Brett Kurland

Brett Kurland is an assistant dean and a professor of practice at ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication. 

As assistant dean, Kurland oversees the school’s 11 capstone professional immersion programs, Cronkite’s signature faculty-led, student-powered experiences in which students learn by doing. These hands-on experiences include daily news and sports operations, a strategic communications agency, a content creation studio, and an innovation and entrepreneurship lab. Kurland also leads training and onboarding for faculty associates, helping them learn everything from school policies to best practices in teaching.

He also helps lead the Cronkite School’s bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in sports journalism, including oversight and management of sports journalism curriculum, course design, hiring, training, and supervising faculty, and managing student award submissions.

Kurland is the lead instructor for MCO 502 Multimedia Journalism Skills, a foundational, intensive first-semester class for all Cronkite graduate students pursuing master’s degrees in mass communication, master’s degrees in investigative journalism and master’s degrees in sports journalism in which students learn how to write, capture and produce photo, video, audio, social, and web content.

Kurland has served as a Barrett, The Honors College, Faculty Honors Advisor and Faculty Thesis Director, mentoring Cronkite students in their honors thesis projects.

Kurland develops and leads summer sports journalism study abroad programs. In 2018, he was the director of Cronkite Scotland: Golf & the British Open, conceptualizing, organizing, and co-leading a two-week program in Scotland in which students reported on the role of golf in Scottish culture as well as providing coverage of The Open Championship. In 2016, he led the school’s Covering the Rio Olympics study abroad program, in which students spent three weeks in Rio producing content about the Olympics for professional media outlets including KPNX-TV, Pac-12 Networks, Arizona PBS, and the Arizona Republic. In 2021, Kurland pivoted the school’s Olympic reporting program to a virtual experience as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, cultivating a partnership with the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee in which students reported on the Tokyo Summer Olympics remotely, producing content for TeamUSA.org and university websites across the country as part of the USOPC’s “Olympians Made Here” campaign.

In 2021, Kurland earned his Certificate in Effective Instruction from the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE). This year-long, 25-module, online course fosters teaching excellence to enhance student success, requiring the implementation of evidence-based instructional approaches. Topics included creating inclusive and supportive learning environments, designing student-centered courses, promoting active learning, and inspiring inquiry and preparing lifelong learners. The credential is co-issued by the American Council on Education.

Kurland completed ASU’s Peer Leadership Academy in 2020, a year-long selective leadership development program with peers from across the university, as part of its seventh cohort.

He joined the Cronkite School in 2014 as the founding director of the Phoenix Sports Bureau of Cronkite News. In the sports bureau, Kurland led upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in award-winning multiplatform coverage of professional, collegiate, and high school sports across Arizona for professional media outlets including The Arizona Republic, Arizona PBS, Fox Sports, Pac-12 Networks and ArizonaSports.com. Kurland also mentored students in reporting on MLB spring training and producing digital, photo and video content for Sports Illustrated, Baseball America, MLB.com, Denver Post, Kansas City Star, San Diego Union Tribune, The Arizona Republic and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Kurland’s sports bureau students also covered the Super Bowl, College Football Playoff National Championship game, the NCAA men's basketball Final Four, the Fiesta Bowl, and the Waste Management Phoenix Open. 

Prior to joining the Cronkite School, Kurland was an Emmy Award-­winning sports producer & multimedia entrepreneur with more than 16 years of experience producing content across a variety of platforms, ranging from mobile phones to broadcast television networks.  

Kurland’s work included documentaries, features, live events & studio shows for networks, including ESPN, CBS, FOX, NBC, ABC, NFL Network, Big Ten Network, FOX Sports Net & NHL Network. He also helped lead the development of the first‐ever made-for-mobile original sports video content for Sprint in 2006. 

Kurland originally joined the Cronkite School as a faculty associate in 2012. As a faculty associate, he taught the school’s sports writing class as well as co‐leading Cronkite’s Multimedia Sports Reporting: Covering Spring Training class.  He co-created, supervised and taught the Covering the Super Bowl class, in which students reported and produced multimedia stories on the issues and events leading up to Super Bowl XLIX for Sports Illustrated,  NFL.com, Fox Sports Arizona & The Arizona Republic. 

Kurland holds a bachelor of science degree from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. At Medill, Kurland was sports director of both the campus radio station (WNUR-­FM) and the campus television news program (Northwestern News Network). At Kellogg, he majored in media management, entrepreneurship & innovation, and marketing.  While at Kellogg, he won the Lee M. Hague Memorial Award, a grant for research into emerging facets of media.

Kurland has won a National Sports Emmy Award, four Telly Awards and a W3 Award, as well as receiving Webby Award and Emmy Award nominations.