BREAKING » Reese Cleghorn, dean of the University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism from 1981 to 2000, has died, his family announced. He was 78. A memorial service will be held at the Memorial Chapel on the University of Maryland campus on Thursday, March 26 at 3 p.m.
The longest sitting dean on the University of Maryland campus when he stepped down, Cleghorn was associate editor of the Detroit Free Press when he was named to the journalism position. He has helped turn the college from one of relative obscurity to one of national prominence.
Upon taking over as dean at Maryland, Cleghorn, along with the faculty and a newly established Board of Visitors, developed a five-year excellence plan called “Toward 1990: Creating a Model Professional School.” The plan spelled out ways for the journalism school to build its future and resulted in an increase in minority students, the upgrading of radio and TV broadcast facilities, a smaller but higher quality undergraduate enrollment and an expanded master’s and Ph.D. programs.
In a 1988 national assessment of journalism education by the Gannett Center for Media Studies, the College of Journalism was included in the listing of “Eleven Exemplary Journalism Schools,” described by the report’s author Jerrold Footlick as “those deserving of imitation.”
Cleghorn was instrumental in bringing the national monthly magazine American Journalism Review (then Washington Journalism Review) to the college in 1987, and and has since served as president, and then publisher of AJR.
Other notable advancements at the College of Journalism during Cleghorn’s tenure include: The National Association of Black Journalists relocated its headquarters to the campus; a student-operated wire service, Capital News Service, was launched in 1990 with bureaus in Washington, D.C. and Annapolis as part of an expanded Public Affairs Reporting Program; the creation of the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and the Journalism Center for Children and Families brought new professional outreach programs to the college; and fundraising successes that resulted in new endowed chairs led to the faculty appointments of former CBS-TV correspondent Lee Thornton to the Richard Eaton Chair in Broadcast Journalism and former Pulitzer-winning Washington Post journalist and editor Haynes Johnson to the Knight Chair in Journalism.
Cleghorn was named Journalism Administrator of the Year by the Freedom Forum in 1995. In announcing the award, Freedom Forum Chairman Al Neuharth said that “at a time when journalism schools have teetered on the verge of extinction at many leading universities, Maryland has not only survived but thrived under Dean Cleghorn’s leadership. His model professional school — dedicated to both scholarship and professional experience — has set the standard for journalism schools of the future.”
Cleghorn is co-author, with Pat Watters, of “Climbing Jacob’s Ladder,” a book about the Civil Rights Movement and the South.
A native of Georgia, Cleghorn holds an undergraduate degree from Emory University in Atlanta and a master’s in public law and government from Columbia University in New York. A former editorial page editor of the Charlotte (N.C.) Observer, he was named to the North Carolina Journalism Hall of Fame in 1996. Cleghorn is past president of the National Conference of Editorial Writers.
Since his retirement from dean in 2000, Cleghorn has served as a beloved professor at the Merrill College, teaching courses in commentary and editorial writing.
There will be a private burial in Washington, D.C. The family asks that, in lieu of flowers, a contribution may be made payable to the University of Maryland College Park Foundation, indicating it is for the Reese Cleghorn Scholarship Fund, and sent to 1117 Journalism Building, Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742. Contributions may also be made to the Caldwell Memorial Presbyterian Mission Fund, 1609 East Fifth St., Charlotte, NC 28204.
Service Information
For those from outside the university attending the Reese Cleghorn Memorial Service March 26 at the University of Maryland Memorial Chapel, parking will be available in the university’s Mowatt Lane Garage on the south side of campus. If arriving from either a north or south direction via Route 1 (Baltimore Blvd.), the main road in front of the campus, turn at the light at Guilford Avenue, which eventually becomes Mowatt Lane. (An Exxon station and Plato’s Diner are at the Guilford road intersection.) The garage entrance is on your right, and a campus shuttle bus marked “Charter” will take guests to the Memorial Chapel entrance. You can locate both the garage and the Chapel at www.parking.umd.edu/themap. A reception will be held after the service at South Dining Hall, a short walk from the Chapel. Following the reception, the shuttle will be available outside South Dining Hall to take guests back to the parking garage. For those parked in the garage and unable to attend the reception, the shuttle will pick them up in front of the Chapel after the service and take them to the garage.
