Professor Donna Bertazzoni
By Elmer Diaz//
In the winter of 1987, Donna Bertazzoni, at the time an editor at the Herald Mail in Hagerstown, bumped into her former coworker, Al Weinberg. While catching up, he told her he was preparing to return from his five-week Christmas break as a professor at Hood College, to which she jokingly replied, “Well, are there going to be any jobs there anytime soon?” A few months after that conversation her question was answered. On August 1st her journey as a professor began.
Bertazzoni has been a professor, mentor, advisor, and a role model to her students for 30 years. Although her professionalism has consistently been on display for three decades, it is undeniable that her influence was garnered long before she wore the title as a professor.
“I worked at daily newspapers in both Massachusetts and Maryland for 14 years. My jobs ranged from sports reporter to copy editor to lifestyle editor to Sunday editor,” she said.
Out of all her positions, her favorite newsroom job was being a city editor and assistant managing editor at The Daily Mail in Hagerstown. It is due to her vast experiences in journalism that she has been able to provide her students with such skills.
“I worked directly with reporters, assigning and editing their stories, laying out pages, selecting photographs and writing headlines,” she said while relating her experiences to her teaching material.
The courses that Bertazzoni has taught have been: Editing and Layout, Media History, Communications Law, Television in America and the Seminar in Media Issues. Although she has been resourceful to her students and advisees, her students recognize that she has many times exceeded the average expectations of a professor.
“She has been like a mom away from home,” says Communication Arts student, Brandon Green. “She recommended me for my internship at WHAG and at my summer job Suburban Video.”
After 30 years of engaging and interacting with what Hood College has provided and her proactive participation in Communication Arts, Bertazzoni has decided to end her journey as a professor and continue her life journey to accompany her husband as a retiree.
“Bittersweet, truly bittersweet,” she said describing her retirement. “I will miss interacting with students and colleagues. I will not miss grading papers,” she said.