8-28-2025 2:00pm

Washtenaw Community Collges Journalism professor David Waskin retires after 27 years

Ypsilanti PressLLC Editor

Photo by Alejandra Rengifo - Professor David Waskin

After around 27 years teaching at WCC, David Waskin will be retiring. Having spent much of his career as a professor, teaching composition and journalism, he plans to continue writing in his retirement. Photo courtesy of Alejandra Rengifo

Alice McGuire

Editor

David Waskin’s career as a composition/journalism instructor at WCC reached its end on August 15th. He began working at the college as a part time writer in what was then called the promotional services department around 1998 and once served as the adviser to The Washtenaw Voice.

Waskin was always interested in becoming a published author. When he was earning his undergraduate degree in education and English at the University of Michigan, in the hopes of becoming a teacher, he realized journalism was the way to make his dreams become reality.

He began his career writing for the South Lyon Herald and the Milford Times as a freelancer before going to graduate school for journalism at the University of Miami. That program connected him to a part-time position as a copy editor at The Miami Herald. When that position became full time upon graduation, he quickly realized it wasn’t what he wanted to do. “I wanted to write and I wanted to teach, and it just wasn’t the right fit for me at that particular point in time,” Waskin said. While still in Florida, he began teaching at a community college and ultimately found himself at WCC after relocating to Michigan.

Waskin’s former office mate and faculty member in the biology department, David Wooten, said what he will miss most is “my friend” and that “WCC lost an incredible faculty member.” The two were colleagues for about 19 years.

“It was worth it,” said Waskin, “it was a great place to work, and I was treated incredibly well.”

Wooten said the two often collaborated, with Waskin helping Wooten understand how to improve student writing and Wooten aiding Waskin’s writing by providing facts about such things as animals and “giant fungus.”

“He had this wonderful, blue mini couch in his office. And that couch, you know, you’d sit down and talk with him—it was like therapy sessions sometimes,” said Wooten, who added, “The couch lives on.”

“I’m looking forward to being able to give my full time and energy to other projects,” said Waskin, who went on to speak about how much he enjoys writing creative nonfiction and that he has had a number of writing plans lined up for some time now.

“I’ve always enjoyed Dave’s writing,” said Wooten. “I’m very excited to get that text one day that says, ‘Hey, I got another one. You gotta read this.’”

Waskin said what he loved most about journalism was “the variety of experience that I got out of it, the places I went, the people I met, the things that I did.” The best part of his time in education was, “interacting with students.”

To those interested in either career, Waskin recommended “sampling” both to get a feel for them before committing, adding, “both teaching and journalism are never more difficult or filled with challenges than they are at the beginning, when you’re just starting out.”

He did warn, however, not to be too quick to write off a potential career after one day of class.

“I don’t think that’s a good indicator because everybody is nervous and uncomfortable their first time interviewing someone. I certainly was,” said Waskin.

Waskin’s advice to student journalists in today’s world is to “try to find a way to include as much context for your stories as possible,” something which he believes necessitates a lot of reading, paying attention and self awareness. He recommended finding journalists who model that sort of work and suggested David Leonhardt as an example of the sort of context-rich journalism that he believes is needed today.

Wooten described Waskin as having always been a “level” and “measured” voice in the room, whose absence will be a loss to the student body.

“I just hope, if there’s room in the article, to note that no matter how highly I think of him as a friend and a colleague, I still do think that I’m a better chess player. I think that’s important to note,” Wooten said.