let's go back and talk about the genesis of the Cronkite name and where
that started, how we got it. Okay, well, you know, there there there. And
as we age, all of our memories get a little fuzzier. I think I have a
reasonably vivid recall of this. And even though there, there might be
many different versions floating around out there. But the genesis of this
really was when a group of downtown uh media professionals and executives
got together, uh it must have been about 1981 or two. Or they started
thinking about it and informed and actually incorporated the Cronkite
Endowment board of trustees. And these were people, you know, at the time
, it hadn't been named, it was eventually was named that and thus the
Cronkite type. But they wanted to form an endowment. Yeah, thank you for
that clarification don They wanted to form an endowment to raise money. Uh
, modest aspirations at the time. But keep in mind that fundraising was at
an embryonic stage. Virtually all public universities in America at that
time. So this was really an early foray into that. And this group of
downtown professionals saw potential in what was then the Department of
Mass Communication. And
they were interested in raising money or trying to raise money that would
help the program with private resources, achieve its potential beyond that
, which it otherwise might be able to. That was department leadership
involved in that at that time. It wasn't, it wasn't involved at that time
. I don't think that, I mean, L Dean would have gone to those meetings,
I'm sure. But but but but it's really the power came from that group,
Downtown and Bill show over who was the vice? Uh he was the Director of
Public Affairs at the Arizona Republic. And there for, you know, at least
three decades was was one of the main players. They're always behind the
scenes. There were other media leaders on that. Obviously Eldeen
represented the school very, very well, or the department very, very well
within that group and someone among the group. But one of those meetings
that wouldn't it be wonderful if we had the name a name to put on the
Endowment, the endowment board. And so they started kicking around some
names of journalists and keep in mind there were a few schools of
journalism around the country that had names on them at that time. The
William Allen White School of Journalism at Kansas, the Medill School of
Journalism at Northwestern and and a few others. So, and so they came up
with some names, and walter Cronkite's name was among them. And Bill Show
over suggested that Tom chauncey make the call to Mr Cronkite to see if he
would allow his name to be affixed to the Endowment board. And the reason
that he asked tom chauncey to do that was that chauncey had been a
longtime friend of walter Cronkite's now by that time, you know, thousands
of people would have said they were friends with walter Cronkite and
probably thousands of them were, but
uh tom chauncey really was, and it was primarily for this reason, I think
uh tom chancy and Gene Autry were the founding owners of Channel 10, which
was then a CBS affiliate back in, I think it was 1951 and by the Middle
1960s, Tom Chauncey, but you know, who, you know, round the station owned
the station uh was the president of the CBS board of affiliates, which
would carry some cash. And it was the middle of 1960s. And about that time
, uh some major advertisers were putting pressure on CBS corporate as well
as some of the affiliates for what they perceived to be the increasingly
liberal tilt of the news division, including the CBS Evening news with
walter Cronkite as as the Vietnam war coverage was was was was picking up
during that period. And tom chauncey, the businessman, Tom chauncey was
not a journalist. Tom chauncey, the businessman. Nevertheless, as that
pressure came to bear made it clear, and I've heard Mr Cronkite tell this
story many times made it clear that the news division was to remain
independent reporting without fear or favor and is immune from this type
of external pressure as possible. And I I heard walter on more than one
occasion say that Tom chauncey almost single handedly made that clear uh
to the to the board of affiliates as well as as corporate, so they really
were friends. So, anyhow, Tom chauncey makes the call to walter asked him
if he would and walter would have only relatively recently, uh, stepped
down as The, as the anchor of the CBS evening news with Walter Cronkite. I
mean, he signed off in March of 1981 at age 65, so he was still very, very
much in his prime and by then it would have been in his late 60s, I guess.
