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Biography of President Thomas Kunkel
Thomas Kunkel is president of St. Norbert College. St. Norbert was founded by the Norbertine order of priests in 1898 and is the only Norbertine institution of higher learning in the world. Recognized as one of the top liberal arts colleges in the upper Midwest, St. Norbert has 2,000 undergraduates and about 60 graduate students. Kunkel took over as St. Norbert’s seventh president in July 2008.
Prior to his appointment at St. Norbert, Kunkel served for eight years as dean of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, one of the nation’s top journalism programs. There he also served as president of American Journalism Review, a national magazine published by the college. Prior to becoming dean, Kunkel had served as director of Maryland’s Knight Center for Specialized Journalism, and as editor and director of the Project on the State of the American Newspaper.
A writer and editor, Kunkel spent much of his early career in newspaper management. He was deputy managing editor of the San Jose Mercury News. Prior to that he worked for The Miami Herald, The New York Times and The Cincinnati Post, and he was editor and publisher of Arizona Trend magazine. When he was named executive editor of Knight-Ridder’s Columbus (Ga.) Ledger-Enquirer, he became the youngest top editor in company history at age 29.
He has written or edited five books, including “Genius in Disguise,” the critically praised biography of New Yorker editor Harold Ross. The volume was a New York Times Notable Book of 1995. “Enormous Prayers: A Journey into the Priesthood,” an ethnographic portrait of 28 Catholic priests, appeared in 1998. “Letters from the Editor,” a compilation and analysis of Ross letters, was published in 2000. Kunkel worked with legendary editor Gene Roberts on the Project on the State of the American Newspaper, a two-year, in-depth examination of the newspaper industry. He later updated the series for a two-volume anthology published by the University of Arkansas Press.
Recognized as a leader in his field, Kunkel chaired the national committee of the Accrediting Council for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications, and in 2007-08 he served as president of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication. He has chaired accreditation reviews of such nationally prominent journalism programs as Columbia, Syracuse, Berkeley, Florida and Southern California. In 2006 he was named Journalism Administrator of the Year, the top honor in his field, by the Scripps Howard Foundation.
Kunkel was born and raised in Evansville, Ind. He earned his B.A. in political science at the University of Evansville in 1977 and his master’s degree in humanities from UE in 1979. He and his wife, Debra, have four grown daughters.
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St. Norbert College is a Catholic liberal arts college embracing the Norbertine tradition of community and is committed to providing an educational environment that is intellectually, spiritually and personally challenging.
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