Outside Coverage
A Giant Departs – American Journalism Review
Newspaperman Led U-Md. Journalism Dept. - The Washington Post
Reese Cleghorn, Former Dean — And Editor — Dies at 78 – AP via Editor & Publisher
1970s Observer editor Reese Cleghorn dies – Charlotte Observer
69 Comments
I, too, share the sorrow about Reece’s death. I got to know Reece not long after he had become dean. I had graduated a few years before from the program and found myself back involved with the College becoming an officer with the College’s fledgling Journalism Alumni Association. As such, I had a number of meetings (and programs) with Reece and was always pleased that this BROADCAST journalism major would be given so much time and opportunity with the DEAN! You see, during my years as a student in our program there were more than a few instructors who clearly thought those of us who had elected to go into radio and/or TV news were less of a journalist than those taking the more “traditional” print route. So, I was especially pleased and honored whenever Reece would introduce me at events…mentioning where I worked but emphasizing that I was a JOURNALIST, first and foremost. And that designation and acceptance meant the world to me. I later came on as adjunct broadcast journalism instructor during Reece’s time…and then, had the good fortune to be hired by Reece as a full-time instructor 10 years ago. Our broadcast side of the program has grown in ways I could never have dreamed as an undergrad. Reece had the vision to encourage it and make it happen. I will be forever grateful. My deepest sympathies to Cheree and the rest of Reece’s family.
After his time as dean, Reese not only continued to teach at Maryland, but he also shepherded the Maryland-Delaware-DC internship program, which bears his name. He held workshops at the start of each summer for all the student interns, whether they attended Maryland or not. He really cared about the future of journalism, about style and good writing and young journalists. He dedicated his time to them, encouraged them and gave them a gentle push from the nest. It was an honor to work with him (and intimidating to teach writing skills while he sat in the room!)
Dean Cleghorn was an inspiration to me — as he was to so many. For four years (1986-1990), he tailed me to ensure that I kept my Gannett scholarship (a contest that demanded annual reentry) in the way that a father presses a child to complete her homework. He mentored me, routinely recommending campus activities that would enhance my campus experience, reviewing my courses and grades with me, introducing me to the faculty and generally challenging me in my thinking about the profession. Ultimately, he recommended me for campus awards — but not after first seeing to it that I had earned those distinctions. Without him, I am not sure that I would have kept at it with such persistence, because the scholarship application process itself was so onerous. Now, of course, I am glad that I did. He encouraged me, cared about me and believed in me. I will never forget his gentle southern voice behind me in the hallway: “Laura, going to get that scholarship again next year?” I am truly grateful for his help over the years, and I will never forget him. My deepest sympathies to his family.
Dean Cleghorn is the reason I am a reporter and fill-in anchor at the CBS station in Las Vegas. When I transfered to Maryland I applied to be in the J-school. I was denied entry because my TWSE score was one point under the requirement at the time. An Assistant Dean, at the school when I was there, refused to give me the appeal paperwork saying I would never make it through the school. After I sat outside his office for 5 hours he relented and gave me the form. He preceeded to tell me that he was one voice on the committee and he would make sure I did not get in. I had never met him and to this day do not know what his problem was. I applied and was accepted. I finished with a 3.2 (a B) GPA. Now I am in the business. What I did not know for my entire time at Maryland is how I got past that Assistant Dean. As I walked across the stage to get my diploma, I shook Dean Cleghorn’s hand. I had never met him. He pulled me in and said, “I have been watching your progress closely, Edward.” I will never forget that moment. It dawned on me that Dean Cleghorn’s influence got me into the College of Journalism three years earlier. My degree opened doors to allow me to succeed. It never would have happened without him. He was a great man. He ran a great school. He offered a complete stranger a chance to get the one of the best Journalism educations in the nation: A kid that he had no reason to help. Thank you Dean Cleghorn. You will be missed.
I can’t imagine Reese not being here in the same way I can’t imagine Abe Lincoln not sitting in his marble chair at the saner end of the mall. He was simply the guy who always knew what to do; I’m not much of a follower but after a while I found myself almost automatically following his lead.
More than that, I think of him as the last Southern Gentleman. God knows he looked the part but he also had a way of wielding hard power with a soft hand — something I tried to learn from him but I found that very difficult. Maybe a little bit of that rubbed off on me; I hope so.
But, like all of you, I did learn a great deal from Reese. You couldn’t not. He was a natural teacher.
