UNC assistant professor Joseph Cabosky’s love of learning is not something new. Almost 11 years ago, he worked through a tough summer that taught him about himself and what he calls his mantra to this day.
During Cabosky's first summer after school, his home was a Buick LeSabre car. He was graduated and working full time, but Los Angeles was an expensive city for an “average kid from Ohio." The summer was a challenge, but he said he knew he would overcome it.
“By the end of the summer my life was set. My income was set, and I got to where I knew I was gonna get. I was just confident. I was doing what I loved," Cabosky said. "It’s a combination of having dreams and if you’re willing to work hard. It’s not that the challenges aren’t challenges, but they’re just things. And if you do what you love, and you work hard at it, you realize you don’t need the material things in life and everything just finds a way.”
Cabosky's ambitious approach to being a professor in UNC's School of Media and Journalism brings a new perspective to public relations, and the evidence is clear in his award-winning documentary “Writing My Own Happy Ending."
The Durham VOICE is a community newspaper written and edited by UNC, North Carolina Central University students and high school students from Durham. In what Cabosky says is a paper “written for the community and by the community,” “Writing My Own Happy Ending” tells the story of the paper and the inner-city students who make up the staff.
“We took six kids about as far away from Durham as you can get, Ocracoke Island,” said lecturer Jock Lauterer. "Joe authenticated them by listening to them and telling their story. He made them feel like they mattered.”
Through his work in both film and the classroom, Cabosky has allowed students to find their own voice. In what he calls a mutually beneficial relationship between himself and his students, Cabosky has had a large impact on almost every student he encounters.
“He is my favorite. You can just tell he is so smart, but also so passionate about making you a stronger writer and just a stronger thinker,” said senior Micah Stubbs. “He brings relevant stories, things that are actually happening, into the classroom, and he works really hard to tailor it to you. He has taught me I don’t only have to do PR and stay in that for the rest of my life. I can know about other subjects and bring everything together to be a strong thinker, and a human who likes learning.”
His colleagues also sing his praises when it comes to his teaching methods and who he is as a person.
