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Folkerts Stepping Down As Journalism Dean

Jean Folkerts, dean of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, will step down from the position next July.

“While I’ve enjoyed nearly every minute of the last five years, it’s also been a demanding job,” she told a faculty meeting in the school on Friday. “Being dean of a major journalism school requires long hours, dedication and a continually changing view of what journalism education means. In these changing times, deans need to be freshly engaged both in academia and in the ‘real world.’ Staying in the job too long can become an occupational hazard. I feel that together we have created a climate of constant innovation and a desire to be the best.”

Folkerts became dean in July 2006. After a leave, in which she plans to “read all the history scholarship I’ve been stacking on my back shelf for the past five years,” she will return to the school to teach in January 2012.

“Jean is an exceptional leader,” said Chancellor Holden Thorp’86, “and I tried my best to get her to stay.”

The University will conduct a national search for a new dean. UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School Dean Jim Dean will lead the search.

Among the accomplishments during her tenure, Folkerts cited creating an online master’s degree in technology and communication, initiating a Center for Media and Law Policy, adding four new professorships, significantly increasing grant applications and research funding, and creating new graduate and undergraduate scholarships.


More online…

Hard Copy From the September/October 2009 issue of the Carolina Alumni Review


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