And but he asked, he asked Mr chauncey, well, what do I have to do? And
chauncey said, nothing would just like to have you put your name, That
might be an oversimplification. But that, that was the story I got from
those guys. Uh, we'd like to put your name on the endowment board said,
great. The board considered that and someone, and I don't know that I ever
knew or if anybody even remembers said boy, if he's willing to put his
name on the endowment board, I wonder if he would be willing to put his
name on the unit. And I really don't know how this happened, what the,
what the, who the parties were in the room. But, but going to, uh, I think
Russ what nelson would have been here as president by then. And what were
the odds of elevating this program from a department to a school and doing
so if Mr Cronkite would be willing to affix his name to the school and the
green light was given on that. And so uh Mr chauncey called Mr Cronkite
back and said thanks for saying yes to being on the endowment, your name
on the endowment board. But if the university were to elevate the program
from the department to a school and believe me it was a name only. I
always used to say even though we got great support here, but we have the
resources of the department, the status of the school and the expectations
of a college. And we always we always tried very hard to live up to that.
But anyhow, uh walter said, well let me think about that. But got back to
Mr chauncey pretty quickly and said indeed he would be uh willing to have
his name affixed to the school with the caveat that he would always want
journalism to be part of the name of the of the program. And
The rest as they say is history and the region's approved it in 1984. And
the first Cronkite luncheon was held in the fall of 1984. But the answer
that I heard walter give many times when I posed that question why a. S. U.
Because walter Cronkite was not a college graduate. He had gone to the uh
studied at the University of Texas at Austin for two years and then went
to work for United Press covered World War Two came back already a
nationally prominent journalist. So what's he gonna do? Go back for two
years during his baccalaureate degree. So, you know, so he obviously his
ascension really began at that time. Uh he did have lots of friends in
texas, but when posed the question why Arizona State, he would always have
this little pregnant pause and then he would say Arizona State was the
first to ask. So the answer to the question is, Arizona State was the
first to ask. And tom chauncey made the ask pretty much that simple.
Now, when did you come in as as chair at that time in this chronology?
Well, by then, so when it became a school then, Elden was made the
director of the school And that would have been in 1984. And L. Dean's
last decided to go back to the faculty during the 1980s or prior to the
1986,
school year. And uh and so the school kicked off the national search that
I that I mentioned earlier. And So my appointment was effective on July
one
1987
and L Dean couldn't have been more supportive. I remember going in and
saying, you know what, when there are certain things do and everything,
you know, you just so supportive and and probably, you know, a little bit
relieved to know that he'd done a terrific job and he was gonna get he
would just go back to the faculty and but but there were some challenges
then, and Uh the national accreditation team had come in here in the,
during the 1986, school year. And uh, and recommended uh, provisional re
accreditation for the Cronkite school. There were 12 accrediting standards.
And as I will and you would either be found in compliance or
noncompliance on each of the 12 standards. And then there would be a
recommendation made by the site visit team. And that recommendation would
go forward to the national accrediting committee and then it's
recommendation along with that of the site team, would go forward to the
National Accrediting Council that would meet in May. The committee always
met in March. The council met in May and the job of the committee. And the
council was obviously to consider the recommendations by all of the site
teams who had made all of the visits to the, you know, the 15 or 20
programs in that year that would have been under review. There were about
100 accredited programs at the time. So In any given year, 15-20 would be
evaluated. We were on and remain on six year review cycles. And so found
in non compliance on either three or maybe four of the standards and
all the while knowing many of the strengths of the program, but almost all
, not all, not, almost all of the shortcomings really could be traced to
the level of resources and, and, and I say that and I've been active in
the accrediting process in our field since 1990 a quarter of a century.
And that body has always, and we continue to pride ourselves and, and
linda would know how different bodies would come in and look at different
professional programs. This body has never been prescriptive and it never
ever would come in and hold a program hostage. You know, they need, you
know, 17 more books in the library and 92 more square feet of office space
and so on. It's not that kind of group, but but the program was was so
under resourced at the time that, you know, that's why it's just amazing
that El Deen held things together so well during those, during that, that
early period of time. And
and the standards were just about what you would expect. Mission
governance, administration curriculum, full time faculty, part time
faculty uh scholarship student services, academic advising and so on. Uh
public service, both externally and internally. Uh just just about what
you would expect. And so we we we certainly had problems with two or three
of those standards, primarily the size of the faculty at the time. We must
have had eight or 900 students and still had 14 full time faculty members.
