James McCommons

Associate Professor
B.A., University of Pittsburgh
M.A., Syracuse's Newhouse School
M.A., SUNY, Syracuse
jmccommo@nmu.edu

Teaching Specialties

• Journalism
• Nature and Essay Writing

James McCommons joined the Northern faculty in 2001. For the past four years, he served as journalistic adviser to the student newspaper, The North Wind. He recently developed a new course in Feature/Magazine Writing and a Teachable Minor in Journalism for secondary education majors.

Professor McCommons attended the Art Institute of Boston as photography major and later earned his B.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1981. For the next several years, he was a reporter and photographer for newspapers in Rawlins and Casper, WY, Escanaba, MI and Rochester, NY. During this time, he freelanced for the Associated Press, United Press International, The Milwaukee Journal, The Detroit News, and several magazines. He later worked in corporate communications in Detroit, MI and edited Pro, the dealer magazine of the Chevrolet Motor Division. From 1990 to 1997, McCommons worked as a freelance and contract writer in Syracuse, N.Y., contributing to dozens of magazines and business publications.

In 1993, he earned an M.A. in magazine journalism at Syracuse's Newhouse School of Public Communications and an M.S. in environmental science at the College of Environmental Science and Forestry-SUNY in Syracuse. During the 1990s, McCommons taught news writing, essay writing, magazine writing/editing, and literature as an adjunct faculty member at Syracuse University in Syracuse, N.Y., and Muhlenberg College and DeSales University in Allentown, Pa.

In 1997, he joined Rodale Press in Emmaus, Pa. as a senior health writer and member of a writing team that produced several books for the Prevention and Men's Health brands. In 1999, he became a senior editor at Organic Gardening magazine and later a contributing editor.

McCommons continues to work as a freelance journalist, contributing regularly to the Family Matters section of Better Homes and Gardens and several other publications including Audubon, The Travel Section of the New York Times, Organic Gardening and Bicycling.