When Bruce dePyssler arrived at North Carolina Central University (NCCU) in 1999, the Campus Echo newspaper faced a number of challenges.
“It was really a shambles,” said dePyssler. “There was nothing. The photographer was whoever had a camera (the Campus Echo didn’t own any). There was one computer and a table that had a big bow in it. We had to do a new design. The first couple of students, I said ‘find some staff members.’”
dePyssler got busy. He began pressuring the university to raise the newspaper’s budget. He and students increased advertising revenue. He spent weekends in the newsroom, where he had his own office for easy student accessibility. Importantly, he let the editors decide what should go into the newspaper.
“I’ll never tell a student that you can’t write that,” dePyssler said. “If I am making editorial decisions, that increases the liability of the university."
Before NCCU
The son of an Air Force officer who retired as a colonel, dePyssler grew up all over the world: California, the Philippines, Washington DC, North Dakota, Puerto Rico, and Nebraska.
He was the first in his family to complete college, earning a double bachelor’s degree in history and philosophy, a master’s in communication and development and a doctorate in cultural anthropology at the University of Texas-Austin.
dePyssler has held numerous jobs before, during, and after college. He’s watered and mowed greens at a golf course; driven an ice cream truck; been a dormitory janitor; waited tables, managed restaurants; worked the ropes on a tourist barge on the Burgundy Canal in France; (“A girlfriend got me over there,” he said); and worked in the production room at Indy Week.
As an instructor he’s held adjunct and assistant professor positions in communications, sociology and anthropology at Huston-Tillotson University, a HBCU in Austin, at Bowling Green State University, at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio. It was at the Incarnate Word he got his first taste of advising a student newspaper.
“I figured it couldn’t be that hard,” he said, laughing. “That’s where I learned what a lede (opening sentences to a news story) was and all that. We turned that thing around and won awards from the regional Society of Professional Journalists. One of the Logos reporters is now an investigative reporter at the Houston Chronicle.”
Interestingly, it was the newspaper’s success the led to dePyssler’s exit. Its switch from covering trivia to writing real news didn’t go down well with higher-ups in the university, dePyssler said
“We agreed when I was hired that I wasn’t going to censor stories,” dePyssler said. “When students wrote stories questioning the improper behavior of a faculty member, they decided I wasn’t a team player.”
His contract was not renewed. But when the Student Press Law Center jumped to his defense, the university instead agreed to a settlement.
Just then an UNC colleague forwarded an email to him: NCCU was seeking a Campus Echo advisor. dePyssler jumped at the opportunity.
Like the Real World
At NCCU, dePyssler has taught courses in media and society, photojournalism, media practicum, desktop publishing, documentary creation, advanced reporting and investigative reporting. What takes most of his time, however, is advising the Campus Echo.
“It’s like the real world,” dePyssler said. “How are you going to make this story work? I like the contact with the students. I like seeing the end product. While I am unhappy the newspaper industry has gone the way it has gone, I make sure students consider other career opportunities. After this program, they can write and think critically and get to the bottom of things.”
Over the years, the Campus Echo has reported on a variety of challenging stories. Perhaps most difficult was the 2007 murder of Denita Smith, a Campus Echo staff photographer.
“That was so difficult,” dePyssler said. “I spoke at her funeral and then we covered the trial.”
Over dePyssler’s 26 years, the Campus Echo has won close to 300 journalism awards from state, regional and national journalism organizations.
Students, he says, have changed. Note taking by hand has virtually disappeared. Students are hard-pressed to put down their cellphones. Staffers no longer gather in the newsroom on production days, instead filing their stories remotely. And about ten years ago, the Campus Echo went from print and online to an online only news site.
Outside the Newsroom
dePyssler fell in love with photography while at Huston-Tillotson. While photographing 7-11s that had shut down and been repurposed, he was approached by pastor of a Black church who asked him to photograph his church services. After presenting a slide show to the entire congregation, he was hooked. Since then, he’s shot photos around the world. His photography and documentary work may be seen at his websites https://bdepyssler.smugmug.com and https://vimeo.com/bullcitydocsquad.
With a rotating team of students, called the Bull City Doc Squad, dePyssler has shot a number of historical documentaries about Durham, including one about White Rock Baptist Church – where NCCU founder James E. Shepard’s father preached – and one about the abandoned and dilapidated Whitted junior high school building. Initially, Whitted was Hillside Park, the first high school for the city’s African-Americans. The squad’s documentary, “Upbuilding Whitted,” was instrumental to the rescue of the dilapidated structure. Whitted School is now a combined pre-school and senior living housing center.
dePyssler’s biggest solo project has been documenting the live and studio recordings of John Westmoreland. Westmorland has been reviving the recently discovered work of the songwriter, radical poet, societal critic T-Bone Slim (1880-1942).
According to dePyssler his experiences abroad as an Air Force “brat” instilled in him a love for travel. To surf, photograph and document, he’s travelled to Mexico, Central America, France, India, Kenya, Ecuador, Peru, India, and Finland. But most recently he’s been spending time in the West African nation of Sierra Leone.
“My wife’s sister was killed in a car accident there and we have three little ones we are now taking care of,” dePyssler said.
After retiring in June, dePyssler will continue with his photography and documentaries. He also plans to occasionally teach a sociology or anthropology course at a community college. He says he’s “aged out of surfing.”
“I’m getting nostalgic now that I see the end in sight,” dePyssler said. “It was always interesting. I’ve aways felt I was doing something productive and making a difference in student lives.”
26 Years of Advising the Student News
