Radio-television professor earns major honor

Denise Dowling, an assistant professor in the radio-television department at UM, has been named the most promising new journalism professor in the country by a national education group.

Dowling was honored by the Mass Communication and Society Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. The division sponsors a contest each year to honor excellence in teaching by faculty members who have taught for fewer than five years. Applications are judged by journalism professors around the country.

She was nominated by Jerry Brown, dean of the UM journalism school, who wrote, “In my 30-plus years of professional and academic work, I have never known a professional journalist who has made the transition from newsroom to classroom as swiftly and successfully.”

AEJMC presented the award to Dowling during the organization’s national convention in San Antonio in August. While at the convention, she presented a workshop to share her teaching strategies, philosophy and techniques with other educators.

Dowling started teaching at UM in 2000 after a 20-year career in broadcast news. She has created several new courses and won numerous grants and research contracts. Her students also have won nearly every award given to college journalists.

A 1978 graduate of Helena High School, Dowling spent 16 years working in television and radio news in Spokane, Wash., at KHQ and KXLY in the 1980s and ’90s.