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Callahan named founding dean for Walter Cronkite School of Journalism

He grew up watching vivid images of the Vietnam War and Watergate on television. His gaze was fixed on the screen as Walter Cronkite delivered the evening news to the nation. He had no idea how Cronkite and the images on the screen would later affect his life.

ASU has announced the appointment of Chris Callahan, associate dean of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, as founding dean of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. The boy who loved the evening news and later became a professional journalist is assuming leadership of the journalism school that bears Cronkite’s name.

Callahan’s extensive experience as a professional journalist, combined with his innovative educational approach and successful track record in academia, was critical to his selection from a group of stellar finalists. He worked as a reporter, editor and Washington correspondent for the Associated Press before joining the University of Maryland.

“The position of founding dean is a particularly significant one,” says Mark Jacobs, dean of ASU’s Barrett Honors College and chair of the search committee. “The founding dean creates the framework and establishes the direction for a college. Chris Callahan brings a wonderful combination of experience as a reporter and success in the academic world to this position. He understands the balance between theory in the classroom and practice in the newsroom.”

The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication previously has been a unit of the College of Public Programs at ASU. On July 1, it becomes a separate entity and is scheduled to move from the Tempe campus to the new Downtown Phoenix campus.

 “The Cronkite School will be one of the pillars of an important new campus for the university,” says ASU Executive Vice President and Provost Milton Glick. “But the school’s transformation into a separate unit and its relocation downtown is more than a physical and organizational move. These are extraordinary changes that will enable the school to move in new and exciting directions. Chris Callahan impressed us by laying out a tentative agenda, which he will refine, with the help of faculty and staff, to capitalize on this opportunity.”

Cronkite himself reviewed the résumés of the finalists for the founding dean’s position. He stressed the importance of finding someone with practical experience as a journalist to fill the position to members of the search committee.

 “I understand that Mr. Cronkite approved of the experience and skills I bring to the job,” Callahan says. “I am honored that the man who has so influenced the field of journalism, and who I so admire, has confidence in my ability to lead the school that bears his name.

“I am delighted to have been chosen to lead the Cronkite School, because its values are in line with my own. In many journalism programs, theory triumphs over practice, and marketing and advertising overshadow journalism and public relations. The Cronkite School is a well-established program producing solid, professional journalists. My challenge is to take this program to new heights, and it is a challenge I readily embrace.”

Callahan has been a faculty member at the University of Maryland since 1990 and was named associate dean of the journalism college in 1998 after five years as assistant dean. He has taught more than 20 courses in journalism at Maryland, Boston University and Columbia College of Chicago. He served for three years as director of the innovative Capital News Service bureaus, working with graduate students and upper-level undergraduates in Annapolis and Washington, D.C., in intensive one-on-one instruction on advanced news writing, reporting, interviewing, source development, research techniques, story development and document searches. His experience as a journalist spans more than 20 years.

By Terri Shafer. Shafer, with Marketing & Strategic Communications, can be reached at (480) 965-3865 or (terri.shafer@asu.edu).
May 27, 2005