Journalism professor to be honored

Dr. Jack Dvorak, journalism professor at IU and director of the High School Journalism Institute, will accept the prestigious Carl Talley Distinguished Service Award Saturday in Washington, D.C. \nAccording to the Journalism Education Association Web site, the Carl Talley Distinguished Service Award is JEA's highest honor and is presented to a JEA member whose work is unusually beneficial and of superior value to the national JEA and to scholastic journalism. National JEA membership is required, and since 1985, only one award is presented each year. \nDvorak said he has overseen 10,000 students in his 18 years of working with the High School Journalism Institute. Dvorak said living through all those students has given him his gray hair.\nThe award itself was quite a surprise, he said. \n"I did not know about it until I got a letter a couple of weeks ago saying, 'You better be in Washington, D.C. this weekend because you are getting this award,'" he said. \nIn her letter of recommendation, Julie E. Dodd, professor at the University of Florida, said Dvorak played a major role in charting JEA's path on two major initiatives -- the research and report of the Commission on the Role of Journalism in Secondary Education and the JEA certification program. \nDvorak has received many other awards and honors throughout his career, including being inducted into the National Scholastic Journalism Hall of Fame in 1997. He is also the co-author of the book "Journalism Kids Do Better." \nThe qualitative aspect of his research and the popularity of his book serve only as the launching pad for this nomination, Linda S. Puntney, executive director of the Journalism Education Association, said in her letter of recommendation. Puntney said few have done more than Dvorak to legitimize scholastic journalism. \nDvorak said the many academic relationships he's developed over his three decades of experience and his dedication to journalism education probably have something to do with his nomination. \n"I've been teaching in college for 30 years now and I have always had connections with high school teachers," he said. \nDennis Cripe, director of the Indiana High School Press Association, also recommended Dvorak for the award. Cripe wrote that Dvorak's demeanor and leadership skills were critical to Indiana's five-year quest to establish "teaching standards" for future high school journalism teachers. \n"Let me simply say that Dr. Jack Dvorak continues to shape the face of high school journalism in Indiana and the nation," Cripe said. "His distinguished career certainly meets the lofty standards symbolic of the Carl Towley Award."\nDvorak said he's flattered by the recognition, but is not looking forward to figuring out what to say in his acceptance speech. \n"Basically it is going to be about heroes because the people I am going to be talking to are my heroes, the journalism teachers," he said. "I think they have a very tough job, very challenging, and for all their hard work I am going to turn the tables and make it about them"