And so uh that was the recommendation of the site team. And uh that was
also the recommendation of the national committee and when the council met
in early May, that was its decision and provisional, there are three
things that can happen in the accrediting process full re accreditation,
which means you go merrily about your way until you are reviewed six years
later. Provisional accreditation, which means that the program has
substantial strengths but it has certain specified deficiencies that are
serious enough that it does not warrant a full re accreditation, but those
deficiencies can be addressed in a one year period now, it's two years,
but back then it was one year and the third possibility of course is
denial of accreditation. And uh so this was a provisional and we had a
year to fix things and uh ah you can either hang your head at that or or
look at that as as an opportunity. And uh I can uh it must have been in
june Uh it was before I officially started on July one and I regard this.
It's one of you have probably been, you know, some turning points in the
evolution of the program over the years. This certainly was one of them.
And except for the naming, maybe the most important one, at least for that
period of time I was summoned to a meeting and Russ nelson's office,
probably the first time I've ever maybe had been there before. But I think
probably the first time I'd ever been in the President's office and there
were two central administrators at that meeting and nick Henry as the Dean
of the College of Public programs And rest. So I'm 39 years old in, in the
office for one of my first times, uh, great respect and uh, envy of the,
the background knowledge of all of the people in the room with the
exception probably of me and Russ just sort of said, ok, we've got this
provisional ah accreditation that we're going to have to deal with from
the accrediting body, you know, ideas anyone. And one of the central
administrators said, why do we need to be accredited? Were the Cronkite
school?
My heart beat even faster at that than it did when the dean asked me, why
would this place want to hire someone like you and, and then someone else
sort of chimed in on that. Yeah, why, why do we need to be nationally
accredited? We are the Cronkite school. Well, we were in name and uh, but
uh, and, and so this went on and I have, having been raised in that small
town in Nebraska, you know, you speak when spoken to and at a certain
point in this conversation, Russ just looked at me and said, doug, what do
you think? And I said, I'm sure I said something like, well, you know, I
respect all the opinions that have been articulated here, but I think
these are all very doable things and quite frankly that's not gonna help
our standing. I mean, do you want to be on the list with Northwestern in
north Carolina in Nebraska and Columbia or do you want to be on the list
with Montana State and North Dakota State and uh, no matter what names on
your school. And then he says, well, what do you think that would take to
address these things? And I said, and I had, I had looked at all of the
things and I said, you know, we can deal with all of these things. And you
know, I've never been a negotiator and my daughters tell me that if
someone says, you know, I'll give you, you know, $50 for, for that, that
book, I'll say, well, you know what, why don't you just give me 25. So I'm
not much of a negotiator, but I said, you know, we really are. You know,
if you apply any metric, you know, I doubt if there's any program at this
university with 800 majors and 14 faculty members and you know, there are
some, some things that, uh, and we'll be good stewards of anything that,
that you can provide for us. And uh, and Russ said, we'll do it. And that
was the end of the meeting. And uh, and nick couldn't have been better.
