Dr. John K. Hartman is the senior journalism faculty member. Hartman, 66, joined the Central Michigan University faculty in 1984 and is a full professor.  He holds a B.A. in journalism, M.A. in radio-TV-film, and Ph.D. in communication from Bowling Green State University. 

He has served in a variety of capacities in journalism, advertising, public relations, broadcasting and politics in the professional world. He is the author of "The USA TODAY Way" (1992) and the "The USA TODAY Way 2 The Future" (2000) and is a quoted authority on journalism issues in major publications, including the Times of London, New York Times, Washington Post, Business Week, Boston Globe, Newsday, Detroit News & Free Press, Toronto Globe & Mail, Nieman Reports, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Editor & Publisher, American Journalism Review, American Editor and Business 2.0 among others. 

He has sponsored visits to CMU by Tom Curley, president and publisher of USA TODAY, in 1989 and 1997, and Peter Prichard, president of the Freedom Forum, in 1999. He received the Spirit of Detroit Award in 1997. He received the professor stipend from CMU in 1998, 2002 and 2006. He was nominated for the Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award on two occasions. He did research about the free young-adult-targeted daily newspapers and online news sites in Chicago in 2005 and conducted similar research in Columbus, Ohio, in 2008. He presented a paper on the decline of college newspapapers at the Convergence Conference at the University of South Carolina in fall 2012. He was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 2004 in Boston. His delegates diaries can be found at http://www.johnkhartman.com/. He covered the 2008 DNC in Denver. He attended the USA Today 25th anniversary activities at American University in 2007. His column about the first 30 years of USA Today was published at www.editorandpublisher.com in September 2012. He has taught journalism and consulted for King Saud University in Saudi Arabia for two-week periods on three occasions, 2008, 2009 and 2010. ​​​