The National Association of Black Journalists has named a Philip Merrill College of Journalism professor and an alumna as its Journalist of the Year and its Emerging Journalist of the Year, respectively.

The 3,300-member association last week selected Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts as its Journalist of the Year for his work in 2007. The Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist is a visiting professor at the College.

NABJ also named the Tampa (Fla.) Tribune’s Sarah Hoye as its Emerging Journalist of the Year. Hoye earned her master of journalism degree in 2003 from the College.

The Special Honors are among the most-coveted annual awards given by NABJ. The awards will be formally presented July 26 at the NABJ Salute to Excellence Gala that will be part of the Unity: Journalists of Color convention in Chicago.

Journalist of the Year is given to a black journalist who has distinguished himself or herself during the year with work that was extraordinary in depth, scope or significance to people in the African diaspora. Pitts was recognized as a widely respected columnist whose strength and background show through his columns, which “speak to those silenced by poverty, violence and discrimination,” in the words of NABJ President Barbara Ciara.

The Emerging Journalist of the Year recognizes a black journalist with fewer than five years of experience whose work displays a commitment to NABJ’s goal of outstanding achievement by black journalists and to providing balanced coverage of the black community and society at large.

Hoye, who had already held jobs at the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel before moving to Tampa, was honored for her exceptional work and for her abilities in multimedia reporting, which have made a great impact on her newsroom and on NABJ.

The association said that at a time when diversity in newsrooms is being shunted aside for the bottom line, the awards are not only important for the individual winners but also to recognize their voices and craft in a dwindling newsroom.

Founded in 1975, NABJ is the largest organization of journalists of color in the nation. It is headquartered at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Note to faculty from Dean Tom Kunkel:

Friends,

Our associate dean, Don Heider, has been named the founding dean of a new School of Communication at Loyola University of Chicago.

As dean, Don will be charged with pulling together what are now disparate departments (journalism, communication, public relations and advertising) into a cohesive, stand-alone school. He will report to Loyola’s provost. The new school will be housed in a spectacular new facility, now under construction, in downtown Chicago near Water Tower Place.

It’s a wonderful opportunity for Don, who in two years has done much to help keep our school moving forward and has made many connections to related disciplines around campus. As much as we will miss him, it’s another feather in the cap of a school that is fast becoming known as a cradle of deans.

Loyola’s announcement can be found at: http://luc.edu/president/letters/soc_dean.html.

I will be back in touch with you soon to discuss the steps we’ll take to bridge this opening. For now, please join me in congratulating Don and his family on this great opportunity.

Tom

Kellie Woodhouse won seventh place and a $500 scholarship in the 2008 Hearst Journalism Awards Spot News Competition, the William Randolph Hearst Foundation announced Tuesday.

Woodhouse won for her story on the sexual assaults of two women in College Park in one morning, attacks that police believed were related to a dozen assaults and peeping Tom incidents over the preceding year.

Police had informally named the attacker “the cuddler,” since he has cuddled with or kissed some of his victims while they were sleeping.

Woodhouse’’s story appeared in the March 4, 2008, edition of The Diamondback, the independent student newspaper on campus. Her winning story was selected from 72 entries from 43 universities across the nation.

The Hearst Journalism Awards, sometimes referred to as the Pulitzers of collegiate journalism, are conducted under the auspices of accredited schools of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication and are fully funded and administered by the W. R. Hearst Foundation. The program consists of six monthly writing competitions, three photojournalism competitions, four broadcast news competitions, and one multimedia competition, with Championship finals in all divisions (except multimedia).

Philip Merrill College of Journalism Associate Professor Susan Moeller has been named a 2008 Carnegie Scholar - one of 20 Americans honored by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. She is the first University of Maryland faculty member to be so named. Scholars are selected for their “compelling ideas and commitment to enriching the quality of the public dialogue on Islam.” Moeller will receive a two year grant worth $100,000 along with “intellectual support to well-established and promising young thinkers, analysts and writers.”
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Philip Merrill College of Journalism Professor Michael Gurevitch died Saturday morning in a London hospital. He was 77.

Read the College release and tributes to Prof. Gurevitch here.

Students of the Merrill College were among some of the most lauded in the Society of Professional Journalists Region 2 Mark of Excellence Awards. Including the awards to the independent student newspaper, The Diamondback, Maryland students won 10 first place, 14 second and nine third place honors. The awards were presented at the regional conference on Saturday at Washington & Lee University.

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Anju Kaur, a reporter in the Philip Merrill College of Journalism’s Capital News Service, has been named a finalist in the 2007 Investigative Reporters and Editors contest for her stories on the state’s abysmal record of disciplining attorneys.

Kaur becomes the seventh CNS reporter since 2000 to win a finalist spot in the student category of the annual IRE contest, which is open to students nationwide.
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Geremy Bass, a Diamondback sports reporter, won 10th place in the Hearst Journalism Awards Program for his personality profile of Terrapin basketball player Bambale Osby. Bass will receive a $500 scholarship for the story, which was selected from 101 entries submitted by 60 schools nationwide. The personality profile writing award is part of the annual program sponsored by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation among the nation’s accredited journalism schools. The awards are often considered the Pulitzer Prizes of collegiate journalism.

Read the award winning story, “Story Behind Boom” on The Diamondback Web site.

Philip Merrill College of Journalism Dean Thomas Kunkel has been named the seventh president of St. Norbert College, a highly respected liberal arts school located in De Pere, Wisc., the school announced today. He succeeds William J. Hynes, who led St. Norbert for eight years. The appointment is effective on July 1.

“Tom Kunkel’s leadership has had a profound impact on the College of Journalism. The accomplishment and momentum that he leaves behind will continue for years to come,” said University President C. D. Mote, Jr. “While we are sorry to see Tom go, it is satisfying to see him use his talent and energy at another level at St. Norbert College. We wish Tom all the best when he takes over the reins this fall.”

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The following is the letter Dean Kunkel sent on the news of his appointment as president of St. Norbert College:

To our faculty, staff, students, alumni and friends,

I am writing to tell you about an important development in my life and career, one that I convey to you with a mixture of excitement and melancholy.

It is being announced today that I will be the next president of St. Norbert College, an outstanding, Catholic liberal arts institution in De Pere, Wisconsin, just outside Green Bay. With about 2,000 undergraduate students, St. Norbert is consistently ranked one of the best liberal arts colleges in the Midwest, and it recently was elevated to a top national school by U.S. News and World Report. St. Norbert was founded in 1898 by the Norbertine order of Catholic priests, and Norbertines continue to oversee the college and teach on the faculty.

I will begin at St. Norbert in July.

Of course, that means that my time at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism will conclude after my eighth year as dean. It has been an eventful and I think altogether positive time, one in which we built on the solid foundation of our predecessors and made this journalism school into one of the best in the nation. In May we break ground on beautiful Knight Hall, which will allow us to march confidently into the media’s brave new digital world.

I will have more to say in the coming weeks and months about all that. For now, let me just add that this opportunity sought me out, rather than vice versa, and after much contemplation I decided that the chance to direct such a respected liberal arts university was simply too rare to pass up.

But it will mean giving up the best job I’ve ever had, surrounded by the best people I’ve ever worked with, a school with faculty and students who are the envy of all my peers.

Provost Farvardin will soon announce his intentions in regard to a search for my replacement.

Deb and I will never forget this opportunity or your friendship.

Tom