COLUMBIA, Mo. – Gerald Jordan, associate professor of journalism in the University of Arkansas School of Journalism, is the recipient of the 2017 Barry Bingham Sr. Fellowship, presented by the American Society of News Editors.

The $1,000 award, given in recognition of an educator's outstanding efforts to encourage students of color in the field of journalism, will be presented Oct. 10 at the ASNE annual convention in Washington, D.C.

“Gerald is as fine a man as I know,” said Larry Foley, chair of the School of Journalism. “He's mentored hundreds of students, from all backgrounds, for many years. In every walk of his life, he's made a difference — a mighty difference. Students and faculty are blessed that he is one of us — a Razorback to the core.”

Jordan graduated from the University of Arkansas in 1970 with a degree in journalism, and earned his master’s degree in journalism at Northwestern University in 1971. He had a distinguished career as a reporter and editor for The Kansas City Star and Philadelphia Inquirer before joining the faculty of the Lemke Department of Journalism at the U of A in 1995. He continued to work summers as an editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer for the next 15 years, often training and mentoring student interns.

Jordan has been an innovative teacher, developing the Lemke Newsroom, a semester block of journalism courses designed to provide intensive teaching and training for a limited number of students in a realistic multimedia news environment. He also helped create the Lemke Journalism Project, which has brought minority high school students interested in journalism to the university for the past 17 years.

He received the U of A’s Silas Hunt Legacy Award in 2010, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Northwest Arkansas Martin Luther King Jr. Planning Committee. Last year, Jordan was awarded the Arkansas Press Association's Distinguished Service Award, and last May he was appointed as the U of A’s faculty athletics representative.

Jordan was nominated for the Bingham Fellowship by Miriam Pepper, associate editor at Opinion in a Pinch and former vice president for the editorial page at The Kansas City Star.

"Gerald is a classy journalist in all respects: respectful, curious, committed, caring and always, always smiling," Pepper wrote. "Students can't do better, and Arkansas is lucky to have wooed him home again."