3/12/98
ATHENS, Ohio -- Former Associated Press Chief Middle East Correspondent Terry Anderson will join the faculty of Ohio University's E.W. Scripps School of Journalism July 1 as a Scripps Howard Visiting Professional.
Anderson, an associate professor of journalism at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, has accepted a one-year contract to teach journalism courses with an option to renew the contract a second year.
"The Scripps School has a great reputation and both the university and I have the expectation that I will be there for a long time," Anderson said. "I'm not coming there with the intention of just staying two years. It's a lifestyle choice. Athens is a lovely, interesting and sophisticated town. I have a couple books I'd like to write and the appointment there takes into account time I'll have to write. I've also got relatives all over Ohio."
A native of Lorain, Ohio, Anderson gained worldwide renown after he was captured in 1985 and held captive by the radical Islamic Jihad in Lebanon for nearly seven years. Anderson and his wife, Madeleine Bassil, are co-authors of the national best-seller "Den of Lions," the story of his years of captivity. He also wrote, narrated and co-produced "Return to the Den of Lions," a CNN documentary on Lebanon today.
Anderson visited the Athens campus earlier this year and notified the College of Communication this week he would accept the offer to teach at Ohio University, starting the second session of summer quarter.
"We've had special funding from the Scripps Howard Foundation for a number of years permitting us to bring in professionals in various disciplines," said Tom Peters, associate director of the Scripps School.
Anderson will teach a normal course offering such as foreign correspondence or news reporting and one tailored to Anderson's background, Peters said.
A graduate of Iowa State, Anderson joined the AP as a broadcast editor in Detroit in 1974 but was laid off after six months. He later worked as the state editor for the Kentucky AP in Louisville, before joining the foreign desk in New York as an editor.
He reported for the AP from Tokyo and Southern Africa before transferring to the Middle East in 1982 to cover the Lebanese civil war and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. After his release from captivity in 1991, he was a fellow at the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center in New York. He joined Columbia as an associate professor in 1996.
Anderson write a weekly syndicated column for King Features. He is chairman of the Vietnam Children's Fund, which builds elementary schools in Vietnam, and vice chairman of the Committee to Protect Journalists that monitors attacks on the press worldwide.