Journalism loses director to NWU

Annenberg: Ghiglioni leaves USC to become Dean of Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism

By ROBB FERRIS
Staff Writer

Dr. Loren Ghiglioni, director of the Annenberg School of Journalism, has been appointed dean of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, both schools announced Thursday.
Ghiglioni will continue as director of USC's journalism school until the end of the academic year, ending his two-year career at USC.
"For me, this will be a great opportunity as well as a great challenge." Ghiglioni said. "I have never been a dean before."
The dean of the Annenberg School for Communication is Geoffrey Cowan. Ghiglioni is the director of the School of Journalism, under the Annenberg banner; Patricia Riley is the director of the School of Communications, also under Annenberg.
Students at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern are excited to see Dr. Ghiglioni take the position of dean.
"It looks like Mr. Ghiglioni has a strong background, which is exciting for a lot of us," said Corey Newton, a junior majoring in print journalism at Northwestern. "It's fortunate that we have a dean as accomplished as Dr. Ghiglioni, and for those of us that are print journalism majors, his extensive background in print is exciting."
"We're hoping, seeing Dr. Ghiglioni's work in print, that he will devote more attention to the print journalism programs here," Newton said.
Although Ghiglioni says he does have ideas that he would like to bring to Northwestern, at first he wants to develop an understanding of the school and what it has to offer.
"I would like to begin my term by listening to and learning from the faculty, staff and students," Ghiglioni said. "They are the school and I can learn a lot just by paying attention to them."
For the future, Ghiglioni is interested in pursuing a number of different avenues within the Medill School.
"I am interested in the already strong emphasis placed on international journalism and specialized journalism, like technology, religion and business." Ghiglioni said. "I am also definitely planning on working with new media, like online journalism, because that is the direction the industry is headed in."
Although Ghiglioni's experience is with print journalism, he plans to develop all programs in the school with equal effort and force. "I don't see broadcast, online and print as competing with each other at the university. Students need to be well-trained in all fields because the market moves in so many different directions. Flexibility is important."
Ghiglioni will replace Ken Bode, who has served as the Medill School's dean since January of 1998. Bode announced he was resigning last June, but agreed to stay on until the school was able to find another person to fill the position.
Bode, who will remain a professor at Northwestern, had worked extensively to improve the journalism programs at Northwestern, especially within broadcast journalism.
He is stepping down because "I have been dean for as long as I have wanted," Bode said. He will continue to teach at Northwestern on what he refers to as a "a two-thirds time basis" and spend time working on TV documentaries and writing a book. He said he wants to focus more "on journalism and a little less administration," he said.
Bode, who has known Annenberg Dean Geoffrey Cowan since 1968, says "Ghiglione blends together all of the qualities Northwestern was looking for."
"I'm sure Geoff Cowan is going to feel the loss," he said.
Bode cites Ghiglione's long history of contributions to both intellectual journalism and journalism education and his experience as an administrator.
"My only wish is that I could find a way he could get here sooner." Bode said.
Dean Bode characterizes the Northwestern faculty's reaction as "enthusiastic."
Grace Lee, a graduate student at the Annenberg school and a teaching assistant for one of Ghiglioni's classes, said Ghiglioni has an unparalleled passion for and knowledge of journalism.
"He really devotes his entire life to journalism every day. He brought in a bunch of artifacts relating to the recent history of journalism for a project. It looked like he had raided a museum. When he found they were not enough pieces for every group, he took off his own tie, which of course somehow related to the history of the industry."
Ghiglioni says he will feel a loss, as well.
"I will definitely miss the Annenberg school," Ghiglioni said. I owe a tremendous debt to Dean Cowan , as he has been a role model for what a Dean can actually do. I also owe a debt to the faculty and staff for providing me with the resources and education that have made this possible. I am fully prepared for this position."
While he is more than happy to be accepting his position at Northwestern, which is widely renowned as one of nation's top journalism schools, Ghiglioni feels that USC is rising fast.
"The people here work together well," Ghiglioni said. "There is less categorization among students, faculty and staff than at many other schools. There is a real group dynamic. This is rapidly becoming one of the best journalism schools in the country. We had an outside evaluation of the school and were rated among the top six schools in the country. I know that I am reluctantly going to have to compete with this program in the future."

Editor-in-Chief Scott A. Smith contributed to this report.

Copyright 2001 by the Daily Trojan. All rights reserved.
This article was published in Vol. 142, No. 17 (Friday, February 2, 2001), beginning on page 1 and ending on page 9.