I remember one night he and Cheree came to our house for dinner. We had a new standard poodle puppy, about five months old, and . . . it wouldn’t bark. We wanted a watchdog, and so this was a problem. Suddenly Reese was going to solve this problem for us. He jumped up and walked to the middle of the room, where the puppy was sitting at attention.
Now, puppies want to please but you’ve gotta communicate what you want them to do.
Reese stood up straight, put a serious expression on his face, and said, “Woof.”
Charlie looked him, perked his ears and cocked his head. You could see clearly what he was thinking: _Say what?_
Reese lowered his voice and tried again. “Woof.
I sat there and considered what I was seeing: a man of infinite power standing in the middle of my parlor determined to teach a dog to be a dog. He couldn’t leave a student — hell, even a puppy — untaught.
This was a hard case, though. Reese finally sat down and we had the sorts of conversations people usually have and then ate a badly undercooked turkey. But I watched him, and I could tell. I’d see him look over at the puppy, then come back to the turkey, brows furrowed.
“Wolf,” he’d say. “WOLF”
Charlie watched in a respectful way but he had to wonder why people were showing such deference to this guy who ran around saying “Wolf” and yet had probably never so much as chased a squirrel in his life.
Reese refused to give up. He tried it different ways, and when the latest way of saying “wolf” didn’t get the desired response, he thought of a new say to say it. His last word, as we parted in the doorway, was a particularly emphatic “wolf.”
You could almost see the steam coming out of Reese’s ears. He didn’t like to fail. He didn’t like to fail with students. He didn’t even like to fail with puppy dogs. I’m sure he obsessed about it for days.
And that is how I prefer to remember him, a man with uncompromising intellect courage and ethics, dressed in just the right suit, white hair full on his head, standing in my living room inventing two thousand ways to say “wolf” to a small black puppy.
He was a man for all seasons, and we will all suffer for his absence.
– jon
Reese can be credited with part of the growth of journalism education at Western Kentucky University. He was the first dean whose counsel I sought before reporting to Bowling Green as new head of the WKU Department of Journalism that eventually morphed into the School of Journalism & Broadcasting. I spent most of a day with him at UMd getting his adivce on what he would and wouldn’t do in my place.
Later I enjoyed our association (and continued getting his advice) in journalism education groups and on the William Randolph Hearst Intercolloegiate Journalism Competition advisory committee. — Jo-Ann Huff Albers 3/21/09
Reese brought me to the College as Eaton Chair–an endowed chair he sought and created, the first of its kind in the nation. That’s what he was–an original. He supported my work, sought my counsel, and gave me room. For that I am ever grateful. And this past year, my term as Interim Dean, I had no greater compliment than his thanks to me for the “great job” was doing. Words from a master.
I took Dean Cleghorn’s editorial class my senior year at Maryland. It was great.
I especially liked it when he brought in some of his own work for us to use as examples. That guy had “it” in spades, and his love of language came through in every article he pounded out on a typewriter. I had an entire conversation with him about the word “canoodling.” I still have some of the material he gave our class and I have held on to pieces I wrote for him that he said I should be proud of. Cheers Reese! 
(Lauren, Class of 2005)
I am very sorry to hear of Reese’s death. It doesn’t seem fair that he is no longer in the world with us.
These wonderful tributes are such a testament to his talent, integrity, intelligence, and wisdom. Even though I hadn’t seen him in years, I thought of him often and with affection. He was the epitome of what a good journalist should be, and he instilled those qualities in all who worked with him, even though we knew we would never reach such exalted status. We tried and he was grateful for that.
My deepest sympathy to Cheree and his children.
Michelle K. Smith
Not just Maryland but all of professional journalism stands on the shoulders of Reese and his outstanding colleagues.
Reese was the one person who could and did interest me in getting involved in his dream for the Journalism School at U of Md.I remember well his desire and determination to bring a Broadcast element to the curiculum. With the help of Lee Thorton Reeese succeeded and I will always be grateful for his efforts. Reese, you will be sorely missed by many.
Jerry Hroblak
A lot of what I know I have learned from the papers. Tho I also learned a lot about Reese from these tributes. He was a fine journalist, teacher, dean, friend. I’d like to add he was a good friend of the library. He was not shy about helping me spend my book budget. And making sure we had the “most useful” journals. And if not, supplying his own copies to add to the collection. I’ll miss him too.
