UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A Penn State faculty member and veteran journalist has been named as a one of a handful of project leads for three projects designed to advance public understanding of global religions through a nationwide effort driven by the American Council of Learned Societies and funded by the Henry Luce Foundation.
Shaheen Pasha, an assistant teaching professor of journalism in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications, was named as one of the leads for a project titled “Decolonizing the Representation of Muslim Women in the Media: Training Next Generation Journalists.” The project assembles experts on women and Islamic cultures and journalists for a yearlong seminar to train early career journalists in the diverse histories of women and Islamic cultures.
“These innovative projects demonstrate just how integral the humanities, and in particular the study of religion, are to understanding our complex world,” said Joy Connolly, president of ACLS. “We are thrilled to work with the Henry Luce Foundation to support these dynamic inter-institutional and cross-sector collaborations that offer diverse models for advancing public knowledge.”
Pasha teaches journalism and focuses on mass incarceration and prison education at Penn State. She is the co-founder and co-executive director of the Prison Journalism Project, an educational and publishing initiative that trains incarcerated writers to be journalists. Before joining the University, she was an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she launched a successful, immersive explanatory journalism course at the Hampshire County Jail, bringing together incarcerated students and journalism students at UMass. Pasha was awarded the Knight Nieman Visiting Fellowship at Harvard University to expand her work, teaching journalism behind bars. She also is the recipient of a Fulbright Specialist designation to advise on journalism curriculum internationally.
Pasha is a veteran journalist with 20 years of experience in the field. She worked as an international correspondent, covering legal issues and Islamic finance for Thomson Reuters in Dubai. She also was a staff writer for CNNMoney in New York, where she covered legal issues, the Enron trial and the Supreme Court. She started her career at Dow Jones Newswires where she had a daily column in the Wall Street Journal and appeared as a daily correspondent for CNBC Asia, covering international stock action.
Her freelance work has appeared in Nieman Reports, New England Public Radio, Dallas Morning News, Narratively and USA Today, among other publications. She is the co-editor of the anthology “Mirror on the Veil: A Collection of Personal Essays on Hijab and Veiling” (CCCP Press). Her essay on women’s anger was featured in the anthology “Burn it Down” (Seal Press).
Other leads on the project include: Nurhaizatul Jamil (Harvard University), Suad Joseph (University of California, Davis), Elora Shehabuddin (Rice University) and Zeina Zataari (University of Illinois at Chicago)
Henry Luce was the founder of Time, Life, Fortune and Sports Illustrated magazines. Counting his radio projects and newsreels, Luce created the first multimedia corporation.