Spring Break
Leaving a legacy
After 40 years on campus, professor to retire with prestigious awards
Brandon Wolfe
Issue date: 5/16/07 Section: Features
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Citing an increasing decline in energy, as well as the desire to spend more time with his grandchildren and to travel more, he feels that the time is right to leave the stage and has begun to look toward the future.
"At some point, you have to say you're not in your 40s anymore," Dorman said. "When you turn 60, you realize that if you're going to have another chapter in your life, you'd better get started on the outline."
Dorman began teaching in the Journalism Department in 1967. During the 1980s, in addition to his journalism courses, he was asked to teach a course in foreign policy due to his expertise on the subject. When the Journalism Department was absorbed into the Communication Studies Department in 1996, he was asked to officially join the Government Department, though he continued to teach classes in journalism. Dorman considers himself both a government and journalism professor.
It's easy to see why Dorman has been able to devote so much of his life to the studies of foreign policy and mass media. At the drop of a hat, he will effortlessly and enthusiastically launch into elaborate discussions of such issues as the unreliability of the U.S. media and the dangers of militarism. He clearly relishes the opportunity to inform and share his opinions with others in the most friendly and engaging manner possible.
Dorman has created several courses that have become a part of the Sac State curriculum, including his personal favorite, War, Peace and Mass Media. This level of independence has especially endeared the school to Dorman.
"They've given me a kind of freedom that most other universities never would have. Except for the foreign policy class, every other course I teach and have taught for the last 30 years, I've invented," Dorman said.
He has received several awards, and is the only faculty member to have been twice named to deliver the John C. Livingston Annual Faculty Lecture, in 1995 and 2006. In 2002, he became the only Sac State professor to be awarded the Wang Family Excellence Award, the most prestigious honor given by the California State University system.
Dorman has also made a name for himself outside of Sac State. He has obtained a national reputation as one of the few academics working in the field of mass media and its relationship to American defense and foreign policy. He has written about foreign affairs and press performance in such publications as the "Columbia Journalism Review" and the "World Policy Journal."
He co-authored the book "U.S. Press and Iran" with Mansour Farhang. He was also a member of the 1990-91 Social Science Research Council's panel on the Press and Foreign Policy, which produced one of the most highly regarded studies of the Gulf War.
He has been invited to lecture all over the world, at such universities as Stanford and Princeton, as well as abroad in Istanbul, Singapore and Rome. He has given presentations for the British Broadcasting Corp., National Public Radio and PBS.
However, teaching students was always Dorman's greatest source of satisfaction. After a brief, unfulfilling stint in public relations, he embraced an opportunity to teach temporarily at Sac State in the fall of 1966. At the end of his very first lecture, Dorman knew that he had found his calling.
"I walked out of the door saying: 'This is what I want to do for the rest of my life,' " Dorman said. "I mean, talk about a religious experience."
Around Christmas 1966, he was offered a permanent position as a member of the faculty, where he remained for 40 years. Dorman said he intends to continue writing and lecturing.
Students like senior Ryan Sharpe, who is in Dorman's War, Peace and Mass Media class, will miss him.
"He's really intense, really funny, really knowledgeable," Sharpe said. He also praised Dorman's penchant for building upon student comments in a class discussion. "He'll take a student's idea and run with it."
Senior Michelle Rogers agreed.
"He loves student input," Rogers said. "He's very passionate about the subject, and he wants the students to be passionate about it, too. He's one of the best teachers I've ever had."
Dorman regards his students highly, and looks to them as the hope for change in the future.
"What I do is throw little pebbles in a pond and hope for some ripples," Dorman said. "It's not my responsibility to save the world. My responsibility is to do the most effective job I can in terms of accumulating evidence, making a reasoned a case to my students."
"Each generation has to meet its own challenges, and I've got an extraordinary amount of faith in my students," he said.
As Dorman approaches his final week as a professor - which he said fills him with a strong sense of unease - he fondly recalled his time at Sac State.
"I genuinely have extraordinary respect and regard for this place," Dorman said. "The most extraordinary thing that's happened to me is that I was able to make a living and a life doing this. And most people don't get that lucky."
Brandon Wolfe can be reached at features@statehornet.com
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