Dorothy Bland is second in Journalism Alumni Speakers Series

March 9, 2009 -- Dorothy Bland, a prominent journalism educator, will visit Arkansas State University Monday and Tuesday, March 16-17, as part of this year's Journalism Alumni Speakers Series.

Bland, a 1980 graduate of Arkansas State, turned a professional career of more than 25 years in print and online into a promising future as a journalism administrator. She currently directs the Division of Journalism at Florida A&M University where she also is a professor.

A native of Little Rock and a graduate of Parkview High School, she attended ASU where she was editor of The Herald. Following graduation, Bland worked for the Rockford (Ill.) Register Star as a reporter before joining USA Today in its first four years of publication. There she served as states editor, journal editor, newsmakers editor and special projects editor/reporter.

In 1988, Bland earned a master’s of business administration degree from George Washington University, and in 1992 became publisher of the Gannett-owned Chillicothe (Ohio) Gazette, a daily newspaper she directed for two years. She then moved to Fort Collins, Colo., to become president and publisher of the Coloradoan for 11 years. While there, she was named a Gannett president’s ring winner — one of the top 10 Gannett publishers — three times based on outstanding performances in 1995, 1998 and 2000.

After forming her own consulting firm for a year, in 2007 she joined Florida A&M where she heads a division of 500 students and more than 20 faculty and staff members. FAMU is the top producer of baccalaureate degrees for African-Americans in the nation, according to Diverse Issues in Higher Education.  FAMU students took first place in the Tallahassee Film Festival’s 24-hour amateur film contest in May 2008.

Bland has served as a Pulitzer Prize nominating juror for feature writing. In 1993, Presstime designated her as one of “20 under 40” leaders to watch in the newspaper industry.

During her visit to ASU, Bland will speak to several journalism classes including news reporting, news writing and history of the mass media, news design and communications research, mass communications in modern society, crisis communications, public affairs reporting and public relations tools and techniques and photojournalism.      

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