The MFJS Reporter — Winter 2020 M-W

Dr. Liberman is a teaching assistant professor in the Media, Film, and Journalism studies department, or MFJS at the University of Denver. Unlike tenure-track research professors, teaching professors typically focus more on students’ learning experience than research of their own.

Professions in academia vary, but the general job description is somewhat similar across the board. A university professor typically teaches classes on a variety of subjects as well as doing their own research in their area of interest, although the balance between research and teaching varies based on the position. Most professors hold a PhD in their field and have significant research experience.

While higher education is obviously a requirement, the salaries for these individuals don’t always match up with the strict educational requirements. The average base salary is only $58,195 per year, which seems at odds with the years of education required. However, this base tends to go up based on things like how long a professor is with a university, their title and what they do.

At the University of Denver, there are two main tracks for professors: there’s a tenure-track, which is heavily research-based, and there’s a teaching track, which Dr. Liberman says was introduced a few years ago. Liberman didn’t originally think she’d end up on this teaching track, but it was where her career took her.

“I like to think of it as my activism, I feel that the way I can connect with students and talk to them about certain concepts in the class is the way that I can think about my activism in general,” she says.

In addition, Liberman holds a position as Undergraduate Director, a service position that last 3 years. Now in her second year in the position, Liberman’s job is to advise students on their interests in the department, majors and minors, and to think about the undergraduate curriculum.

“I do like advising, I think it deepens the connection between the student and the department. So if I be warm, attentive, empathetic, students feel like this can be a home” she says. 

Though she is a teaching professor, Liberman does do research of her own. Currently she’s working on studying porn literacy. Studying pornography may seem odd to some, but Liberman says it can be a window to all kinds of issues around not only gender and sexuality, but race, ethnicity and much more. She has been focusing on gender and sexuality issues in media culture since she wrote her dissertation on feminist porn.

“I have found that the space of pornography is a really rich area to think about the intersections of gender, race, class, identity in general, and, kind of, the commercialization and commodification of bodies,” said Liberman.

The path that led Dr. Liberman here was winding. She didn’t initially plan to be a professor at all. She began majoring in journalism at Marquette University, another smaller private university. She studied abroad at Oxford, where she had the privilege of interviewing the drummer from Radio Head.

“It was funny because he walked in and I had just taken a bite of this baguette, and I had my mouth full,” laughed Liberman.

Her experience in college and abroad led her to rock journalism, which at the time, meant reporting on all genres of music.

She started out with her BA in journalism and began writing for the Naperville Sun. She did entry-level work writing pieces about crime and neighborhood news. Then, things began to change.

She was offered an opportunity to break into the journalism industry in a big way by Greg Kot, music journalist and current host of the podcast, Sound Opinions. He offered Liberman the chance to shadow him, to show her the ropes of music journalism at the Chicago Tribune.

“And I decided to go to grad school instead,” said Liberman.

This was a watershed moment for Professor Liberman. She talked about how hard it can be to break into the journalism industry, how absolutely life-changing that opportunity could have been, but she was passionate about going back to analyze media.

“I kept yelling at the TV screen, saying ‘that’s sexist’ or ‘that’s racist’ or ‘what is going on with advertising’ and everyone was like ‘I don’t want to hear it, go to grad school, do something with this passion you have,’” she remembers.

So she did. She got her masters from the New School for Media Studies and started working with a team from NYU on pornography research. From there, she got her PhD from CU Boulder, and began a life anew in scholarship.

That life can be difficult for a woman, especially a woman studying porn. Dr. Liberman admits that gets a lot of questions about her field of study.

“I get a lot of, anecdotal, ‘I watch this type of porn, what does that mean about me?’ types of questions,’” she said.

Talking about her research sometimes means that she gets sexualized herself, and she wasn’t always taken seriously by those around her.

“I research porn, I don’t watch it,” she says.