Sharon Bloyd-Peshkin, a Forest Park resident who lived in Oak Park for 28 years, was first drawn to journalism because she loved to tell stories that benefit people. After many years as a professor of journalism at Columbia College Chicago’s School of Communications and Culture, and before that as editor of Chicago Parent Magazine, she will begin a new position at the Solutions Journalism Network (SJN) next week, a full-circle moment for a journalist committed to her craft.
SJN, founded in 2013, is a nonprofit organization that advocates for solutions-based journalism, i.e. journalism that centers on resolving problems.
Bloyd-Peshkin has worked with SJN since 2019 when she attended an Educator Academy sponsored by the organization.
“I was smitten by [solutions journalism] because I realized this is the way to do rigorous reporting that centers responses to problems and doesn’t just focus on the problems themselves,” she said. In the classroom, she found that solutions journalism also helped her to engage and energize students who were discouraged by focusing on “bad news.”
Bloyd-Peshkin introduced solutions journalism to the Columbia College curriculum and also worked with SJN as a certified solutions journalism trainer of other journalists and newsrooms.
She began her journalism career writing for Vegetarian Times and then became managing editor at Chicago Parent (at the time owned by Wednesday Journal). She joined Columbia’s journalism program as an assistant professor in 2002. During her time at Columbia, Bloyd-Peshkin made an impact on the university community by introducing solutions journalism to the curriculum and also through her voter engagement advocacy.
In 2018, she realized that while 83% of Columbia students were registered to vote, only 56% had actually voted in the 2016 election. “I thought, OK the problem is not voter registration, which is what most colleges do,” she said. “The problem is voter engagement.”
In true solutions-based fashion, Bloyd-Peshkin started Columbia Votes. The initiative has seen great success; in 2020, the voting rate at Columbia was 72%.
Columbia Votes works to “educate and motivate students” to vote and checks in on students throughout the registration and voting process. This work was incorporated into the college’s first-year curriculum and became an important aspect of the university. She has also hired and trained students to work with her on the project.
“That’s just been a really joyful thing, both because it’s been effective but also because I get to work with these amazing students who really care about civic engagement,” she said.
As Bloyd-Peshkin prepares to leave Columbia, the college has yet to find a new leader for Columbia Votes. However, three student workers will be staying on during the transition, which will provide some continuity. She is working on an initiative playbook and said she hopes to see the project grow and evolve under new leadership.
“Sharon had a tremendous impact on Columbia as a college, and for journalism students in our school, thanks to her entrepreneurship with curriculum. She created Columbia Votes, mentored a bunch of college students through that program, and made some real social change, I believe,” said Betsy Edgerton, associate professor of journalism in the School of Communication and Culture at Columbia College. “She also brought this really encouraging genre of journalism called solutions journalism to our students. No one else had the expertise to do both those things at Columbia College.”
Bloyd-Peshkin said she loved “everything” about teaching at the college.
In her new position at SJN, she will continue her work in education. As Project Manager for Training and Curriculum, she will be responsible for leading the Educator Academy, overseeing SJN’s relationship with five university hubs, and leading the Student Media Challenge, among other duties.
In her free time, she is an avid kayaker and sometime kayak coach.
“It’s just been a wonderful way to be a little boat on big water and be out in natural areas that you can’t get to any other way,” she said.
Throughout her career, Bloyd-Peshkin has had a variety of roles and responsibilities.
“The thing that unifies them,” she said, “is probably just a desire to be useful and do good.”