Brett Kurland

Brett Kurland is an assistant dean, director of master's programs and professor of practice at ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. 

As director of master’s programs, Kurland provides strategic oversight of the school’s graduate degrees, including curriculum development, enrollment strategy, faculty leadership and program innovation in a rapidly evolving media industry. He chairs the school’s Master’s Committee, guides admissions strategy and oversees graduate assistantship, scholarships and fellowships that support Cronkite students. He also leads ongoing efforts to evolve graduate curriculum to reflect changes in journalism, media technology and strategic communication.

As assistant dean, Kurland helps guide academic strategy and faculty operations across the Cronkite School. He has helped lead major curricular initiatives, faculty hiring efforts and accreditation work. He previously oversaw 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 has also led training and onboarding for faculty associates, helping them learn everything from school policies to best practices in teaching.

Kurland continues to play a central role in the growth and strategic direction of the Cronkite School’s sports journalism degree programs. He has helped build and scale the programs’ curriculum and experiential learning opportunities while cultivating national partnerships across the sports industry and connecting students with professional opportunities across major media organizations and sports leagues.

He currently teaches the MCO 504 Cronkite Master’s Seminar, a required course for all Cronkite master’s students focused on leadership development, professional identity, networking and preparing students to successfully navigate the media business.

Through that course and the MCO 394 Interviewing & Inquiry class he previously taught, Kurland has led efforts to responsibly integrate artificial intelligence into journalism education, including developing AI-powered interview bots that allow students to practice and refine journalistic interviewing skills in realistic, feedback-driven environments.

Kurland previously served as the lead instructor for MCO 502 Multimedia Journalism Skills, a foundational first-semester course for Cronkite graduate students pursuing master’s degrees in mass communication, investigative journalism and sports journalism in which students learn how to write 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 2024, he directed the Covering the Summer Olympics program in Paris, where students produced reporting and social content about the Games for professional media outlets including KPNX-TV, Arizona PBS and The Arizona Republic.  In 2016, he led a similar program in Rio de Janeiro, where students reported on the Summer Games in Brazil. In 2021, Kurland pivoted the school’s Olympic reporting program to a virtual experience during the coronavirus pandemic, cultivating a partnership with the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee in which students produced reporting for TeamUSA.org and university websites across the country as part of the USOPC’s “Olympians Made Here” campaign. In 2018, he directed Cronkite Scotland: Golf & the British Open, conceptualizing and co-leading a two-week program in Scotland in which students reported on the role of golf in Scottish culture while covering The Open Championship.

In 2021, Kurland earned his Certificate in Effective Instruction from the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE). This year-long, 25-module program focuses on evidence-based instructional approaches designed to enhance student success. 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. He 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 and 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 and 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.