Dale Rice named new head of A&M journalism

Journalism veteran Dale Rice is the new director of Journalism Studies at Texas A&M University, liberal arts Associate Dean Pamela Matthews confirmed today.

Rice will start Sept. 1, Matthews said, noting that an official announcement will come soon.

In the next couple of days, we'll have a full interview with Rice up on this blog. For now, here's a bit of background:

Rice, currently a lecturer with Journalism Studies, began teaching at A&M in Fall 2008. In an interview with FJSA at that time, he talked about the need to produce journalists who can work across all media platforms and about emphasizing basic reporting skills in his classes.

"... We need journalists who can report rapidly, write quickly, think on their feet and never abandon principles such as fairness and accuracy in the process. That, to me, is why sound journalism education is as important today as it has ever been," Rice said.

Rice also leads the College of Liberal Arts' Student Reporter Project; here's an earlier post from this blog about that program.