By Andy Gutierrez
Murphy News Service

Thousands of students have graduated from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, but for former students such as Sarah Bauer, Murphy Hall was a lot more than a building; it was the beginning of a life of journalism.

Bauer now works as program director for the Minnesota Newspaper Association.

Born in Austin, Minn., and raised in Hastings, Sarah Bauer has two younger sisters, Julia and Anna.

From the beginning, her parents, Polly and Glenn Bauer, encouraged all of their daughters to follow their dreams despite whatever obstacles they might face.

“Even though Dad had never gone to college and my mom was a teacher, they told me I could do whatever I wanted,” Bauer said. “My parents were strangely calm, always very supportive and encouraged me to do well.”

That is the motto Bauer followed through her upbringing as she wrote for the student newspaper at Hastings High School and won the best story in the issue award for piece she wrote about the school wrestling coach.

“She was a valedictorian in high school, she did honors, AP and it was absolutely something that influenced my sister and I,” said her youngest sister Julia Bauer, a 21-year-old senior at the U studying child psychology and gender, women and sexuality studies. “She’s positive, motivated, she knows what she wants and knows what looks good and is good.”

But it wasn’t after her introductory journalism 1001 class at Murphy Hall that Bauer finally realized that journalism would play some kind of role in her life.

“That journalism class was completely different than what I intended it to be,” Bauer said.

It was there that Bauer first heard of the Society of Professional Journalists, a nationally accredited campus organization that has state and national chapters devoted to journalism ethics.

“I did have an interest in ethics and journalism, so I knew I would be interested and at that point I was really hooked,” Bauer said. “I like to run the show, I do, I won’t be shy about it, so I saw it as an opportunity to get involved beyond the classes I was taking.”

So Bauer did just that. She traveled to New York and Las Vegas for the national SPJ convention and held offices as a secretary and ultimately the president of the U chapter.

“With SPJ I learned a lot that I never learned about in a classroom,” Bauer said. “I’m not so much using the skills I learned in pop-culture, but I’m very much using the skills I learned in SPJ.”

Jane Kirtley, the Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law at SJMC, had high praise for Bauer.

“I’m proud of all of my students, but I think Sarah is an exceptional person,” Kirtley said. “I have worked with many students in many different capacities, but Sarah’s unique drive and initiative made it really rewarding for me to work with her.”

As her honors thesis advisor and professor, Kirtley saw Bauer’s passion for media ethics as she quickly engaged in the professional media community on issues such as freedom of the press and information.

“Often times, people need to get knocked around for a while before they realize that these are actually critical issues,” Kirtley said. “Sarah got that right from the beginning.”

Bauer remained interested in ethics and law, but she found herself facing the realization that her life would take a different path.

“My struggle was figuring out what I was going to do, and how I was going to do it, “ Bauer said. “ I did not have a full-time job the day I graduated and so my first year out of college I thought ‘that’s not how it’s supposed to go.’”

Yet she landed a big opportunity when she got an internship as an undergrad at the Minnesota News Council, a former nonprofit organization in Minneapolis that would try to resolve complaints about news coverage.

“I got a call from my friends back at the News Council and they told me that Gary Gilson was retiring and that I was the last staff member to work there who knew how things went so they said, ‘do you want to be our interim director?’” Bauer said. “So at 22 years old or something like that, I was an interim director.”

Kirtley, who had a few concerns about the council and different views on how it should operate, saw it as a great opportunity for Bauer to grow.

“I was a little bit anxious, not because I thought she was incapable of doing the work, but because I had concerns about the news council,” Kirtley said. “ I really thought it was good that Sarah wanted to move it forward in a slightly different way focusing more on public education, for example, than on punitive measures.”

But with the changing economic tides of journalism, the Minnesota News Council disbanded in 2011.

“I’m a real believer that nonprofit organizations like that have to evolve, they can’t stand still,” Kirtley said. “ Sadly the Minnesota News Council went out of business anyway, but I think had Sarah not moved it forward, it probably would’ve ended up going out of business sooner than it did.”

Now as the program director at MNA, Bauer continues to do ethics in journalism work with expanded responsibilities in event coordination and website management among the myriad of things she oversees.

Lisa Hills, the executive director of MNA, said she has enjoyed watching Bauer’s transition from when she first started to where she is now.

“I think coming in she was more aware of metro newspapers, but quickly realized the strength of community memberships,” Hills said. “She understands our newspapers and understands the different needs they require.

Since her undergrad involvement in SPJ, Bauer has held multiple positions in the professional chapter in Minnesota, including president and has worked cooperatively with Kirtley in many functions outside of the U.

“We still keep up and keep in touch and have gone through a number of interesting issues over the years,” Kirtley said. “ I’m always struck by her level-headedness, her maturity and the fact that she has a great sense of right and wrong.”

For Bauer, her experiences with SPJ early on have made her a better leader and organizer.

“I plan conventions for like 750 people every year now, so the little SPJ meeting was actually a really good training for some of the skills that I still use today,” Bauer said. “SPJ taught me a lot about journalism but it also taught me a whole slew of other skills that I use.”

Reporter Andy Gutierrez is a studying journalism at the University of Minnesota.