Dean Jan Yopp Interview
By Helen Hamilton
Dean of the Summer School, Jan Yopp, has an understanding of the journalism field that one can only acquire through years of experience. Dean Yopp is a former reporter and assistant city editor for The Raleigh Times, a media relations specialist, and a public relations director for a Durham advertising agency.
Due to her considerable resume, it’s no surprise that students look to Dean Yopp for guidance and insight. She is an award-wining professor and is the recipient of the David Brinkley Teaching-Excellence Award, as well as a Favorite Faculty Award.
What sets Dean Yopp apart are her passions for writing and supporting of diversity in storytelling.
“Newsrooms have a problem making the newsrooms as diverse as the population,” she said. Dean Yopp alongside Professor Emeritus Chuck Stone helped bring a national focus on recruiting storytellers from underrepresented populations through the 3-week Rainbow Program at Chapel Hill.
“People are people, and they all have the same hope and dreams and desires as everyone else,” Dean Yopp said.
Dean Yopp is certainly making her mark on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus as well as on the lives of students from all over the country. As dean of the summer school and author of insightful writing and media books, Dean Yopp strives to inspire journalists.
“We write because we want to persuade someone, we want to reach someone and teach them something,” Dean Yopp said. “It doesn’t make any difference what the delivery is; content is key.”
As a close friend of Chuck Stone, Dean Yopp shares his passion for diversity and is continuing his legacy by passing that passion on to new generations.