New Reynolds grant means more funding for internships

The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation has renewed a three-year grant to the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications to continue to offer fully paid student internships at leading news organizations and to bring distinguished business journalists to campus.

The award of $450,000, like the previous one, complements the work of Pamela K. Luecke, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning former newspaper editor who holds the Donald W. Reynolds Professorship in Business Journalism at the university.

The new grant will allow the department to fund up to 10 internships for students each summer and attract accomplished business journalists and high-level news executives to its campus for visits of up to a term.

This Spring Term’s Reynolds Distinguished Visiting Professor will be Richard D. Simmons, retired CEO of The Washington Post Co. and the International Herald Tribune. Simmons will teach a media management course. Simmons’ professorship is the third funded by the initial three-year grant. In Fall 2007, former Roanoke Times Publisher Wendy Zomparelli will join the department as Reynolds Distinguished Visiting Professor.  

The renewed grant also will make it possible for students to go on field trips, attend business-journalism conferences, and take advantage of other opportunities to link to the profession.

"Thanks to the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation’s generous funding, Washington and Lee is becoming known as both a source of talented, well-prepared young journalists and a place where seasoned practitioners find an eager and appreciative audience among both students and faculty," said Luecke. She noted that companies offering permanent jobs to business-journalism students include Dow Jones and Bloomberg.

The interdisciplinary business-journalism program draws upon other departments, including the Williams School of Commerce, Economics, and Politics and the W&L School of Law.

The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation is a national philanthropic organization founded in 1954 by the late media entrepreneur for whom it is named. Headquartered in Las Vegas, Nev., it is one of the largest private foundations in the United States.