and over again is:
The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion
If I were a character from a book, I’d be:
I’m going with a character from a magazine story. I’d like to be one of the original investigators in Texas Monthly’s “The Innocent Man.” I want to be any person who stops the chain reaction and prevents the injustice of a wrongful imprisonment.
My favorite author is:
I follow lots of great writers, but my current lead is Lawrence Wright from the New Yorker. His work on Scientology, including “The Apostate,” has been stunning.
The book I keep meaning to get around to is:
Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand
The title of my memoirs — if I ever write them — would be:
In Search of a Peaceful Mind