And I was so far down on the totem pole at that time. I don't know where
the money would have come from. Uh, some combination I presume of, of a
university Add on and, and some reshuffling within the college of public
programs? I honestly don't know that it doesn't matter. What I do know is
that our budget was increased almost 50% and it was very, very small to
begin with. It just peanuts in the total scheme of the university. But
just think of that. I think it's 49%. It was almost a 50% budget increase
uh which enabled us to hire five new full time faculty members. We were we
were we were equipment intensive program even then as roger wouldn't, I
mean, we have the broadcasting component. Uh, I mean, we weren't the
philosophy department, we needed equipment, we needed operating dollars
and we needed more faculty to get things done and And the money came in
one lump sum. And so I said, well we can we can't hire five really good
people in one year given our size and and bring them into the culture of
the program and so on. Will we have the flexibility of hiring over a 23 or
four year period? The answer to that was yes. And so we lived off of the
salary savings in years 12 and three as we eventually ramped up the
faculty. And and of course, don you you were in that that that cohort of
Of five people, you were probably the second or third one hired as I
recall within, within that ramp up. And even then when you're going from a
faculty of about 15 to about 20. You know, that's a, you know, you've
increased the size of your faculty of third. So you have to be very
conscious of of those cultural adaptations of the new people as well as
the faculty members who were there to, to, to maintain and even enhance
what had always been, in my opinion, a very good Asprey decor. And so we
made some terrific hires with those positions. We were able to ramp up our
uh, operating uh, budget made equipment purchases that had been beyond our
wildest dreams. And uh, and, and we were really set to go And I started on
July one and within the first three or four days I flew to the University
of Illinois to meet with Jim Carey. the late Jim Carey now who was the
Dean of the College of Communications. They're one of the preeminent names
in our field, certainly at that time and remains so today. And because he
had chaired the visit here and had taken some heat from people who said,
you know, in, in the central administration, how dare you put the croc
guide school on provisional re accreditation. And I outlined to Jim what
we were gonna do. And he said, boy, that that sounds like a plan. And he
came back the next, the next spring and the accrediting Council gave us
full re accreditation along with way to go. I don't think we've ever seen
such a dramatic turnaround and such an infusion of resources and such a
plan for the future of anyone coming off a provisional accreditation. But
I give Russ nelson full credit for sitting there and just calmly saying,
we'll do it.
You talk about the esprit decor
as a faculty member. I can tell you that that was always wonderful under
your administration. How did you do that besides eating lunch with all of
us every day? Well, dumb luck probably and uh, but but it really didn't
have much to do with me. I'm sure it had to do with with the people who
were assembled. And I think it if you'll recall don, I mean our, our
mantra, my mantra always want, we want to reward people and appreciate
people and do right by people for what they do, not for what they don't do.
And we're a collection of individuals with different areas of expertise
and we can't just keep cloning ourselves or we're going to do a disservice
to our students. You could have the nine best center fielders on the
planet and not have a very good baseball team and not win very many games.
If you don't have people that can play all of the positions. And I think
we were always very strategic about filling positions in ways that
strengthen the program. We maintain that balance between academics and
professionals and I think it served us very, very well, particularly in
those in those early days. And uh, the student body was getting stronger
and uh, but I know I was blessed with with, with, with, with the faculty
that wanted to get along
and largely always had and when I went to Penn State In 1999, after my 20
years here and when there is dean of the College of Communications. And I
can remember in my, my first year, you know, outlined and you know, the
blueprint for the future and all of that. And
Uh, you know, you're trying to read people and it was a much bigger place.
We had about 30 were the largest program in the country at Penn State,
about 3000 students in the College of Communications. And we grew the
faculty to more than 70 and a large staff and so on. But in that first
year, I, I had a faculty member dawned, I'm a slow learner. It was about
January or February and uh, and the place, it wasn't known for his morale
quite frankly before my arrival there. And so we knew we had to address
those things without making it look like you're addressing them right or
that's phony on the surface. And so this very well meaning 10 times
smarter than I articulate tenure track assistant professor came into my
office and he said something like several of us were talking. What did you
mean at the faculty meeting when you said x, I don't even remember what it
was. And I told this story many times at Penn State. And it was literally
one of those questions like, what did you mean when you said it's thirsty
? And I said, well, I meant it's thursday, How could you take that any
other way? But when you've been part of a culture where there might have
been multiple meanings, when somebody stood up before you and said, it's
thursday as to what do they really mean by that? So, in that sense, uh, of
all of the things that I was well prepared to do, I think when I went to
Penn State, one that I had always taken for granted here, and maybe it was
because I had grown up here and had gone through the ranks here and you
knew people and people knew you. And so, but I I think that, you know, it
was it was a relatively, As they say, simpler time though, it probably
wasn't, we always have these romantic recollections of simpler times when
they weren't all that simple at the time. But it was, it was a really
gifted bunch of people who really put us on the national map for any
number of things back in the 1990s. And I think when you're on a roll and
you're feeling good about yourselves, it's good to have, it's quite
natural to have a strong esprit decor. One of the things that I remember
that as a new faculty member that I really appreciated was the financial
support for things like travel and research and creative activities. And
then we had that little unique office in the College of public programs
for publications assistance,
Janet super typed a lot of manuscripts for all of us over there, didn't
she? She sure did. I mean that was so phenomenal to have wonderful support
for college of public programs. Give her a paper and the next day you'd
have it back and it'll be all red pen. Yeah, she fixed him to type them
and fix them.
