Novelist Robert
Ruark ’ 35 was one
of Coffin’s students
in the early 1930s
and featured his
teacher in a novel.
In The Honey Badger, written nine
years after Coffin’s
death, the protagonist attends Carolina
and meets “Skipper”
Henry, dean of the
journalism school.
Ruark’s description
of Henry echoed
what he and others
said about Coffin: a
“benevolent old sea-turtle, up to and
including the barnacles,” and a “fat,
sloppy, ash-sprinkled, egg-speckled,
tie-askewed, stringy-haired, liver-spotted
old Buddha.”
Professors in
other departments scorned the journalism
department because of its lack of rigor and
dearth of faculty research. Jack Adams, who
later became dean, said that when he joined
the faculty in 1958, other professors on campus accused journalism faculty members of
being “whiskey-drinking, cigar-smoking
newspapermen” who turned out graduates
just like themselves.
Enter Holt McPherson
That reputation sorely rankled one of
the department’s earliest graduates — who
forced changes in the school through outside pressure. Holt McPherson ’ 28, editor
of The High Point Enterprise, was on the
national journalism accrediting organization. Coffin scorned national organizations
of journalism educators, especially accrediting groups, which he labeled “inquisitors”
run by PhDs and assistant publishers.
Despairing of Coffin’s attitudes toward
accreditation, McPherson spearheaded an
effort by the N.C. Press Association in
1946 to bypass Coffin and ask UNC President Frank Porter Graham (class of 1909)
to seek accreditation for the department.
(Graham had been Coffin’s predecessor as
Tar Heel editor.)
McPherson warned Graham that the
state’s editors would ask Duke University
to start a journalism program if UNC was
not willing to improve its department and
get it accredited. The department failed its
accreditation bid in 1948 because of several
deficiencies, including low academic standards, lack of course outlines and dismal
facilities in Bynum Hall.
The University responded in 1950 by
elevating the department to the School of
Journalism with Coffin as its first dean.
Rather than approach Duke, McPherson
put money behind his efforts and led the
state’s editors to form the School of Journalism Foundation to raise money for the
school. The loyalty Coffin had engendered
among his former students paid off when
they responded with generous financial
support, which became vital for the school.
Plagued by chronic asthma — exacerbated by cigar smoking — Coffin left the
deanship in 1953. Students, especially
DTH Editor Rolfe Neill ’ 54, assumed
Spearman would succeed him.
McPherson had other ideas. His accrediting work had introduced him to Neil
Luxon of Ohio State University, whom he
pushed for the deanship. McPherson
injected himself into the selection process
and got named to the search committee,
which included six other newspaper people
and seven faculty members. When the
search narrowed to Spearman and Luxon,
McPherson lobbied hard for Luxon, again
raising the Duke threat and lobbying UNC
President Gordon Gray ’ 30, who owned
the Winston-Salem newspapers. The committee split, with the editors for Luxon and
the faculty members for Spearman. Gray,
who seemed from the start to have been
inclined toward a dean from outside the
school, chose Luxon.
Neill reacted harshly, saying the University had “fumbled and never recovered.” He
said the arrival of a “PhD with a string of
imposing titles and administrative duties, an
author of journalism textbooks and, incidentally, a man rather bare of practical newspaper experience” was the “signal flare of
the impending battle of journalism accredi-
tation.” The price for accreditation, he said,
was too high. Other editors in the state also
were skeptical of Luxon’s selection.
One reason for the skepticism was
Luxon’s marked contrast to Coffin. Courtly
in style and mannerisms, he had a doctorate, believed university journalism programs
should have an academic foundation and
thought teachers should also be scholars.
Luxon almost always wore a suit with a
flower in the lapel.
Bragging that the school “was going
places on campus,” Luxon turned it in a
new direction and gave it academic
respectability — leading to accreditation in
1958. He tightened admission requirements,
hired faculty members with doctorates,
started a graduate program and moved the
school into Howell Hall. By the time he
left the deanship in 1964, he had established
the school’s reputation as one of the best in
the nation. Because he was revered by the
school’s alumni, Coffin created loyalty for
the school that enabled Luxon’s success and
McPherson’s fundraising accomplishments.
As a loyal alumnus of the school, McPherson pushed for changes that improved the
school, and he created a foundation that has
made a difference between a good school
and an exemplary one.
The efforts of all three men enabled the
success of deans who followed them.
The School of Journalism and Mass
Communication will commemorate 100 years
of journalism education at Carolina in 2009
and 2010. Tom
Bowers, who retired
from the school’s faculty in 2006 after
teaching for 35 years,
has written a history
of the school based on
his scouring of the
University’s archives
and interviews with alumni, faculty and
administrators. He uncovered stories that trace
Carolina journalism’s rise from a single course
taught by Edward Kidder Graham in 1909
in the English department. That work also has
resulted in a book, Making News: One
Hundred Years of Journalism and Mass
Communication at Carolina, published
in August.
