George Gladney

OUTSTANDING FORMER FACULTY MEMBER 2020

Department of Communication and Journalism

George Gladney is professor emeritus of journalism in the Department of Communication and Journalism. He started at UW in 1991 and retired in 2013.

Gladney was skilled in teaching many different topics, including Mass Communication Law, Media Ethics, Media Theory, History of American Journalism, and International Journalism and Global Media. For more than two decades, Gladney supervised the Reporting and News Writing course that was required for all majors and thus gave a media writing foundation to thousands of Communication and Journalism students.

"He taught a generation of aspiring journalists how to write," Kenneth Smith, professor emeritus and former head of UW's Department of Communication and Journalism, comments. "As a former news editor him- self, he demanded discipline, accuracy, and attention to style. He also taught our very demanding Media Law course. The course content intimidated many students, but George taught it in a manner that reduced student anxiety. Suffice it to say that today's press in Wyoming and elsewhere is populated with students who developed their skills in George's classes."

Diana Waggener, a UW alumna, remembers Gladney inspiring his students to use their intellect, noting, "Several of us benefited from his quiet determination that we could be whatever we dreamed."

International journalism was important to Gladney as well. He was a Fulbright Scholar in 2005 for the Centre for Social Studies at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland. In 2013, he was a visiting professor in the Department of Journalism at al Farabi Kazakh National University in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and at Shanghai University's School of Social & Political Sciences through the College of Arts & Sciences cooperative agreement. Additionally, he received honoraria from different US embassies to give invited lectures about journalism in Bulgaria, Moldova, and Ukraine.

Before he began teaching, Gladney worked for several different newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, Colorado Springs Sun, and Colorado Springs Gazette, and was the managing editor of the Jackson Hole News in Jackson, WY. Gladney was also a member of the Editorial Board for a number of journals.

Gladney received his doctorate from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, his master's degree from the University of Oregon, his bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Missouri, and his bachelor of arts degree from Waynesburg College in Waynesburg, PA

 

George Gladney pictured in orange shirt
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