To the land of Geritol and early-bird specials? I think not.

Dean Jerry Brown stands in front of the new University of Montana 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.
photo by Tim Kupsick



(This article about my dad and accompanying photo is reprinted without permission. It's good to live wild on occasion I say.)

Dean Brown to step down in June
By Ty HamptonJ-School Web Reporter

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.

Read the rest of the article here.