Faculty

Rob Buchanan

Assistant Professor, Writing

I’m a lifelong magazine feature writer with an interest in travel, adventure, and alternative sports. I started at Sports Illustrated in 1981, worked for Rolling Stone, Details, and a host of other magazines, and am now a contributing editor at Outside and a regular contributor at Men’s Journal. I write a lot about sailing, climbing and mountaineering, environmental politics, and the effects of tourism and development.

At Eugene Lang College, I teach journalism and writing and am the faculty advisor to the New School Free Press, a biweekly student newspaper distributed on campus and around the Village. I also help manage Lang Outdoors, a set of courses that takes students off campus and out into the “urban environment.” In my own Lang Outdoors course, the students build 26-foot Whitehall gigs—replicas of 19th-century rowing boats that were the water taxis of their day—and use them to explore the harbor and the estuary. Old-school environmentalists sometimes decry “recreationals” for getting in the way of serious conservation, but I’m convinced that active use is the key to genuine stewardship.

Courses Taught

Fall 2010
LLSW 3025 A Intermediate Journalism: Metro Section
LWEL 2003 A Lang on the Hudson
UENV 2411 A The Harbor and the Hudson
LLSW 4990 D Independent Senior Project

Research Interests

 The environmental history and restoration of New York Harbor and the Hudson
Coastal development, public access and local and national land-use policy
Waterfront park design and recreational policy

Professional Affiliations

Creator of newyorkharborbeaches.org, a website about the remaining sandy beaches of the Upper Harbor.
Founding member of the Village Community Boathouse on Pier 40, which offers free community rowing programs and is home to the boats that Lang students build in “Lang on the Hudson”.

Awards and Honors

 Lowell Thomas Award, Society of American Travel Journalists, 2006
The 1st annual Nike Earthwrite Award for Environmental Journalism, 1995