Parents of alumnus create fellowship in his memory

In his time studying journalism at the University of Montana, T. Anthony Pollner was dedicated to the Montana Kaimin, and the result is the Kaimin’s Web site.

Pollner, a 1999 graduate, demonstrated his passion several times while working as a reporter for the Kaimin, said Professor Carol Van Valkenburg, the newspaper’s faculty adviser. She recalled how he disagreed with the Kaimin editor over what Pollner saw as the editor’s lack of interest in a Kaimin Web site. Pollner believed so strongly that the page needed to be altered that he returned to UM after graduating with degrees in both journalism and English and enrolled in enough classes so that he could continue to work for the Kaimin as its webmaster. In his new position, he redesigned the Web page and ensured that the newspaper was posted online each morning.

“The Web page today is attributable to the dedication Anthony put into it,” Van Valkenburg said. “If he was interested in something, he’d do whatever it took to make sure his opinion was heard, and that the story was written or the Web page designed.”

Pollner died last May in a motorcycle accident in England. After his death, his parents wanted to find a way to honor their son’s memory. They turned to the University of Montana and with the staff of the School of Journalism created the T. Anthony Pollner Fellowship.

The fellowship will bring an accomplished reporter to the University of Montana journalism school each year to work with its students with a special focus on the staff of the Kaimin. A committee is in the process of selecting the first Pollner fellow to work at UM this spring. Future Pollner guests will teach each fall semester.

“We decided that rather than starting a scholarship in his name, this fellowship would be more in keeping with what Anthony was enthusiastic about, which was the Kaimin,” said Pollner’s mother, Alice Pollner. “It will also benefit more students.”

In addition to mentoring the Kaimin staff, Pollner fellows will give seminars at the journalism school, and deliver a T. Anthony Pollner lecture on a subject of their choice in the media.

“They will give students a broader perspective on the journalistic world, since they could be reporters from Paris, Chicago, or Washington D.C.,” Alice Pollner said.

At the time of his death Pollner was working for his father in London, where he had attended high school. He applied to The University of Montana after his school counselor told him it was one of the best journalism schools in the United States.

“He didn’t apply anywhere else,” Alice Pollner said. “He liked the combination of the great journalism school and the outdoors.”

She said she thinks the T. Anthony Pollner Fellowship will bring something new to the university that her son loved, and she hopes it will help people remember him.

“He was very curious, unrelenting, not easily discouraged,” she said. “I think that made him a good reporter.”

Return to October 2001 archive