Leading Lady
The Scripps Howard Foundation names Dr. Shirley Staples Carter Journalism Administrator of the Year

by Cecile Holmes

Dr. Shirley Staples Carter, recognized this month as the Journalism Administrator of the Year by the Scripps Howard Foundation, doesn’t wear the mantle of leadership lightly.

Asked to outline a good leader’s most important qualities, Carter says, “Integrity. Honesty. A sense of fairness. And above all, really wanting to serve.”

Carter, a minister’s daughter and an Alabama native, was steeped in the importance of serving others from an early age. Her parents, her teachers, all of her mentors stressed the need to serve and serve well, whether one wanted to be a leader among friends, family or the wider community.

Her skills in administration and leadership were recognized at a dinner April 20 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Carter's award was among several National Journalism Awards given by the Scripps Foundation. The awards are given in cooperation with the Association of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC)

The awards honored outstanding achievements in print, Web and electronic journalism and journalism education for 2006. And they honor distinguished service to the First Amendment.

Scripps Foundation president Judith Clabes says the awards highlight “the important role” each recipient plays in “a free and democratic society.”

“Shocked and stunned” is how Carter described her reaction at being selected for the award. She will receive $10,000 for the honor with SJMC receiving $5,000.

But Carter says she never expected to win. When her longtime friend and mentor, Loren Ghiglione, called some months ago and said he wanted to nominate her, she agreed, then returned to her day-to-day duties. “And that was that,” she said.

But Ghiglione, ASJMC president, says Carter’s career has been distinguished by her “quiet but inspiring leadership” at major U.S.-based journalism organizations. Zeny Sarabia-Panol, a professor at Middle Tennessee State University, credits Carter, who is African-American, with making her mark, in part, by working hard for diversity.

She took “the often hard, perhaps unpopular steps to develop and train leaders from under-represented backgrounds in the journalism profession and academia,” said Sarabia-Panol.

In 1999-2000, Carter co-founded the Journalism Leadership Institute for Diversity (JLID), whose purpose is to provide training and mentoring to women and people of color seeking careers in journalism and mass communication education administration.

A past president of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication (ASJMC), Carter grew up during the civil rights era and wanted to be a newspaper reporter. “It was so fascinating to me to have this daily record of events,” she said. Yet very few of the journalists covering those events were black.

She earned the B.S. in English Education from Tuskegee University, M.A. in Journalism from Ohio State University, and PhD in Journalism from the University of Missouri. Along the way she was managing editor at two weekly newspapers, worked in university relations in three states, and founded mass communications departments at Norfolk State University in Virginia and at the University of North Florida.

In addition, Carter has been actively engaged for many years as a member of the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications. She has been elected to three, three-year terms on the Accrediting Council in 1995, 1998, and 2003 as the ASJMC representative, and served on more than 20 ACEJMC site visit teams since 1991.

Here at USC, where she was appointed director of the School of Journalism and Mass Communications in 2003, Carter’s goals have included: preserving core journalism values in the school, training students in Web and multimedia skills for the changing media marketplace, retaining students, increasing faculty and helping to merge two formerly independent colleges – now the School of Journalism and Mass Communications and the School of Library and Information Science.

“In terms of credibility, I have to try harder because of my gender and my ethnicity,” Carter says.

But she says the keys to successful leadership are two-fold: belief in a higher power or entity and a willingness to try and see “the larger picture” in any situation.

Editor's Note: On April 25, 2007, the South Carolina General Assembly passed a resolution honoring Dr. Carter for receiving this prestigious award. Read resolution>

A Columbia native and veteran journalist, Cecile S. Holmes is lead instructor for the print senior semester at the School of Journalism and Mass Communications. Nominated seven times for a Pulitzer Prize, she has more than 20 years of experience in reporting and editing. Her second book, “Four Women, Three Faiths,” was published this spring by Harbor House Books of Augusta, Ga.