Faculty

Candace Perkins Bowen, MJE, is a professor in Kent State University’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication, where she serves as director of the Center for Scholastic Journalism and of the Ohio Scholastic Media Association.She and three colleagues, including husband John, developed the online master’s degree program for journalism educators, the only one of its kind in the country. Before coming to Kent State in 1995, she taught high school journalism and English in St. Charles, Illinois, and Fairfax Country, Virginia, and advised student newspapers and yearbooks. Bowen has been president of the Journalism Education Association and continues to serve on its Scholastic Press Rights and Certification committees. She was the Dow Jones News Fund High School Journalism Teacher of the Year, earned a Gold Key from Columbia Scholastic Press Association and the Carl Towley Award from JEA.

John Bowen, MJE, is an adjunct professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Kent State University where he teaches Writing Across Platforms, Storytelling across Platforms, Media Information Gathering and Media Ethics. In the online master’s program for journalism educators, he teaches grad students courses in ethics for media advisers and social role and responsibility of the media. Bowen taught high school journalism and social studies for 33 years and summer workshops around the country, often specializing in legal and ethical issues. He was JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Commission chair from 1983 – 2017. He earned state and national awards; the ones he is most proud of involve student success. He enjoys photography, fantasy and real baseball, science fiction and futuristics.

Mark Goodman joined Kent State’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication in January 2008 as the first Knight Chair in Scholastic Journalism.   Before that he served over 22 years as executive director of the Student Press Law Center, a national organization that serves as a legal advocate for and educator of student journalists. Goodman has a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri–Columbia and a law degree from Duke University. He has taught at a number of institutions including the Poynter Institute, the American University in Washington, D.C., Bowling Green State University and Virginia Commonwealth University.  Goodman has received over two dozen national awards for his work in support of student journalism including First Amendment awards from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the Society of Professional Journalists, the Intellectual Freedom Award from the National Council of Teachers of English, the Gerald M. Sass Award for Distinguished Service to Journalism and Mass Communication from the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication as well as other awards from the Columbia University Scholastic Press Association the Journalism Education Association, the National Scholastic Press Association and the College Media Association.

Susan Kirkman Zake is an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Kent State University, where she is the faculty adviser to the school’s award-winning student newsroom and teaches culminating experience classes that produce in-depth digital journalism projects. Before joining the faculty at Kent in 2008, Zake was the managing editor for multimedia and special projects at the Akron Beacon Journal, where she began work as a staff photographer in 1986. Over a 20-year career, she worked as an assignment editor, picture editor, graphics editor, assistant metro editor and assistant managing editor. The recipient of numerous awards for her photojournalist images, the photography, graphics and design staffs under her supervision were recognized locally, nationally and internationally for the quality of their work. Zake also shares in three Pulitzer Prize team awards; for coverage of the attempted takeover of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.; for A Question of Color, which examined local attitudes toward race; and for coverage of Hurricane Katrina as part of a Knight Ridder editing team working for the Biloxi Sun Herald. In 2017, she was recognized as a Tow-Knight Disruptive Journalism Educator.