A Bloomberg.com economic columnist is visiting the University of Wisconsin campus this week to interact with journalism and business students as the Fall 2006 Business Writer in Residence.

Caroline Baum will be attending classes in both the UW School of Business and the School of Journalism and Mass Communication to give students a professional perspective on the field of business writing.

UW Communications and the UW School of Journalism and Mass Communication sponsor the Writer in Residence program.

"[The program] brings prominent business journalists to campus to talk about what they do to business and journalism students," UW Communications spokesperson Dennis Chaptman said. "Business students don't always know why journalists are interested in business and how journalists do their business."

Journalism, business and economics students are benefiting from Baum's time on campus, according to Chaptman. Baum explained having professionals in the classroom offers students an experience they cannot get anywhere else.

"I'm a journalist working in the real-time media — a columnist, someone with a voice," Baum said. "It always helps to meet people who are out there every day, practicing media."

Baum is the author of "Just What I Said," a collection of her columns from the Bloomberg News about key factors affecting the economy. She gained a reputation for discussing complex issues such as the central bank policy and the economic flow and its influence on stocks and bonds in a comprehensible writing style.

"[Baum] has an ability to write with such clarity about such complicated issues," Chaptman said. "She really has a knack for boiling issues down and for making monetary policy accessible to her readers."

Baum has been a financial journalist since 1987 and won the National Headliner Award in the wire/commentary category in 2004 and 2005.

"It's a great honor to be here," Baum said. "I'm learning as well as teaching."

The week of Nov. 5, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and UW alum Walt Bogdanich will visit UW as the Public Affairs Writer in Residence.