Student and Alumni Achievements

Nine Dow Jones Fund interns in the last two years
Twenty-four Sears Congressional Interns.
Seven alumni who played major roles in winning Pulitzer Prizes.
Three Rhodes Scholars.
Three National Headliners Club Award winners.
Two H.G. Merriam Award recipients for distinguished contributions to Montana literature.
Six Poynter Institute for Media Studies fellows.
The first woman to win an Ernie Pyle Award.
Forty-two Distinguished Alumni award winners, more than any other UM unit.
Two George Polk award winners.
One Harvard Nieman Fellow.
Three University of Michigan professional journalism fellows.
Five recipients of honorary doctorates from the University of Montana.
One recipient of a Freedom Forum Journalism Professor of the Year Award.

Dean Arthur L. Stone

1936
Robert L. Housman becomes executive head of the school. He is the first person in the United States to receive a Ph.D. in journalism.

1937
Present Journalism Building, authorized earlier in the decade by the Montana Legislature and completed in 1936, is dedicated.

1938
Montana Kaimin becomes a daily, making The University of Montana one of the nation's smallest universities with a daily newspaper.

1939

Clarence Streit

Clarence Streit '19 achieves international renown as author of "Union Now," which proposes an Atlantic union of democratic nations to achieve peace and stability in the world. He is later nominated for the Nobel Prize.

1942
James L.C. Ford named dean. AP war correspondent Vern Haugland '31 receives the Silver Star for valor from Gen. Douglas MacArthur after surviving a five-week ordeal in the New Guinea jungles. Haugland, who had parachuted into the jungle from a disabled B-26 bomber, becomes the first civilian to receive the Silver Star. His book about his ordeal, "Letter from New Guinea," is published the following year.

1946
A.B. Guthrie '23, editor of Lexington, Ky., Leader, completes his first novel, "The Big Sky." It gets rave reviews.

1949
Pressure from the campus administration leads to confiscation and destruction of an issue of the Kaimin, which carried a cartoon depicting the Montana Board of Education as rats gnawing at a bag of university funds.

Carroll O'Connor

Carroll O'Connor, later to become television's Archie Bunker, and Bill Smurr resign their editing jobs in protest.

1950 A.B. Guthrie '23 wins a Pulitzer Prize for his second novel, "The Way West." Clarence Streit '19 makes the cover of Time magazine, which compares him to William Lloyd Garrison, Henry George and Susan B. Anthony. 1953 Author Dorothy M. Johnson joins the journalism faculty. 1956 Nathaniel Blumberg Nathaniel Blumberg is named dean. Robert Alkire '53, Ken Kizer '41 and Bob Blair '46 help the Salt Lake City Tribune win a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the collision of two airliners over the Grand Canyon.

1957 Dean Stone Night established. First speaker is Louis M. Lyons, curator of the Nieman Fellowships at Harvard. 1958 The Montana Journalism Review begins publication as the first journalism review in the United States. Montana Newspaper Hall of Fame is established in the Journalism Building. The radio-television program is established in the old Women's Gym. 1959 Professor Dorothy Johnson's story "The Hanging Tree" premieres as a movie starring Gary Cooper. UPI reporter Aline Mosby '43 writes "The View From No. 13 People's Street," the story of her adventures as the only female correspondent covering Moscow. Chet Huntley is the Dean Stone Night speaker. Bill Forbis '39 becomes a senior editor at Time.

1960 Dorothy Rochon Powers Dorothy Rochon Powers '43 becomes the first woman to win a Scripps Howard Ernie Pyle Award for reporting excellence. The Kaimin wins the top reporting award in the SDX national college competition for the second consecutive year.

1965 Radio station KUFM goes on the air in the School of Journalism. David Rorvik infuriates many in the state with his controversial Kaimin editorials. 1968 Warren J. Brier succeeds Nathaniel Blumberg as dean. 1969 Sterling "Jim" Soderlind '50 is named managing editor of the Wall Street Journal.

1974 Professor Ed Dugan retires after 37 years, one as acting dean. James Grady '72 completes "Six Days of the Condor," a spy novel that will soon become a movie starring Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway. Al Madison '61, director of UM Printing Services, files what will become a widely publicized libel action against the Kaimin. The suit eventually will be settled out of court.

