Written by Julia Lawrence '21
A Newhouse graduate and now Assistant Professor of Communications Law, Nina Brown is living proof of life’s cyclical nature. With a career spanning various industries, Brown finds herself back at Syracuse, where she combines her passions through teaching.
Initially pre-med, Brown switched to advertising after joining a friend at an event highlighting the advertising department at Newhouse.
“The most important thing is that [Newhouse] gave me a great foundation for the communications industry,” Brown continued, “It equipped me with a basic set of communications skills that were really transferrable.”
The skills she acquired became useful upon graduating, when she was hired at a small advertising agency. Brown then moved to Seattle and began working at a start-up tech company as a writer.
“I joined their staff and wrote everything. They had nobody on staff who was able to communicate to the public what they were doing…from there I ended up growing in my career to different places.”
She became the director of communications for the company and later the associate vice president of brand development at a Fortune 500 company. After working in the industry for some time, Brown eventually found herself compelled to revisit her first passion: law.
Brown had been interested in law since the seventh grade when she shadowed an attorney. It was upon taking communications law at Newhouse her senior year when Brown realized where her true interest lay.
“I thought, this is really interesting. If I go to law school, this is what I want to practice. Actually, someday it would be really fun to teach this course.”
Brown graduated from Cornell Law School and worked with Hancock Estabrook, one of Upstate New York’s leading law firms, but in regard to teaching law, Brown’s heart was with Newhouse.
“Our students are the best and I want to teach the best... this was the only place I wanted to be.”Brown said she enjoys the challenge of teaching a law class to communications students who are not always interested in law.
“It inspires me to make the class fun and accessible for students that are scared of it or think that it’s just boring.”
Brown specializes in intellectual property issues and free speech concerns in the digital era. Now more than ever, people have the power to generate great change with the tip of their fingers.
“Engagement is really the key,” said Brown, “Understand the issues and then go out, not with the hope of changing somebody’s mind, but understanding where they’re coming from and having a conversation about it.”
She advises those with this power to post wisely.
Brown’s biggest piece of advice for those entering the communications industry is to find mentors. She emphasizes that the most meaningful relationships in her career are with those that have taken on a mentor role – both men and women.
“Different mentors serve different purposes… there are people out there who have taken steps on the path that we’re on, who have so much to offer us and who want to help.”
Brown’s ambition and professionalism are an excellent model to her students and all that meet her.