M Dot @ the Academy

For those of you who are completely in the dark about my life and why the SOULution blog has been running slow, I moved to Chicago last week for a fellowship at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. The program is called the Academy for Alternative Journalism, which I was first alerted about last year as a freelancer thanks to former LEO Editor, Cary Stemle.

Thanks Stemle!

Yes, I've fallen in love with Windy. Something that is surely easier to do when you're living in the gentrified version of the historic Hyde Park neighborhood. Still, Chicago is a major metropolitan city with that midwestern authenticity, not dim like Gotham or as fake as Hollywood.

Our first day was the only day we went to the main Northwestern University campus in Evanston, which is by far one of the most beautiful campuses I have visited, with Lake Michigan as a natural aesthetic backdrop. The rest of the program will be at Medill's downtown Chicago campus. Graduate school at Medill is certainly in my future.

One of the interesting connections with my hometown was learning that the AAJ director, Charles Whitaker, was once a reporter for the Louisville Times/Courier-Journal back when the Bingham family still owned both publications. Whitaker, who also used to work at Ebony Magazine, told me today that he left back in '86 almost three months after Gannett bought the C-J.

Maybe you'll see a Q&A in a few days.

So this means that the ol' SOULution will have its usual content but with updates about the fellowship, stories I'm working on, and a few blog exclusives of Chicago events, interesting site, and people, with pictures thanks to my new Nikon S550. Yes, I'm doing it for the haters.