Yeah,
No, I want to, I want to go back to the 90s a little bit because we, as we
look at this progression. So in a relatively short period we went from
being this close to
being on the precipice literally for re accreditation and uh, this by 1990
you know, most of the new faculty hires had been made, the students were
getting better. The student newspaper was really very strong at the time
fritz. Lee had come here in 1979. Also put put the A. M. Radio station on
the air, had a good working relationship with, with Channel eight uh, made
use of engineering expertise there and of course we're, we were connected
by a breezeway. So a lot of things were coming together uh, that that
meant that, you know, if we, if we were smart about this, we could do some
good things and uh, probably in terms of national recognition. The turning
point, A real tipping point came in 1990 when, when the Cronkite school
won the William, Randolph hearst foundations Journalism awards program,
Intercollegiate National Writing Championship. A competition often called
the pulitzers of college journalism that had been around founded by uh,
Randolph a hearst in 1960
we won uh, we wanted 100 and the 100 or so accredited programs eligible to
compete. We finished first. I knew we were going to finish in the top five
or I was relatively confident. But as the, as the final competitions of
the year came in and the headline was we wanted The sub headline. And
almost as important to me was that northwestern had finished second and
Missouri had finished third two blue bloods that had been around for
decades. And not only were we now on the same list, we were at least that
year on the top of the list. And the next year in 1991 we want in
broadcasting for which you would have been instrumental.
Yeah. And and the south winds. Uh weekly television student newscast that
you put on the air And then we want in writing again in 92. We wanted
broadcasting again in the Middle 90s and won the overall in 94 and 96. It
just uh, a wonderful period of success is out of nowhere. And that was
because of the quality of the students. It was because the faculty was
getting stronger. Uh, we also, you talked about this travel support for
faculty and other support within the program. Uh lots of faculty members
were, were making their presence felt at presenting papers at academic
conferences around the country, writing articles, writing books and uh you
might not even remember this. None. But the only time that U. S. News and
World Report has ever ranked journalism mass communication programs with
1996. You know, they've been doing this for a long time. And but the only
year that journalism mass communication programs were ranked by US News
and World Report was in 1996 and
are Broadcast Journalism. Broadcast Program was in a tie for 7th with
Colombia.
Print program was 14th And there were only nine or 10 Programs to make the
top 15 in both broadcast and print. And and we were one of them by far the
highest ranked ranked programs at the university. And uh we didn't do much
marketing in those days. I don't even recall getting a call from anybody
about it, nor did we send a press release out about it. And You know, and
and you know, and and of course universities will will trumpet when
somebody moves up to 40 seconds in this day and age. But that was very
interesting in 1996, tied for seventh with that was like having Missouri
and northwestern be right behind you and hearst tied for seventh with
Columbia and then doing very well and writing also and uh and and those
were largely reputational, There were certain metrics involved, but that
was a combination of students doing so well and faculty members like you
being out and about and having a major presence at meetings and leadership
creating the environment in which that could happen. Well. It was easy to
do in this sense because everybody wanted to do it very seldom had to sell
anybody on anything if it sounded if it sounded good in those days.
