AEJMC

College dean is president-elect

By WILLIAM SWAIM
Alumni News staff

Will Norton, dean of journalism and mass communications, is on track to become the president of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

Norton became vice president of the association on Oct. 1 and will serve in that position until fall 1998-1999. He will be president-elect from 1999-2000 and will serve as president from 2000-2001.

Norton said he credits the reputation of the University of Nebraska’s journalism college as one of the factors that helped him get elected. He said the honor is a repeat because his predecessor as dean at the journalism college, Neale Copple, was president of AEJMC in the ’70s. Norton said the honor really goes to Nebraska.

Norton said Copple helped build the reputation of the college, and Norton’s association with the college after Copple retired in 1990 had a lot to do with his being elected.

“I always feel that you can’t really talk about the honors that go to you or honors that you deserve,” Norton said. “You have to talk about the community of folk around you or who are with you, who help certain things get done. The only reason any of us get anywhere is because of other people.”

Norton said the election didn’t have as much to do with the value of the person or candidate as with whom he or she represented.

“I can’t say that you can achieve anything on your own,” Norton said. “Clearly that’s true in this election. It’s the reputation of this university, this college. That comes from the faculty, and I just happen to be dean here.”

Norton’s vice presidential platform stressed three vital areas AEJMC must focus on in the future: technology, diversity and internationalization.

Jennifer McGill, executive director of AEJMC, said she looked forward to working with Norton. McGill has been the executive director of AEJMC since 1985. She said she first met Norton when they worked together in 1989-1990 when he was president of a sister association of AEJMC called the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication.

“He has excellent ideas and finds good people to implement them,” McGill said. “He has a good grasp on what is happening in journalism and mass communication education today and what should be happening for the future of the field.”

Norton said he has tried throughout his life to help those around him.

“I’ve always tried to work where I could improve the situation for the folks I work with,” Norton said. “What is frustrating sometimes is when you can’t improve things or someone or that you are in the way.”

Norton said he tells his own children that every year is harder than the year before. He said he has begun to realize over time that no matter what people try to do or achieve, they could always do more.

“The greatest accomplishment anyone could have,” Norton said enthusiastically, “and I haven’t had that yet, is having your children grow up and meet the challenges that face them with an optimum level of fulfillment for them.”

He said teaching provides similar opportunities for that kind of accomplishment. As an administrator, he teaches few classes, and Norton said he misses being able to create a climate where students develop and improve their skills over time.

Norton looks at himself a little differently than most people might.

“If I think that I’m 56 years old,” Norton said, “that’s an old man in my mind set. But to me, maybe I’m a year or two out of college. So I don’t look at myself as an old, bald-headed man who’s about to put his foot in the grave. I look at myself as someone who will probably be around 30 years. I’m just starting out.”

Norton has been a sports publicist for Wheaton College and a sports editor for the Wheaton Daily Journal. He was also a copy editor for the Chicago Tribune and a managing editor for Christian Life Magazine. He was publisher of the Daily Iowan and vice president of The South Reporter, a weekly newspaper in Mississippi. He is currently a member of The Freedom Forum Board, a billion-dollar foundation that operates programs to support the First Amendment.

AEJMC is an international association of more than 3,300 journalism/mass communication faculty, students, administrators and professionals. AEJMC members come from more than 28 countries. The association was founded in 1912 and is the oldest and largest association of journalism and mass communication educators and administrators at the college level. AEJMC has been housed on the University of South Carolina campus since 1981.

Norton said he was honored to be elected to lead AEJMC but added, “What’s fun is not honors but doing things. Honors are more ceremonial than real. They are nice things to have, but what’s really fun is doing stuff.”