Cowling blog

Mike Cowling is an associate professor in the Department of Journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. During his ten year tenure at UW-Oshkosh, Cowling has taught a variety of courses including news writing, reporting, feature writing as well as media ethics and editing, two courses that he currently teaches. Prior to taking a full-time teaching job at UW-Oshkosh, Cowling taught part-time at California State University-Fullerton and Cal Poly-Pomona. Cowling’s assistance to aspiring journalists does not stop at the college level, currently he is executive secretary of the Northeastern Wisconsin Scholastic Press Association, an organization for high school journalism students.

Cowling’s love for journalism has propelled him into the forefront of his profession. "It is the little things in life you do that are important and I am lucky to have found something I enjoy and love to do," Cowling said during his hall of fame induction speech at Eastern. Along with fulfilling his teaching duties at UW-Oshkosh, Cowling has spent the last 5 years as an editor for The New York Times Web site. Throughout his career Cowling has held the position of news editor at The Los Angeles Time as well as copy editor at The Chicago Sun-Times. He also also held workshops on editing, written a chapter for an editing textbook and had many free lance articles published throughout the United States.

Cowling, a 1975 graduate of the Eastern Illinois University was inducted into Eastern’s Journalism Alumni Hall of Fame in 2004. Prior to graduating from Eastern with a degree in journalism and history, Cowling was editor of the schools’ newspaper The Eastern News as well as sports editor of The Warbler. Both of these positions proved to be a positive stepping stone for Cowling, something that he feels is crucial to the department and its students. As a result Cowling has stayed in contact with the department. "I have stayed in touch with The Eastern News because I feel it is the heart of the program, the glue that holds the journalism department together," he said.