Dean Brown to step down in June

By Ty Hampton
J-School Web Reporter

photo by Tim Kupsick

Dean Jerry Brown stands in front of the new School of Journalism, Anderson Hall. Brown has been the dean for over eight years and has been raising the funds nessesary to erect the new building.

Leaving behind an eight-year track record of graduating award-winning students, leading a sterling staff of professional educators and building a brand-new $11 million journalism school, dean Jerry Brown will resign in June 2007.

"What I did was to build onto the solid foundation that was already here, and I hope the next dean can do the same," Brown said.

Carol Van Valkenburg, chair of the print department at the School of Journalism, describes the dean’s fund-raising efforts for the new building as Brown’s legacy.

"He’s taken the absolute dream of a faculty, and now you look across the Oval and it’s there," Van Valkenburg said.

Ray Ekness, chair of the radio-television department, gives Brown credit for making the administration see journalism as a priority on campus. But he said that is not all Brown has done.

"Not as many people know how much work Jerry has put into creating more opportunities for Native American students through developing and expanding the Native American journalism program," Ekness says.

Brown is known for his popular "Southernisms" that have resounded through journalism senior seminars taught by the dean. Well-known pieces of his repertoire include, "Put the hay down where the cows can get it," and the standard credo of journalism, "If your mamma says she loves you, check it out."

"I think he’s done a good job of putting lessons that way so that students take that in and know what he means," Van Valkenburg said.

Brown describes his experience as dean as "an invigorating challenge."

"This office has provided me an opportunity to be head of the school, but also to be an advocate for the press and for people who practice journalism in an environment that is increasingly hostile politically and economically," Brown says.

"Many people don’t appreciate or understand the role that journalism plays in a democracy, and I think many media owners ignore the public-service aspect in their lust for profit."

But Brown, 61, isn’t cashing in all his chips just yet. He plans to return to the school to teach as he did for many years in his career as a professor.

"I’d like to go cheerfully to seed and bedevil more students in my time," he said, adding that he may need some transition time to get ready before returning to classes such as reporting, editing and media law.

Brown came to the University of Montana in 1999 from Auburn University where he taught for 20 years. He received his B.A. in journalism from Auburn and a Ph. D. in English from Vanderbilt University. In the late 1970s, he edited a weekly newspaper near Roanoke, Va.

"It will be nice to still have him around for a while," Van Valkenburg says. "The faculty can’t wait to see him down in the trenches teaching three courses in a semester again."

A search committee has been formed to look for a new dean, said Van Valkenburg. The nine-member panel includes four UM journalism professors and a journalism student.

So what will Brown be up to during his hiatus?

Literary side projects, golfing, gardening, traveling and hunting and fishing with his dogs Rollie and Lefty, according to Brown’s wife Libby. The Browns made a trip to Scotland over the summer where Jerry fulfilled one of his life’s dreams, to hit the links on the Isle of Mull.

Libby, a retired high-school librarian, describes the man she’s been married to for 37 years as someone with high energy always looking for a new challenge.

"I think we will probably do some more traveling soon, and I know for a fact he’s got two English setters waiting for him in the yard at home that can’t wait to go pheasant hunting," Libby said.

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