Fellows Selected for Inaugural Business Journalism Program

The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism is designating 15 educators from major universities as fellows for its inaugural Business Journalism Professor Seminar. The Reynolds Fellows will spend a week in a training program conducted by top business journalism professors and business journalists to be held at Arizona State University in early January. The intent is that they teach business journalism courses upon their return to their universities. “Business journalism is a crucial field of coverage that requires much greater emphasis at the university level,” said Andrew Leckey, director of the Reynolds Center. “These quality professors and their universities should be commended for showing a strong commitment to offering such coursework in the future.” U.S. fellows are: Len Barcousky of University of Pittsburgh; Steve Crane of University of Maryland; Dr. Anita Fleming-Rife of Grambling State University; Dennis Herrick of University of New Mexico; Harold Higgins of University of Minnesota; John Irby of Washington State University; Dr. Ed Lenert of University of Nevada-Reno; Bill McWhirter of Michigan State University; Joe Moore of University of Central Missouri; Mark Morrison of University of Texas at Austin; Dr. Thomas Ruggiero of University of Texas at El Paso; Timothy Smith of Kent State University; and Chris Warden of Troy University. International fellows are: Thalyta Swanepoel of North-West University in South Africa and Dr. Xu Xiaoge of Nanyang Technological University of Singapore. More than 4,600 working journalists have taken part in daylong business journalism workshops and online seminars of the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism since its inception in 2003. Headquartered at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, it also runs the BusinessJournalism.org Web site, provides internships and presents awards in the field. The center is funded by the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, a national philanthropic organization founded in 1954 by the late media entrepreneur for whom it is named. Headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada, it is one of the largest private foundations in the United States. The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism is a leading professional journalism school with 1,700 undergraduate and master’s students.