So 25 years later, what's the future of journalism?
Well, I mean it's a very uh, and that's one thing about what I think that
you know what the, the walter Cronkite schools evolution over now. Almost
a 30 year period from the time, 31 years, I guess in the time of the
naming has always managed I think to stay ahead of the curve and it
continues to stay ahead of the curve in a, in a building that that has to
be the best building of its kind. Uh for any journalism mass communication
school in America. A growing faculty, a strong student body, So very
active. Uh it's, it was strong, strong energetic leadership, a wonderfully
much larger faculty and it will continue in the years ahead to stay ahead
of the curve. The scary thing today is, we don't know as much as about
what's around the curve as we, as we might have 15 years ago or 25 years
ago.
So what advice would you give the young student and the young faculty
aspiring to teach journalism? Well, I I uh I I still it depends on who's
asking the student and uh what what I would tell students and I would tell
them that at Arizona state is what I told the Penn state until I was blue
in the face. And I honestly meant speaking of these changes at Penn state
, we would have these uh spend the summer day sessions where high school
ah uh prospective students would come in with their parents and we would
have, you know, more than 1000 students just interested in are various
communications program. Uh in the summertime we'd have about 2500 students
apply uh for freshman spots just in the College of communications. And and
we would usually end up with an entering class of around you know, six or
700 I guess. But ah
go to a place
that feels right, it's all about fit because if you look at the nationally
accredited programs in our field, there's there's not a whole lot
different about the core curriculum, Writing, editing, production, law
ethics,
part of history, history and uh you and then the technique courses and
that that all important balance and if you earn a degree in some area of
mass communication, whether that's journalism, advertising, public
relations, media studies, Telecommunications,
online journalism, Photojournalism. If you go to work in one of those
fields, you're going to be very, very well prepared for it
and if you decide to do something else,
you become an entrepreneur, you become a researcher, you become an analyst
or you go back and run your father's dry cleaning business that you'd
always planned to do. If you had a major in an area of mass communication
where you learn to write, you learn to communicate, you valued law, you
valued history, you valued ethics and keep in mind, you take two thirds of
your hours in general education outside of that professional nature,
you're about as well prepared as anybody coming out of the university
today to do all sorts of things. So I think it's a great liberal arts
major and of course it's a great professional major and uh right now, I
mean obviously it's all about digital. Uh but the best programs haven't
lost sight of those fundamental concepts of writing and editing and
production and the conceptual foundations and law and history and ethics
to go with the ever evolving technique courses and what should the new
professor. Mhm. Well as they come in all shapes and sizes and uh we were
so blessed, I can speak just speaking more about 10 state at this point
because that's been my most recent ex experience for 15 years and uh I
used to say point and in our college of communications that we
departmental eyes when I got there. So we had departments of Journalism,
department of ad pr department of Telecommunications, in the department of
Media Studies and film video. And
the difference Between a 28 year old assistant professor of film with an M.
F. A. Degree and a professor of practice In journalism who spent the last
25 years as the managing editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer. And during
his tenure, the Enquirer 1 18 Pulitzer prizes. There's a grand canyon of
difference between the backgrounds and the personalities of those two
professors.
But the film students need this young man and the journalism students can
profit from this man and all of the others that enter this mix. And the
key is to have the academics and the professionals respect one another,
understand one another build off of one another strengths and know at the
end of the day, the students will be best served if you can do that. So,
uh the, you know, the assistant professor of film was going to have to be
working on projects whether they're documentaries or experimental and and
presenting them at festivals. A new assistant professor tenure track in
journalism interested in media law or media history needs to be active in
uh, in those respective divisions of A E. J. M. C. Or in the West Coast
Journalism historians association or the broadcast Education Association.
And everybody can't do all of those things. And if you if that mosaic is
present in the faculty that you put together, then you've really got a
winning combination.