With the addition of a new faculty advisor, rumors may fly of the adventures they’ve been upon and the trouble they’ve gotten into before their time at The Southwestern, and with the addition of Matthew Dorr to our Southwestern family, we wanted to tell you a little about him.
Dorr started his education journey in Tulsa, graduating, and moving on to Tulsa Community College and Northeastern State University, where he earned his bachelor’s in Multimedia Journalism. His higher collegiate career began at his alma mater Northeastern, earning his master’s in Comm Studies and continuing with a PhD in Media Process and Audiences from Bowling Greens State University. That led him to Southwestern Oklahoma State, teaching creative media and visual arts, however, his love of journalism comes from much humbler roots.
“I think being a storyteller is an interesting thing to do, not only being a storyteller, but kind of having the responsibility of keeping Americans civically engaged and giving them truthful reporting,” Dorr said. “I like the idea of investigative journalism but I was always more of a participant in writing about arts and entertainment.”
Besides Journalism, Dorr spends his time playing Disc Golf. Introduced by his dad in 2017, he hasn’t looked back.
“My dad, he had played, like, back in the 80s a couple of times, but he kind of discovered it again on YouTube one day, and was just like, ‘Hey, Matthew, let’s like, try this,’ and we went and bought a couple starter sets, and it was so much fun,” Dorr said. “We played the course three times in a row before we went home… I just became addicted to it.”
Dorr Balances his time between Disc Golf, fishing, hiking, camping, playing the bass, singing, playing RuneScape, teaching, and advising and he feels it important for students and faculty to find that balance as well.
“We can’t be academically engaged 24 hours a day, or else we would go crazy; same thing for faculty,” said Dorr. “I think college is where both students and professors have to learn, like really learn work-life balance. You should have some sort of hobby outside of, like, doing your homework and studying, not that those are not important things. Go out and fish, go out and, like, play, shoot hoops, do something that’s good for your body and your mind and your spirit, and don’t just sit in your dorm room like 24 hours a day.”
As a first-year faculty advisor at The Southwestern, Dorr was thrilled to join the organization and pass on his knowledge.
“Steven Doughty invited me to serve in an advisor role and I thought it was really awesome,” said Dorr. “My favorite class when I was an undergrad was the newspaper class, so it’s exciting to see what undergrads are doing here. It’s really fun having students come to me with questions about what they’re doing, and for me to be able to pass on some of my expertise when it comes to journalism.”
Dorr serves as an advisor and plans to go above and beyond. Writing, editing, teaching, photography, and videography, Dr Dorr truly does it all, and hopes to pass on his knowledge as best he can.
“My overall goal is just to be a supportive advisor,” Dorr said. “Just help our staff members create the most engaging content that they can, whether that’s through photography, videography, written text, just being a good advisor, giving good advice, and hopefully helping these students grow in their ability to be a good journalist.”
