Hampton U Prof Named Outstanding Teacher

An AEJMC Newspaper Division selection committee has named Rick Kenney of Hampton University the division’s 2010 winner of the Outstanding Teacher Award.

A former journalist with the Baltimore Evening Sun, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, St. Petersburg Times, South Florida Sun-Sentinel and other papers, Kenney was named Scripps Howard Endowed Professor of Journalism at the Hampton, Va., university last year. He teaches media ethics and media law and directs the school’s Academy of Writing Excellence. He has won numerous awards for both his journalism and his teaching, and also has been an Ethics Fellow with the Poynter Institute since 2003.

Kenney, former executive news editor at the Evening Sun, holds a doctorate in mass communication from the University of Georgia and has taught at the University of Central Florida, Troy State University and Florida Southern College. He also directed a Dow Jones Newspaper Fund intern residency program for copy editing interns from 2002 to 2008, and wrote COPY! The first 50 years of the Dow Jones newspaper Fund.

Brian Carroll of Berry College, co-chair of the Newspaper Division’s teaching standards committee, thanked Kenney’s nominators, Rick Brunson, John Gogick,  Melissa Patterson and  Tim Lynch. Presentation of the award will be made at the business meeting of the Newspaper Division during the AEJMC National Convention Aug 4-7 at the Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel in Denver.