Reynolds Foundation gives more money to W&L biz journalism program

The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation has awarded a five-year, $1.5 million grant to Washington and Lee University to support the teaching of business journalism and legal reporting.

The grant brings to more than $5.5 million the Reynolds Foundation’s total investment in W&L’s Department of Journalism and Mass Communications during the past 10 years.

The grant complements the work of Pamela K. Luecke, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning former newspaper editor who holds the Donald W. Reynolds Professorship in Business Journalism at the university. It will allow W&L to fund up to seven student internships each summer and to attract accomplished business journalists and high-level news executives to its campus for visits of up to a term.

The grant also will make it possible for Washington and Lee students to go on field trips, attend business-journalism conferences, and take advantage of other opportunities to connect with the profession.

The Reynolds Foundation’s first gift to W&L endowed the professorship held by Luecke, who joined the faculty in 2001 after a 25-year career with newspapers in Connecticut and Kentucky. In 2004 and again in 2007, the foundation augmented its original grant with three-year awards of $450,000.

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