PBS Journalist Alexander Heffner Named Fitzwater Fellow in Residence
May 4, 2015
The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communication at Franklin Pierce University is pleased
to announce that PBS’s Alexander Heffner, host of The Open Mind, will be in residence
as a Fitzwater Fellow during the Fall 2015 semester through the 2016 New Hampshire
Primary.
“The Fitzwater Center strives to help our students find their voices in the public
discourse. Alexander, an extraordinary young journalist and civic educator, will
draw on his significant experience to help us realize this mission, engaging his own
generation--the Millennials--in the people and issues of the 2016 Presidential Election,”
said Dr. Kristen Nevious, director of the Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communication.
Despite his young age, this is Heffner’s third time covering the road to the White
House as a member of the press corps. While still a student at Phillips Academy Andover
and later at Harvard, he founded and edited SCOOP08 and SCOOP44, the first online
national student newspaper, to cover the 2008 campaign and the first years of the
Obama administration.
During the 2012 campaign, he chronicled the Millennial vote as a correspondent for
PBS’s Need to Know. A year later, Heffner took over the helm of The Open Mind, the
longest running public broadcast, after the death of his grandfather, Richard D. Heffner,
who had hosted its “quiet and thoughtful excursion into the world of ideas” for a
half-century.
And now, he will cover the 2016 presidential election while embedded in the Granite
State, home of the first-in-the-nation presidential primary, at a university that
has sent teams of young student journalists to cover the road to the White House in
the last two presidential election cycles.
“I thank the Fitzwater Center at Franklin Pierce University for this honor,” said
Heffner. “I am delighted to join the Franklin Pierce community for an exciting primary
season ahead, and look forward to working with students to advance the civil discourse
that our democracy demands."
“Attacting an accomplished journalist like Alexander Heffner to the Fitzwater Center
will be a great benefit to our campus,” said Dean of Undergraduate Studies Dr. Kerry
McKeever. “Alexander knows politics and he knows how to relate to students.”
While in residence at Franklin Pierce’s Rindge campus, Heffner will work with the
student media and various majors across campus—including Social Media and Emergent
Technologies, Political Science, Mass Communication, and the Honors Program.
“I look forward to welcoming his perspectives to my Honors Freshman Year Inquiry class,
VOTE, in which the students will be exploring the issues important to their generation
in the context of the presidential race,” said Nevious.
From Heffner’s perspective, the 2016 election contains a significant historical shift
that could greatly influence the outcome. ”This election cycle Millennials will surpass
Baby Boomers as the largest living generation,” said Heffner. “They are poised to
become the decisive electoral demographic. With New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation
primary, there is an unprecedented opportunity for young people to engage with the
ideas of this campaign.”
Heffner’s byline has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The
Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Newsday and RealClearPolitics, among other
print and digital publications. He has been interviewed about politics, education
and stories in the news by C-SPAN, CNN, and the BBC.
He has given talks and moderated panels at major universities and colleges, including
the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Drake University, the College
of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the School
of Politics and Economics at Claremont Graduate University, the Harris School of Public
Policy at the University of Chicago, and the Graduate School of Political Management
at George Washington University.
Mr. Heffner’s fellowship is made possible by the Stan and Cheri Fry Fund.
