Kent JMC will become home to a prestigious new Knight Chair in Scholastic Journalism next year.

A total of $2 million in past and current funding from the John S. Knight and James L. Knight Foundation is endowing the new tenured faculty position. Kent State is running a national search to select an outstanding journalist to hold the chair.

The Knight chair will lead national campaigns currently underway to increase scholastic journalism education and student media in America’s high schools, as well as help increase the use of news in classrooms and First Amendment and civic education.

Though high school media introduce students to the core values of journalism, news literacy and civics, the Knight Foundation’s “Future of the First Amendment” study showed that 3,659 high schools, or 17 percent of the 20,735 schools surveyed, did not have any form of student media.

“Kent State is prepared to seize this opportunity to play an integral role in strengthening scholastic media programs across the nation and, in turn, groom the next generation of highly skilled journalists, editors and designers,” Kent State President Dr. Lester A. Lefton said.

John S. and James L. Knight

The chair marks the 20th Knight Chair in Journalism to be created, endowed and awarded by the Knight Foundation since 1990. It honors the Knight brothers: John S. and James L. Knight, who championed editorial quality and the power of community at the newspapers they owned.

John S. Knight was publisher and editor of the Akron Beacon Journal for decades.

“The prestige of being awarded with one of only 20 Knight Chair’s in journalism, indicates the importance of scholastic journalism from a Knight Foundation perspective and also indicates the regard in which Kent State’s program is held – as one of the best in the nation,” says James Gaudino, dean of the College of Communication and Information.

For six consecutive years, Kent State has been one of only five universities nationally hosting the American Society of Newspaper Editors High School Journalism Institute.

From left: Jim Gaudino, dean of the College of Communication and Information; Candace Perkins Bowen, coordinator of the JMC Scholastic Media Program; Eric Newton, head of journalism initiatives for the Knight Foundation.

Kent State scholastic media program coordinator Candace Perkins Bowen is on the board of the Journalism Education Association and the Advisory Council of the Student Press Law Center.

“Too many of our public schools are not teaching our children the basics of what the need to know to be good citizens,” says Eric Newton, director of journalism initiatives for the Knight Foundation. “We hope Kent State can help schools provide student media, news literacy and civics education – the sunlight, the water and air of growing democracy in America.”

Among the jobs to be taken on by Kent State’s new Knight Chair in Scholastic Journalism:

- Turn the university’s existing Scholastic Media Program, which is Ohio-based, into a national center for scholastic media.

- Establish a scholastic media Advisory Board, which will include major Knight grantees working in this area, such as the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the Radio and Television News Directors Foundation, Ball State University’s J-Ideas, George Washington University’s Prime Movers program and the Student Press Law Center.

- Develop new and innovative courses and areas of research that will include tracking the amount of student media in the United States and First Amendment attitudes of students who do and do not participate in student media.