Sitting back in his office chair with his hands folded on his desk, he talks about getting acquainted with the university and the city. He's visited the Bay Area before, but is living here for the first time. He looks across his desk with a smile when he mentions that he grew up in the small town of Newton, Kansas.

He's definitely not in Kansas anymore.

Professor Brent Malin, 31, has just begun his first year at SF State as one of the BECA (Broadcast Electronic Communication Art) department's newest faculty. Prior to SF State, Malin taught broadcast communication classes in media research and criticism at St. Olaf College in Minnesota for one year and at Allegheny College in Pennsylvania for three years.

"I was looking for a change," Malin said. "I was ready to live in a big city."

Malin, who continues to do research while he's teaching, is interested in communication and media, and his dissertation is on masculinity in the media, another subject of interest.

Malin originally wanted to be a writer and received his bachelor's degree in English at Kansas State University. While in college, he had one English professor who really impressed him with how he taught. He eventually inspired Malin to become a teacher. Malin's father was also a teacher.

"I grew up around a teacher," Malin said. "I guess it rubbed off on me."

He attended graduate school at the University of Iowa, where he received his PhD in communication studies. "I've always been interested in communication and media," said Malin, "and I wrote a lot about media and masculinity at Kansas State." He realized that these were recurring themes in his writing and decided to pursue these areas to research and examine.

He finished his dissertation, which was his final assignment in his PhD program, in 2001 and he is now working on turning it into a book. The title of his dissertation, "Popular Media and the 90s 'Crisis in Masculinity,'" will likely be the title of his book.

In his research and analysis of masculinity in the media, Malin examines many of the TV shows of the early 1990s. He spends a lot of time watching television and movies and analyzing the shows and the characters in them. He also collects many articles by the popular press to find out what critics and people in general are saying about popular media.

He explored certain TV characters, like "Ross" from the show "Friends," pointing out how sensitive his character is compared with the macho action-hero-like characters of the 1980s. The male characters of the 90s, according to Malin, have become more sensitive and more apt to make mistakes. However, Malin notes that these sensitive male characters also tend to have a high sex drive to compensate for their level of sensitivity and to maintain some of their macho-ness.

Although Malin has yet to discuss his ideas about masculinity and femininity in his classes, his students are eager to hear what he has to say. One of Malin's students doesn't necessarily agree with Malin's arguments about the 90s characters being more sensitive. "It depends what you watch," said 25-year-old Larry Lawrence. "A lot of males are still playing the masculine roles. Many characters are both [sensitive and masculine]."

This semester, Malin is teaching BECA 300, a research course, and BECA 321, the Critical Study of Pop Culture. His BECA 321 students seem to enjoy their sometimes two-hour-long, in-depth class discussions about media and pop culture.

"He's really energetic," said SF State sophomore Aimee Thayer. "And we have some really opinionated discussions in class." His students agree that he is very informative, but also eager to hear from his students and learn their different opinions.

"He's got a young mind," said BECA major Cynthia Valderrama. "He's in tune to what we are and I think we can all relate to him."