Tripp Honored for Service to UA Minority Journalism Workshop

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Bernell E. Tripp will receive the Founders Award at the 20th anniversary celebration of The University of Alabama’s Minority Journalism Workshop on Monday, July 7 at Indian Hills Country Club.

Tripp, a native of Slocomb and now associate professor of journalism at the University of Florida, Gainesville, served eight years on the staff of The University of Alabama workshop.

“Bernell Tripp represents, as well as any UA graduate I know, what we are trying to achieve, not only through our minority program, but with all our students,” said Dr. Ed Mullins, chair of UA’s journalism department in the College of Communication and Information Sciences. “Her career defines hard work, intellectual rigor, professional preparation and loyalty as demonstrated in the many ways she has given back to her alma mater in appreciation for what she has received here.”

Ten former colleagues — now news professionals and professors — will return to Tuscaloosa for the Founders Dinner to honor Tripp and to spend a day with high school students who are involved in this year’s Minority Journalism Workshop. The 20 members of MJW class of 2003 also will attend the anniversary dinner.

Tripp returned to her alma mater in 1987 for graduate study, earning her master’s and doctorate in the College of Communication and Information Sciences. She first connected with the minority program when she advised MJW students who had advanced to the New York Times Scholar phase.

Tonjanita L. Johnson was an entering freshman that year. “I was in the first group of students that Bernell worked with in the Minority Journalism Workshop in 1987, and I immediately adopted her as my role model,” she said. “Over the years, I have relied heavily on Bernell’s professional and personal guidance, and I have been a more productive individual because of her influence in my life.”

Tripp joined the MJW staff the next summer as primary instructor and later became assistant director, and then associate director, of the two-week experience.

“Bernell never failed to answer our call to return, even after she began teaching in Florida,” said Marie Parsons, former director of the workshop. “She was truly dedicated to the ideals of the program. One time Bernell fought off feelings of illness all week and through the closing day, such was her devotion to her students. When we looked around for her at the closing luncheon, we got a note: Bernell is hospitalized at DCH.”

Tripp was a superb role model for the youngsters she mentored, Mullins said. “She worked hard as a student to master the craft of journalism. She made good grades. She became a team player and then she took those qualifications to the Pensacola News-Journal, where she became UA’s first minority female sports writer.

“She has continued to apply those same qualities now as a professor of journalism at the University of Florida, where she has earned tenure and been promoted to associate professor,” he continued. “Of the thousands who have labored on behalf of workforce equity in journalism during the past 20 years, no one is more deserving of this honor than Bernell Tripp. And so she is the perfect recipient of our first Minority Journalism Program Founders Award.”

Among the returnees to celebrate in Tripp’s honor will be Molly Altizer, journalism program coordinator and associate professor of English and journalism at Suffolk County Community College in Selden, N.Y.; Paul Delaney, director of Initiative on Racial Mythology, Washington, D.C.; Marian Huttenstine, chair of communication, Mississippi State University, Starkville; Johnson, assistant to the president/ chief executive officer, Mississippi Valley State University, Itta Bena; Ken Knight, multimedia coordinator for The Tampa Tribune, WFLA-TV and TBO.com; Laurie Lattimore, assistant professor of journalism at Mercer University, Macon, Ga.; and Sherrel Wheeler Stewart, assistant metro editor at the Birmingham News.

Kathryn Adams, in her second year as workshop director, and Creg Stephenson, primary instructor, also will participate in the award ceremony, as will Mervin Aubespin, retired associate editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, who will be making his eighth trip to the Capstone to work with UA’s minority activities. More than 20 visiting professionals will spend a day or two at workshop events.

The Founders Award also honors three persons who were instrumental in initiating the communication minority program in 1983 and in conducting the first workshop in 1984.

Huttenstine, then assistant professor of journalism at UA, solicited $4,000 to operate the first workshop. She remained as adviser to the program throughout her tenure at the University.

Mullins was dean during the early days of the program and gave it the “dean’s blessing” and eventually became its adviser and fundraiser, working with Parsons to secure a $100,000 grant from the Knight Foundation (which also contributed $5,000 to this year’s workshop) and $25,000 grants from the Gannett Foundation each of the past four years. Mullins and the directors have collaborated to receive grants for the past 20 years from the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund.

Parsons was the workshop’s first director and developed a college-level mentoring program, remaining with the program for 15 years. The workshop is an offspring of the Dow Jones Urban Journalism Workshop program, which has provided seed money for annual workshops in more than 30 states over the past 30 years.

MJW has more than 400 graduates who have gone on to careers in prominent media outlets.

The Minority Journalism Program has helped transform UA’s College of Communication and Information Sciences into a major center for minority talent. Although just 13.3 percent of the student body is classified as a minority, one in five students specializing in print, online and broadcast news is a minority, which gives UA one of the largest minority percentages in the nation among predominantly white colleges and universities.

Other contributors to MJW have been The Tuscaloosa News, Birmingham News, Birmingham Post-Herald, Anniston Star, Montgomery Advertiser, Decatur Daily, Florence TimesDaily; Huntsville Times; Mobile Register; Tuskegee News, Selma Times-Journal, Boone Newspapers, Inc., New York Times Company Foundation, Freedom Forum and Newhouse Foundation.

Editor’s Note: Media are invited to cover the ceremony beginning at 6 p.m. on July 7 at the Indian Hills Country Club.