Berens, Charlyne

PERSONAL:

Education: Earned M.S.

ADDRESSES:

Office—University of Nebraska—Lincoln, 238 Andersen Hall, News-ed, Lincoln, NE 68588. E-mail—cberens1@unl.edu.

CAREER:

Writer, professor, editor. University of Nebraska—Lincoln, associate professor of journalism and mass communication. Former editor and copublisher of the Seward County Independent.

MEMBER:

Nebraska Press Association (past president).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Named one of three Journalism Teachers of the Year, Freedom Forum, 2002.

WRITINGS:

Leaving Your Mark: The Political Career of Nebraska State Senator Jerome Warner, Nebraska Times (Seward, NE), 1997.

Power to the People: Social Choice and the Populist-Progressive Ideal, University Press of America (Dallas, TX), 2004.

One House: The Unicameral's Progressive Vision for Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press (Lincoln, NE), 2005.

Chuck Hagel: Moving Forward, University of Nebraska Press (Lincoln, NE), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Charlyne Berens is a professor of journalism whose books focus on politics, particularly those relating to the state of Nebraska. Her first book, Leaving Your Mark: The Political Career of Nebraska State Senator Jerome Warner, is a biography of the late senator, and One House: The Unicameral's Progressive Vision for Nebraska outlines the events that led to the 1934 reformation of the Nebraska legislature from a bicameral, partisan institution to a one-house, nonpartisan body under the guidance of U.S. Senator George Norris, who held that the move would bring the power to the people.

Berens also wrote Chuck Hagel: Moving Forward, an account of the U.S. senator's life from his unsettled childhood to an early adulthood marked by indecision that culminated in a tour of duty in Vietnam, where he was wounded and received two Purple Hearts. After that, he gained enough mental stamina to finish col- lege and conquer Washington, DC, as a capitalist, lobbyist, and politician. The book presents his story in the rags-to-riches format common to biographies of those with presidential aspirations and positions the senator as a possible Republican presidential contender in the 2008 election. Berens conducted many interviews in the process of writing the book, with Hagel, his family, and his colleagues. In reviewing the book on the California Literary Review Web site, Peter Bridges, the former U.S. Ambassador to Somalia under President Reagan, noted that Berens "describes with considerable frankness [Hagel's] childhood and youth," but does not present a balanced account of his political career, particularly the truth about his record on environmental issues (he is against the Kyoto Protocol and has been slow to accept global warming) and his opposition to President Bush. "A main question, although our author does not mention it," wrote Bridges, "is to what extent Senator Hagel should, or can, as a Republican candidate distance himself from the Republican now in the White House." Indeed, the book is a "sympathetic portrait" wrote Eric Pianin in a review for the Washington Post Book World, in which "Berens offers a wide range of opinions and speculation … but by the conclusion of the book, the questions of whether Hagel will run or could mount an effective campaign are left hanging."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 1, 2006, Vanessa Bush, review of Chuck Hagel: Moving Forward, p. 39.

U.S. Newswire, July 24, 2002, "Nebraska Professor Named Freedom Forum Journalism Teacher of the Year."

Washington Post Book World, August 22, 2006, Eric Pianin, review of Chuck Hagel, p. A13.

ONLINE

California Literary Review,http://www.calitreview.com/ (January 3, 2007), Peter Bridges, review of Chuck Hagel.