Schieffer School selected for visiting professor program

Fort Worth, TX

9/16/2011

TCU’s Schieffer School of Journalism is one of four schools that are the first to receive visiting business journalism professors next spring under a $1.67 million grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation. The other schools include Colorado State University, Grambling State University and the University of South Carolina.

The five-year program will ultimately create 11 visiting professorships at 11 different schools. It is administered through the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

The professorships will enable students at the four universities to get valuable training in a specialized and increasingly critical area of journalism, said Andrew Leckey, president of the Reynolds Center and the Reynolds Chair in Business Journalism at the Cronkite School.

“You need look no further than the economy being the No. 1 issue in national politics to recognize that instruction in business journalism is critical to the mission of journalism programs and the training of the journalists of the future,” said John Lumpkin, director of TCU’s Schieffer School of Journalism. “Our grant from the Reynolds Center will allow TCU to expand its offerings in business journalism and take a more focused and strategic approach in this area for its students.”

The new Reynolds Visiting Professorships are modeled on successful programs at Washington and Lee University and the Cronkite School. The Reynolds Center also has sponsored a weeklong training seminar for prospective business journalism professors for the past five years.

“We are pleased with the first four schools selected to participate in the Reynolds Visiting Business Journalism Professor Program,” said Steve Anderson, president of the Reynolds Foundation. “These four schools will form the nucleus of a much larger group of institutions that will be selected annually over the next five years. The program’s goal is to select institutions that will commit long-term to the teaching of principles and skills necessary to train business journalists in what we believe is an increasingly important field of journalism.”

“These four journalism programs displayed remarkably thoughtful and ambitious strategies for both their current and their future business journalism education initiatives,” Leckey said. “In addition, the large number of excellent applications received assures us that other outstanding schools stand ready for the future visiting professorships of this five-year program.”

Besides teaching courses in business journalism, visiting professors will help establish partnerships with local business media and contribute to businessjournalism.org and Reynolds Center webinars, which provide resources and training enabling professional business journalists to excel at their craft. The schools, which also receive funding for business journalism internships, will provide space as well as technical and administrative support for the professors.

Three additional universities will be selected next year for the spring 2013 term. Prospective universities can apply at http://businessjournalism.org/2011/03/02/how-to-apply-journalism-programs/. Prospective visiting business journalism professors can apply at http://businessjournalism.org/2011/03/02/how-to-apply-visiting-professorships/.