Ramapo Magazine

Keith Kulin ’73
By Mary Alice Rocks

He's documented news events from the rise of the Ayatolloh to the courtroom drama of Judge Judy. He works with CBS big-name journalists for 60 Minutes. Recently, he came back home -- to Ramapo -- to accept a much-deserved tribute.

Outstanding alumnus Keith D. Kulin '73, a cinematographer and documentary photographer for CBS, was recipient of the President's Award of Merit at the College's May 2000 Commencement exercises. Kulin received the Emmy Award for Outstanding Interview in 1997 for his work on "An Interview with Andrew Wyeth" for CBS News Sunday Morning. In 1985 he received the Eastman Kodak Company Award for Outstanding Photographic Achievement and an Emmy nomination.

Kulin's work over the years has encompassed stories of every kind. He was sent to Teheran in one early assignment to cover Ayatollah Khomeini's return from Paris after the Shah of Iran's exile. Kulin describes an incident that occurred when he was photographing Americans being evacuated from Iran just before the eruption of the hostage crisis. "We were standing on a hill with our cameras, overlooking this airport. We were taking pictures of planes leaving, but they belonged to the Iranian air force, and we weren't supposed to take pictures of those. A bunch of revolutionaries drove up and took us away in a bus at gunpoint," he says. Kulin's group was missing for what turned out to be a long day, but eventually, after questioning by an air force commander, the journalists were released.

Although hard news coverage can be exciting, Kulin enjoys documentary work because it allows him greater opportunity to see a project through from beginning to end. In the mid-1980s, Kulin's career shifted into work on documentary stories, particularly those with a human-interest element. He recalls photographing the story of New York City family court judge more than six years ago who "was just something. She was all personality and just an amazing judge. She didn't take any guff, especially from delinquent fathers...she was very much a children's judge." As it turns out, the piece Kulin photographed was of now-famous Judge Judy Sheindlin, and Kulin's material was used for what later became the pilot episode of the Judge Judy show.

After working for the last several years as associate producer and photographer for "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney" on 60 Minutes, Kulin decided to shift gears once again, and took on responsibility for editing the popular Rooney segments. According to Rooney -- correspondent and humorous commentator, writer and producer for 60 Minutes since its premier -- "Keith Kulin is one of the great unsung artists of television news, known well only by people in the business. For many years he shot hundreds of the best reports done for 60 Minutes, seen by approximately sixteen million people every week. The audience saw Mike Wallace, Ed Bradley, Lesley Stahl, Steve Kroft, and Morley Safer, but they saw them through the lens of Keith's camera. I'd be lost without Keith Kulin -- and am, of course, occasionally lost with him."

A graduate of the class of 1973, Kulin was among the first to attend the new state college in Mahwah known as Ramapo College. "I'd just gotten out of the army, and I was going to school on the GI Bill. I read somewhere about this new state school they were starting." One of the attractions Ramapo held for the young Vietnam veteran was the fact that it was new, and in the process of deciding what course it would take. The resources the College library offered, and its status as a federal repository also impressed Kulin. Although he came to Ramapo planning to be a lawyer, a journalism course taken at Ramapo helped change Kulin's mind. His journalism professor invited a television documentary producer to deliver a guest lecture, which Kulin still recalls in detail, nearly thirty years later. Kulin and his classmates were shown documentary footage, including some of Janis Joplin. He was hooked.

While at Ramapo, Kulin enjoyed taking small classes with plenty of faculty interaction -- including an art class taught by Judith Peck, and Steve Arianas' seminar on the Supreme Court. In fact, when he had the opportunity to film Bill Moyers' interview of Chief Justice Warren Burger a few years ago, one of Kulin's first thoughts was of Arianas' mock trial class, and how the real thing compared to experiences from his college days.

Speaking of the Ramapo faculty and staff, Kulin says, "They taught you how to survive; how to adapt. A lot of the people at Ramapo look at things differently. They encourage you to find out as much as you can about a subject, and then make decisions on what you want to do. The college experience was less about learning a specific subject and more about learning how to learn, because that's something that will always be with you."