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Kunkel will receive $10,000 and the Charles E. Scripps award. The College will also receive a $5,000 grant. The award is given in cooperation with the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, the Knight Foundation and the Freedom Forum. This is the second time the College has won this award in recent years. Former Dean Reese Cleghorn was honored in 1995.
"Talk about a well-deserved award. Tom Kunkel has all the pieces of the puzzle. He's a gifted journalist, an accomplished author, a committed educator, a talented manager and a man of vision," said Rem Rieder, editor and senior vice president of American Journalism Review. "Tom has taken a wonderful journalism school built by his predecessor, Reese Cleghorn, and made it even better."
Kunkel was appointed dean in 2000 after serving as director of the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism, and as editor and director of the Project on the State of the American Newspaper. As a writer and editor, Kunkel has spent most of his career in newspaper management. He has worked for the Miami Herald, The New York Times, San Jose Mercury News, the Cincinnati Post, and he was editor and publisher of Arizona Trend magazine. When he was named executive editor of Knight-Ridder's Columbus (Ga.) Ledger-Enquirer, he was, at age 29, the youngest top editor in company history. He has written or edited five books, including "Genius in Disguise: Harold Ross of The New Yorker."
"He is an administrator of uncommon leadership, scholarship, breadth and vision," wrote Gene Roberts, former editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer and now a professor at the College, in his nomination letter. "He has forged extraordinary links with newspapers and television stations across the country, raised admission standards at the College to what may be the highest in the country for would-be journalists...[He] is beloved by faculty and students and might be easily mistaken in the hallways of our journalism building as Superman."
"Clearly, Tom is a gifted educator and administrator," said Chris Frates '02, now statehouse reporter for The Denver Post. "But at his core, he is simply a hell of a journalist. He has brought the values of the newsroom—namely challenging the status quo and a drive to make things better—to the journalism school and its students. Tom's office, far from an ivory tower, was always open to me as a student and still is today. I'm proud to call Tom a mentor and, more importantly, a friend."
Senior Rohina Phadnis agreed: "Students appreciate the fact that he's so approachable. It's great to learn from someone who has such extensive experience in the journalism field and is willing to share it with students in a down-to-earth manner."
Kunkel will be honored at a black-tie gala on April 21 at the National Press Club along with the other National Journalism Awards winners. The awards, open to all U.S. news organizations and college journalism educators, recognize excellence in 17 categories, including editorial writing, human interest writing, environment, investigative, business/economics, Washington and public service reporting, commentary, photojournalism, radio and television reporting, Web reporting, college cartooning, editorial cartooning and journalism education.
For more information contact: Matthew C. Sheehan at 301.405.8320.