Journalism dean search: North Texas professor envisions gateway degree

Part of a Stories Beneath the Shell series covering the appointment to dean of the University of Maryland’s journalism school.

First published Thursday, April 6, 2023 in Stories Beneath the Shell.

A journalism professor who briefly blipped on the nation’s radar in 2015 after being stopped for walking while being Black, as she put it, is among the candidates for the next dean of the University of Maryland’s journalism school.  

Dorothy Bland, a journalism professor at the University of North Texas, presented herself as the right person to lead the school in front of about 35 Philip Merrill College of Journalism faculty and students on March 27. She was the only candidate to acknowledge that the university sits on unceded Piscataway land and to include her pronouns in her presentation.

She boasts 17 years in academia, rising up the ranks from professor to the University of North Texas’s journalism school dean. Five years later, in 2018, she went back to being a professor because of her mother’s health, despite the chance to serve as dean for another five years. 

Before her academic work, she worked for almost three decades in journalism, writing for outlets including USA Today and papers in Illinois and Arkansas. She was only the second Black publisher at Gannett, the company which publishes newspapers across the country including USA Today, according to a local newspaper. 

“I’m a get-it-done kind of chick,” Bland told the assembly.

One of her top priorities is diversity. She markets herself as a “diversity champion,” pointing to her school’s 2016 win of the Association of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication’s Equity & Diversity Award and her work studying diversity, equity, and inclusion in journalism. She is a first-generation college graduate herself.

But, she said, journalism can’t just talk the talk without walking the walk. 

“I think that if we’re going to talk about inclusion and diversity, equity and access, we have to live it.”

That seems to be something the University of Maryland’s journalism school is reckoning with. More than 6 in 10 journalism students are white, university data shows. Students of color have said they do not feel included and diversity needs to be a top priority for the new dean who replaces current Dean Lucy Dalglish. A professor asked her what she would do about the lack of diversity in the student body since the college does not decide which undergraduate students to admit. The Department of Undergraduate Admissions handles that decision instead — unlike admissions for graduate programs. 

Bland said the university’s president and provost are very committed to diversity. But, she said, “You have to know where to fish to find those populations.”

Terrence Britt, who led undergraduate recruitment efforts for the college until 2022, said that the demographics of applicants generally match the demographics of admitted students. That means that knowing where to find diverse students, or knowing where to fish as Bland put it, seems to be the problem: Diverse students are applying in large numbers but not being admitted. Despite that, Merril administrators often blame the department for an undergraduate student body that isn’t very diverse — around 65% of undergraduates are white. Britt did not respond to a voicemail asking for comment. The director of the Office of Undergraduate Admissions and Merrill College’s new program coordinator for undergraduate recruitment also did not respond to voicemails asking for comment. 

Bland boasted her knowledge of where to find diverse students as well as her experience developing important connections in the journalism field. She proposed more collaborations with local universities that serve people of color, expanding research grants, and fostering more relations with industry professionals and alumni. 

“If we are doing what we need to be doing,” she said, “the journalism world will be far more diverse in a decade and people in this room will be in leadership roles.”

Bland, who could become the college’s first Black dean, became the focal point of the national conversation on race in 2015. Two white police officers stopped her while walking in a wealthy – and 82% white – suburb about 50 miles outside of Dallas. The officers advised her to walk facing traffic and asked for her ID.

“Knowing that the police officers are typically armed with guns and are a lot bigger than my 5 feet, 4 inches, I had no interest in my life’s story playing out like Trayvon Martin’s death,” she wrote in an editorial after the incident. “I stopped and asked the two officers if there was a problem; I don’t remember getting a decent answer before one of the officers asked me where I lived and for identification.”

“How many Americans typically carry ID with them on their morning walk?” she asked. Only a handful of faculty and staff at the presentation raised their hands.

Her piece led to massive backlash, including memes saying that she had fabricated the story so she could get her 15 minutes of fame, which is incorrect. A video the Corinth police department posted confirms Bland’s recollection. Her piece also sparked over 4,800 signatures on a petition to remove her as dean.

Asked to reflect on that time, she defended her piece as being accurate to her lived experience. 

Bland envisioned a journalism degree from Merrill as being a “gateway degree,” with which graduates can go into journalism, but also anything else in the media world. Graduates are entering a challenging journalism market that she termed a “freelance economy,” where students have to lean on connections as well. 

She received mixed reactions. Many thought while her presentation was good, she dropped the ball during the question and answer session. According to two people familiar with the search, it is unlikely that Provost Jennifer King Rice would pick her to be the next dean.

Bland thinks she has a good shot at becoming the “get-it-done” dean because the university’s provost wants a dean who has both industry experience and a Ph.D., she said. She is the finalist out of the four that has a Ph.D. One person familiar with the search said, “We have no idea what the provost wants.”

Bland also runs her own consulting business, DMB Consulting, to advise clients. When asked about the business, she would only say that she has done executive coaching and helped advance diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in two newsrooms. When pressed further, she didn’t commit to ending her consulting business, saying only that she would have to look at state law if appointed. 

Maryland law allows public employees to work a second job as long as an employee’s independence isn’t undermined, according to a 2019 memo from the State Ethics Commission. She did not answer a question about whether she would disclose a list of clients.

“I guess the question is, ‘Are you well respected enough that others will pay for your expertise?’” she said. “The answer is yes.”