Steve Coll To Step Down As Dean Of Journalism School

Upper West Side NY

07 October, 2021

3:49 PM

Description

Columbia Daily Spectator BY IRIE SENTNER OCTOBER 7, 2021 Steve Coll will step down as dean of the Journalism School in June 2022 after nine years in the role, University President Lee Bollinger announced in an email on Thursday. Coll will remain a member of the Journalism faculty. Bollinger's message provides no information about the search for Coll's replacement. Before his appointment in 2013, Coll served as a reporter, foreign correspondent, senior editor, managing editor of the Washington Post, and the president of the New America Foundation think tank. A current staff writer for the New Yorker, Coll has written eight nonfiction books and is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize. "Steve's life experiences gave him a special vantage point for appraising the present and future of journalism, and it served him, and us, exceedingly well during his tenure as Dean," Bollinger wrote. As dean, Coll focused on transforming the Journalism School during a time of intense global transition within the journalism field. Coll raised over $150 million to fund large initiatives, including $50 million to expand financial aid and student access. Coll launched the Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights, which conducts research around social justice issues and provides annual fellowships for civil and human rights reportage in 2018. To combat disinformation and support ethical journalism, Coll helped establish the Craig Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security in 2019. In 2020, Coll launched the Simon and June Li Center for Global Journalism to better prepare journalists to "work, think, and report globally" through fellowships, scholarships, and new curricular activities. "We are admiring as well as grateful for all he has done to ensure that our School of Journalism remains at the pinnacle of its field," Bollinger wrote. Deputy News Editor Irie Sentner can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @iriesentner. Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.