Reese Cleghorn was indeed legendary–as a dean, as a journalist, as a teacher and mentor. I only came to Maryland two years ago, so I did not have the benefit that some others enjoyed, of a long and enduring friendship with Reese. But his intelligence and wisdom, as well as his Southern courtesy and profound “goodness” immediately struck me.
What also struck me was his dry wit. He really had a sense of humor. I even saved some of his funny emails, including his suggestions for a new name for the Medill School at Northwestern, occasioned by the dean’s suggestion there that Medill change its name to the School for Integrated Marketing.
here were Reese’s suggestions, and I quote:
“…the New Integrated Medill Institute of Citizen and Professional Journalism, Seesaw Marketing, Bipolar Communications, Quicksand Eugenics, Reggae Swing and Occasional Futuristics.
I do like School of iPods, Blackberries and Other Gadgets.
Or, just to keep some tradition in it while being contemporary, futuristic and inclusive, Medill’s Ye Olde Preparatory Institute of Casuistics (good ole MYOPIC) . Maybe the New Medill Institute of ‘sappenin’ Soon. (“New Miss”)
Midwestern University’s Medill Business Occilations, Journalism Undulations, Marketing Biocybernetics and Overreactions. (Good ole . . . well, you get it.)
I’m sorry for our good friends there. Maybe we’ll have some openings.”
I took his commentary and editorial writing class in Fall 2005. He made us laugh, kept us on our toes and taught us how to “turn a good phrase.” There was much wisdom woven into every class. He made us smarter reporters and better thinkers.
I’ve kept the large binder of editorials and articles he gave us. It has his autograph scrawled across the first page — a great memento from a great teacher. I will certainly miss Dean Cleghorn.
Sorry to be late to this string of tributes—it’s clear that Reese, like George Bailey, had a tremendously positive impact on so many lives. I had the pleasure of knowing Reese as a both a graduate assistant (’83-’86) and an employee of the College (’88-’90). He was a dedicated teacher, a caring mentor—and a Newspaperman right down to his socks. My life would have turned out much differently without Reese and his love of Journalism and higher education. Not a week goes by that I don’t hear one of his stories in my head or his voice gently telling me fix that layout, tighten my copy or “check it out.” We’ll miss you Reese—Godspeed…
My deepest condolences and prayers for the Cleghorn family.
Professor Cleghorn brought warmth and a desperately needed humor to journalism students’ lives. I will never forget his passion for journalism and faith in the human spirit. We will all miss this great master of a teacher.
I try to think of words to say to express my sorrow of knowing he’s gone… but nothing can come to mind.
I did not become acquianted with Reese through being a student at UMD; no, instead, I was introduced to him by the chance I had come with my mother to work. I was a grade-schooler; it goes without saying then that Reese always seemed so tall to me. And his office was so big and stately, I always felt out of place coming in, me most likely dressed in a tee and jeans. But seeing Reese made my uneasiness go away, and when he said hello with that big grandfatherly-esque smile, I felt like I belonged.
I began to think of him fondly as Uncle Reese.
Uncle Reese was a man I must’ve seen in person only maybe a dozen or so times, which looking back on it now were very good times, but also makes me extremely sad knowing that I can’t spend more time with him. True to his teaching nature, he taught me things, and almost none of it dealt with journalism. I take that as a sign of how well-rounded he was; he could apply his techniques of teaching to any area.
In an attempt to distract myself from being too melancholy, I am reminded of the time he sent me a large pack of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups for Christmas. I knew who gave them to me even before I opened the card. I also loved his scrawly handwriting.
I miss you Uncle Reese. I’m sorry I never got around to try and talk or write. Please forgive me for not saying goodbye.
If it’s not too much to ask, like you have in the past, will you continue to watch over me in the future?
I’ll do my best to make you proud, Uncle Reese. Always and again, I’ll do my best, knowing you’ll be looking out for me too. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to thank you enough for everything you’ve done. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And goodbye.
Thanks, Reese, for your support and for your smile. It was a pleasure working with you. You are missed.
I had the privilege of taking Reese’s editorial writing class in my senior year. The hours sitting around the table in the conference room during class were some of my favorite in my whole J-school experience. I remember when he returned our first assignment with our “new” names written on them. He said the names he gave us would make us sound more like journalists. I can’t remember what name he gave to anyone else, but I remember laughing when he said he had never, in all his years of teaching, not had to change someone’s name, until he met me. I’ll cherish the memories and lessons, always.