Remembering Debbie Pearsall
Posted by Jeremy on January 29, 2012 · 5 Comments
Over the weekend I got news from Lehigh administration that one of our graduating seniors, Debbie Pearsall, had passed away after several days spent in the hospital. To say this is tragic feels like a gross understatement. I’ve never understood the phrase “everyone grieves in their own way” until this moment. As I watch students, staff, and fellow faculty react I realize we all are grieving in ways relative to how we knew her.
For my part, this is hard news to swallow. I mentored Debbie for three years in our journalism department. She was one of the initial Multimedia Reporting students we had here, part of my first voyage teaching the subject here at LU. She took to digital media and began to plan for a career in it. Over the two years I’ve known Debbie she took several classes with me and I worked with her either officially or unofficially on countless projects.
So as a professor and mentor, I am grieving in my own way. I have no language for this from a professor/mentor perspective, so I’m not going to try to express it in a word salad here. It’s just too much grief right now. It’s not quite like they are one of your children, but it’s close because you care about them so intensely.
Instead of waxing dramatic I want to tell two stories about Debbie. Just two.
The first comes from my New Media & Social Change class last spring. On the first day of class we got into a discussion about the Web-culture concept of digital tribes. After explaining what we mean by tribes, I asked them what their tribes were. We started off with some of the usual talking around it, as students were unsure how to answer because they were still processing the concept while trying to apply it. But Debbie didn’t wait long. “Journalism!” she declared. A class full of journalists and she was the first to recognize her chosen profession as what it is; a tribe of people passionate about digging for and reporting great stories. It didn’t surprise me. From the first day I knew her I think Debbie always wanted to be a journalist. To see herself as part of that collective was only natural.
The second story is only about 10 days old, the last time I spoke with Debbie. She was in my office to get my adviser signature on a form and we got to talking about her semester. She’d had a difficult fall but was expressing excitement about a new role she’d be playing with the videography class for the student newspaper, and she was excited about the “Memoirs & Me” special journalism course being taught by our newest adjunct professor, acclaimed author John Grogan. But she had a big project on the horizon. She was planning on giving up her spring break to do a reporting excursion with a couple other students to Centralia, PA. She wanted to do a deep reporting project on the environmental disaster that has been brewing there since 1962, a perfect marriage of her studies in journalism and her minor in Earth & Environmental Sciences. She was ready to attack her final semester and she was doing what journalists do – chase great stories. As she walked out of my office to get to another appointment, I smiled to myself that we were about to graduate another journalist, someone with fire in the belly.
She had found her tribe, all right.
I hope somebody goes out and does Debbie’s spring break story. I can’t think of a better way to honor her than to seek out a great story and tell it. It’s what journalists do. Those of us in the tribe get it.
Jeremy,
My deepest condolences. I know from dozens of conversations with Debbie how much you meant to her as an advisor, a teacher, and a friend. As we all struggle with this, take solace in the fact that you, perhaps more than anyone, helped her discover something she loved and would have most certainly excelled at.
Jeremy, I’m so sorry for your loss. I lost one of my graduates not long after he earned his degree… It hit me hard. I can only imagine how you’re feeling. I’m sending love and peace to you, your school family and of course, Debbie’s family.
Jeremy,
Though I only spent two weeks with Debbie at our Dow Jones boot camp, we all knew she was a great person and a great journalist. I remember she talked about the story she wanted to do about Centralia, and we were all fascinated by it. We even talked about taking a road trip there to see it. I know she was really planning out how she wanted to cover it, and she was so excited about it. I hope someone covers it in her honor.
Arielle
Jeremy,
Thank you so much for this heartfelt message. While I didn’t know Debbie directly, I knew of her on campus and through name recognition. I have endured a similar loss during my tenure as a professor, and I know it can truly be a difficult place to be. Debbie, her family and the Lehigh family are in my prayers. Thank you for helping me get to know her just a little bit better.
Thank you for writing this remembrance of Debbie, and I’m very sorry for your loss. Debbie was in my class last semester; it was the first time I’d met her. I could see that her intensity and drive would bring her success in any field. She introduced herself to me proudly as a journalism senior. I wish I could have known her better.