A&M hires veteran journalist Rice to teach

Texas A&M has hired veteran reporter and editor Dale Rice, currently the Austin American-Statesman's restaurant critic, as a lecturer who will begin teaching classes in Fall 2008.

Dale's distinguished 35-year career in journalism includes stints as education writer and city hall reporter for the Syracuse Post-Standard and education writer, capital bureau reporter and capital bureau chief for the Dallas Times Herald. He has been at the Statesman for almost 19 years, and has served as business editor, deputy features editor and, for the past 15 years (8 years full-time), restaurant critic. His opinions are widely respected by chefs across the region, and he has helped countless readers through his columns and blogs.

He says:
"I'm going to be a full-time lecturer teaching journalism-related courses and mentoring students. This fall, I will be teaching Journalism 203, the media writing course (basic reporting and writing skills), and Communication 289, a course in political blogging. In addition, I will be mentoring participants in the Student Reporter Project, a new program in the College of Liberal Arts.
"My first day of class will be Aug. 26, and, as you might guess, I'm incredibly excited about joining A&M. "

Myself, I'm very excited about this on A&M's behalf! I've worked with Dale many times and I have great respect for him on all levels. He's a principled, thoughtful, accurate journalist with a warm personal style and powerful descriptive ability in his writing. You can check out some of his stuff in his online archive and his blog.

Watch this space for more upcoming on this, as well as an update on A&M's other hire in the works, the joint Journalism Studies-Women's Studies position.

Specifically, I'm looking forward to giving some more detail on Dale's plans for his classes and students. Sneak peek: Those JOUR 203 students will be writing a story a week and filing it on deadline, and the students in his new Political Blogging class will each be creating their own blogs.