SoJ Web Report | Sept. 17, 2011
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| Photo by Ann Schertz |
| Bloomington Press Club president Jim Bright welcomed retired placement director Marge Blewett to the stage during the centennial lunch at the auditorium Friday. |
Sponsored by the Bloomington Press Club, the event was the first for the three-day weekend of activities marking journalism’s founding as a department in 1911.
Bloomington Press Club president Jim Bright, BA’74, welcomed guests and set the tone for the program by introducing retired faculty and staff, and alumni in the crowd.
“We’re all so proud that you could join us today to celebrate not just your years at IU journalism but also journalism’s 100 years,” said Bright.
He turned the program over to Trevor Brown, the fourth of five leaders of the journalism program at IU. He retired as dean in 2005. He reminisced about his first years at the school.
“We didn’t know anything about Indiana, except that there was corn,” he joked about his and his wife’s, Charlene’s, first visit. After joining the faculty in 1972, he said he came to appreciate everything about journalism at Indiana. He became interim dean upon the death of the school’s third leader, Richard Gray, and in 1985, permanently took the position he held for 20 years.
Brown lauded the faculty’s research efforts, often pointing out faculty members in the audience who had contributed to what he called the school’s strong reputation in academia, including Roy W. Howard Professor David Weaver, professors emeriti Christine Ogan, Peter Jacobi and John Ahlhauser, among others.
Brown also talked about the school’s history before he arrived, such as Gray’s leadership, which led to the program becoming a School of Journalism in the College of Arts and Sciences. Brown oversaw the school's independence from the college in 1986.
Bright introduced retired placement director Marge Blewett as “a women who has been associated with the school longer than anyone else, since coming here as a student 67 years ago.” Ever the student adviser, Blewett directed visiting alumni to check out several places on campus while they were visiting for the weekend.
“You don’t want to miss Ernie Pyle Hall and all the changes in the building since you were here,” she told the crowd. Many alumni remembered the building before its extensive remodeling in the late 1970s and again in recent years.
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| Photo by Ann Schertz |
| Former dean Trevor Brown talked about his years leading the program. |
“Gone is the stinky photo lab, as well as ‘the pit.’ It now is on one level and is a computer lab,” she said of the deep well of a room, mostly unused storage space, that after extensive remodeling became Ernie Pyle Hall 157 just off the multimedia lab.
She also talked about the auditorium. Gone are the rock-hard wooden seats, she said, replaced by cushy chairs, “and it now has all the latest technology.”
She advised visitors to explore campus, citing the bronze statue of Herman B Wells sitting on a bench near Dunn's Woods as a top spot to visit.
“And Hoagy Carmichael still is playing his piano right out here by the auditorium,” she said of the sculpture of the famous composer in the courtyard on the north side of the auditorium.
Attendees included press club members, alumni, faculty and staff, some of whom were members of more than one of those categories. For example, journalism lecturer Bill Oates, BA’71, MBA’76, PhD’82, was the coordinator of computer-based education for the department when computers were introduced in 1974.
“I always wanted to work as a professor,” said Oates, who returned to the school last year. “I started working part-time as a professor, which allows me to live my dream every day.”
Like other alumni, Oates said IU always is a special place for him and his wife, Rita (Haugh) Oates, MA’81, PhD’88. They met on a blind date at Nick’s, and their two children followed in their footsteps and attended IU.
The Friday celebration continued with discussion groups, small special interest gatherings and a banquet honoring the inaugural group of Distinguished Alumni Award recipients.
— Amie Sites contributed to this report.
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