1975 Kim Williams, who will complete a master's degree in journalism and environmental studies in 1980, begins her popular radio commentaries on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered." 1979 Aline Mosby '39 wins International Bernard J. Cabanes Prize for Journalism for her reporting in China in UPI's newly- opened Peking bureau.

1982 Warren Brier resigns as dean. Charles E. Hood named acting dean, then gets the permanent job a year later. 1985 Don Oliver Performing Arts/Radio Television Center, with state-of-the-art broadcasting facilities, is dedicated. Don Oliver '58, NBC news correspondent, is one of the speakers. 1986 Jonathan Krim '77 directs San Jose Mercury News reporting project that wins Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. The stories detail the transfer of wealth out of the Philippines by former President Ferdinand Marcos and his associates, and are credited with having had "a direct impact on the subsequent political developments in the Philippines and the United States." Jonathan Krim

1988 School of Journalism identified in a Gannett Center Journal article as an outstanding program, and by Allied Daily Newspapers as one of the two best programs in the Northwest. Photojournalism students complete Montana centennial documentary project, "Focus on Philipsburg," and two students place in College Photographer of the Year contest. Broadcast students win Montana Broadcasters Association award for noncommercial programming for second straight year. 1989 Radio-Television faculty moves into new quarters adjacent to Performing Arts and Radio Television Center. Journalism student Marlene Mehlhaff goes to Washington, D.C., as UM's 24th Sears Congressional Intern. Debra McKinney ''79 helps Anchorage Daily News win the Pulitzer Prize for its articles on Indian alcoholism in rural Alaska. Robert C. McGiffert named acting dean. Dean Hood spends year in Japan.

1990 Jonathan Krim '77 directs -- for the second time in four years -- coverage that helps the San Jose Mercury News win a Pulitzer Prize. This time the story was the 1989 Bay area earthquake. 1991 Kurt Wilson '81, Missoulian photographer, places first in the National Press Photographers Pictures of the Year competition for newspaper sports features. Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist A.B. Guthrie Jr. '23 dies in Choteau at the age of 90. Marjorie Nichols '66, one of Canada's most widely read and outspoken journalists, dies. A student-produced television documentary on Montana tourism wins the national SPJ Mark of Excellence Award for in-depth reporting. Julie Sullivan '85 wins the American Society of Newspaper Editors award for best short feature stories. 1992 Native News Honors Project produces the first of many annual newspaper tabs devoted to Indian issues in Montana. Jerry Holloron ' 64 returns to the news business after several years of teaching at his alma mater. 1993 Charles Hood resigns as dean; broadcast Professor Joe Durso takes over as interim dean. Professor Clem Work resurrects Montana Journalism Review after a 14-year hiatus. 1994 Frank Allen, a former reporter for the Wall Street Journal, becomes dean. KGBA, a student-funded and managed radio station, goes on the air. 1995 Professor Dennis Swibold begins Community News Service, providing news and features for the state's weekly newspapers.

1996 For the third time in the decade, UM's broadcasting students win the Society of Professional Journalists' National Mark of Excellence Award. The winning television program, "Staying Home?" examined the dilemmas young Montanans face in deciding whether to leave the state for better-paying jobs. 1997 Upon Frank Allen's departure, Joe Durso again takes over as interim dean. The school receives a $50,000 Knight Foundation grant to support its minority reporting projects. 1998 Joe Durso dies unexpectedly; Professor Carol Van Valkenburg takes over as interim dean. Former NBC news correspondent Don Oliver '58 returns to teach several fall semester classes. Formal photojournalism emphasis is launched with the hiring of professors Jackie Bell and Keith Graham. 1999 Dennis McAuliffe, night foreign editor at the Washington Post, is hired as the school's first Native American Journalist-in-Residence. NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw delivers Dean Stone Lecture. After nationwide search, Jerry Brown of Auburn, Ala., is hired as dean. Professor Greg MacDonald, Radio-TV Department chair, announces his retirement. 2000 The Freedom Forum make the School of Journalism its national base for Native American journalism and extends its financial support for the Native American journalist-in-residence. Professor Carol Van Valkenburg is named one of the three national winners of the Journalism Teacher of the Year awards, presented by the Freedom Forum.

What do YOU want to accomplish?