When English major Jackson Juzang ’26 arrives at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism this fall, he’ll do so with more than a diploma in hand. Juzang will bring with him PBJ Media Co., the independent media company he founded during his time at the College, along with plans to expand it into Los Angeles.
At USC, Juzang will pursue graduate studies in communication management and will serve as a Cowan Research Scholar through the university’s Center on Communication Leadership and Policy. There, he’ll examine the future of journalism, media entrepreneurship, and institutional trust. He also plans to launch a successor to the Philadelphia Student Press Association, a nonprofit journalism organization he built before graduating. “More than anything, my postgraduate plans are centered on building,” he says, “building sustainable media platforms and building organizations that can create long-term cultural and civic impact.”.
Juzang’s English coursework at Haverford laid the intellectual foundation for his ambitions. His senior thesis, which was centered on Chester Himes’s 1945 novel If He Hollers Let Him Go, examined audience complicity, racial trauma, and the perception of Black masculinity. “That project changed the way I approach both literature and storytelling more broadly,” he says.
Courses in the Africana Studies department, particularly those focused on the Black Power Movement, reshaped how he thinks about identity and cultural history. Similarly, courses in media studies through the Visual Studies department, “Media Worlds” and “Media, Culture, and Society,” pushed him to examine how media systems shape the relationship between culture and power.
Two professors, Juzang says, had an especially lasting influence. Francis B. Gummere Professor of English Kim Benston shaped his approach to literature and language, he says, while Professor and Chair of English Lindsay Reckson made a significant intellectual and personal impact. Beyond the faculty, alums and entrepreneurs Jim Kinsella ’82 and Sang Cho ’96 helped him think more strategically about media entrepreneurship and what innovative entertainment ventures can look like at a global scale.
Juzang shaped much of his College experience by creating opportunities himself. He founded a podcast, The Day After Saturday, as his first independently built multimedia project. He joined Haverford’s independent student newspaper, The Clerk, as a staff writer, eventually rising to associate editor. Professional stints at NBC Sports and the Tiger Woods Foundation gave him a ground-level view of how large-scale sports media and communications organizations actually run.
“I got to see the world of sports media and communications at the largest scale possible,” he says. Haverford, meanwhile, pushed him toward resourcefulness. “It forced me to become resourceful,” he says of navigating a campus without built-in pathways for media entrepreneurship.
As he steps away from Haverford and journeys to the West Coast, Juzang offers a charge to his classmates: “Resist the instinct to simply settle into the safest or easiest path available to you. Building meaningful things is difficult, and uncertainty can be intimidating, but some of the most rewarding work comes from creating something that did not exist before.” Success, he adds, means little if it benefits only yourself.