Campus Community Profile: Sara Bauknecht

Assistant Professor of Practice, Journalism, & Public Relations, Sara Bauknecht

Growing up, Sara Bauknecht, Assistant Professor of Practice, Journalism & Public Relations, dreamed of becoming a dancer. Originally from a small town in Ohio, she decided to pursue her dream in New York City, where she would soon become immersed in her other passion in life– storytelling.

According to Sara, "Throughout middle school and high school, I was very involved in student media. I always really enjoyed storytelling. So, when it came down to applying to colleges in New York, I looked deeper into some of the programs and learned that many of the dance faculty also taught at other programs in the city that you did not have to be a college student to enroll in. I thought, why not use this opportunity to both dance and pursue a degree in something I am interested in that compliments the arts?"

She went on to attend Marymount Manhattan College pursuing a major in Communications Arts and minors in Creative Writing and Theater. While she knew that these encompassed many of her interests, she didn't know that this path would soon evolve into a dynamic career in journalism, public relations, and professorship.

During her time at school, she took every opportunity to get her foot in the door at different media outlets, interning at places like The Montel Williams Show, with an aim to end up in TV production. After graduation, she moved from New York to Pittsburgh, and with a scarcity of broadcasting jobs, found herself working for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, (aka the PG), a move that proved to be pivotal in her career. At the PG, she returned to her roots as a dancer and worked a beat position with a focus on dance and the arts as well as fashion and retail news. During her ongoing 12 years at the PG, she has also managed the paper's online presence and acted as producer, host, and editor of a lifestyle web series called “Setting the Scene.” The varied forms of her work showed Professor Bauknecht the power of multi-platform storytelling in today's journalism.

"I learned through all of those experiences, that stories are a vital part of our community. Even though there are a lot of challenges in the journalism industry and a lot of competition as well as a lot of misinformation out there, there still is a desire and a need for solid storytelling. And the beauty of multi-platform journalism is that there are so many different ways now to meet people where they are and tell a story in a way that best aligns with the topic. I think that that's really powerful in journalism."

During her time at the PG, she earned her master's degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from Point Park University. Working first as a graduate assistant in the School of Communication and then as an adjunct professor at Point Park, she felt inspired by the notion of having an opportunity to foster the next generation of change-makers and thought leaders. In 2018, fueled by this inspiration, she came to Chatham as an adjunct professor of communication before switching to a full-time position for the 2021-2022 academic year. Alongside teaching, she still writes in a freelance position for the PG, has recently started a strategic communication consulting business and acts as the faculty advisor for The Communiqué, Chatham's student newspaper.

Sara interviews a Pittsburgh-based designer who was featured during New York Fashion Week.

"I love doing all of that work, too, because I've always found it important to try to build bridges between what's happening in the professional world of media and the theory that we talk about in the classroom. My classes are very heavily informed by what I'm seeing and doing professionally in the industry so that students can have this full picture of how to be prepared for it. My goal is to equip each student that walks out of the Chatham communications program with a versatile and practical toolkit of skills,” says Sara.

In her new position at Chatham, she is assisting students in taking The Communiqué to new platforms and providing them with a hands-on journalism experience. She is also working to establish a student-run public relations firm for students on the public relations track that would allow them to gain valuable experience outside of the classroom. In the classroom, she values a teaching style that promotes taking an ethical and progressive approach to everything that she and her students do: "That's one thing we really value—asking ourselves how we can be storytellers grounded in truly representing the world around us. That means being mindful of incorporating a variety of voices, in our stories, in the films that we make or in the photos that we take. So that way, we are creating media that's representative of the world around us and not limited in its scope or perspective."

Professor Bauknecht also hopes to use her position to continue the sense of community in the communications program, something that she finds to be unique to the Chatham experience—

"What makes Chatham so special is the one-on-one relationships that students get to develop with their professors and with one another. There is so much that is learned through the conversations that happen from these connections. Us as professors are not only here to teach a class but to be a support system for students throughout their college journey."

You can catch Professor Bauknecht at the weekly Communique pitch meetings held on Tuesdays from 11:30 a.m. to noon in the Art and Design Center. To learn more about Chatham's communication program and the multiple skills it fosters, go here.