Four universities to receive visiting biz journalism professors

Journalism programs at Colorado State University, Grambling State University, Texas Christian University and the University of South Carolina will be the first schools to receive visiting business journalism professors next spring under a $1.67 million grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation.

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.

“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.”

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.

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.

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