Our Alumni: Derek Norman

Two days after graduation, Derek began his career at The New York Times, where he has since fulfilled a wide array of professional duties. Working in the newsroom, Derek has helped consolidate national coverage of natural disasters and mass shootings; gathered voices from people on the street; fed writers scenes of colorful detail and anecdotes from across the city; and spent hours processing data for hard-hitting investigative pieces. Eventually, a few encouraging editors allowed him to start writing pieces of his own, and he was certainly understandably proud of his first New York Times byline.

The tenacity of practicing and balancing daily journalism, he says, was harnessed long before he entered the newsroom. Back when he was the managing news editor of The Kingsman, the campus newspaper, Derek and a team of "hungry reporters, intrepid investigators, and veracious writers" covered everything from the challenges facing undocumented immigrant students to the lack of Muslim prayer spaces to university-wide threats against free speech.

"The beauty of practicing journalism at a place like Brooklyn College is that all facets of campus life allow you to explore and experience a community that reflects far beyond the academic realm," Derek said. "I've met with students from all walks of life, sat in administrative offices on all levels, and learned the campus grounds from the tunnels below the quads to the highest, dusty reaches of our iconic clock tower."

"Much of what we were covering on campus," he added, "were the same topics and issues that we saw being covered nationally. The key to our growth was having professors and advisers who knew what kind of knowledge and experience truly mattered in this field. We looked up to our professors because they had done this work themselves. And we heeded their advice because it came from solid experience."

Derek Norman sought to take the skills he learned on campus to his travels abroad. For example, in June 2016, he worked on an independent study assignment with Associate Professor Ron Howell, a veteran foreign correspondent, and traveled to Havana with a colleague to report on the cultural effects of the lack of Internet accessibility. The following month, he used a Furman scholarship to study abroad with Professor Lynda Day, chair of the Africana Studies Department, for three weeks in Ghana. There he met new people and immersed himself in often surprising events, such as the huge community gathering known as a Ghanaian funeral.

Preparing to take the plunge into Kumasi Central Market, Kumasi, Ghana.

"Studying pan-Africanism in Ghana was by far one of the most rewarding experiences of my life," Derek recalled. "It hooked me on the idea that you need to experience something yourself to truly understand it. And I carry that wisdom with me still, professionally, for each story I work on." As an avid street photographer, Derek has since travelled to more than a dozen countries across Central and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. He hopes his career will lead to international conflict reporting.

"Though it's been a few years, sometimes I'll smell a blend of coal-oven smoke and earthy dust in the air that takes me back to that first trip to Africa," he said. "And I become overwhelmed thinking about all the wonderful experiences that came out of Brooklyn College and how they shaped me. And in that nostalgia, I'm reminded that all that momentum is still being carried with me today and guiding me toward tomorrow."