Arnold found sense of home at SDSU

Three SDSU department heads retiring from College of Arts and Sciences

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Editor’s note: Graduation ceremonies at South Dakota State University May 6 won’t only mark end of studies for nearly 1,300 students, it will also culminate the academic careers of three department heads. They will be profiled in a three-part series. Today looks at Mary Arnold, who has headed the journalism and mass communications department for 15 years.

Subsequent articles will profile Tim Steele, visual arts, and Brad Woldt, psychology. The final working day for all three administrators in the College of Arts and Sciences is June 21.

BROOKINGS – Mary Arnold began and ended her journalism career in South Dakota, but between those bookends spent a couple of decades elsewhere. She wrote for the Mitchell Daily Republic while studying at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell and then spent four years (1973-77) as a reporter for the Vermillion Plain Talk after getting her master’s degree in English from the University of South Dakota.

After moving to Iowa, she taught high school journalism for many years. She then served as director of the Iowa High School Press Association for 10 years (1986-1996) and earned a doctorate in mass communication at the University of Iowa. Her next move took her to the Newspaper Association of America Foundation in Washington, D.C., where Arnold managed high school journalism and youth outreach programs.

She then moved the journalism department at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind. She taught journalism classes and directed a high school journalism workshop for two years.

“While I was in Muncie, I also started doing consultant work writing books for the Media Management Center at Northwestern University,” Arnold said. “I lead a team that wrote a series of four books on women employed at top levels of management in news organizations.

“I interviewed the president of New York Times, who was then a woman, and 40 women at top positions at large daily newspapers for the books,” Arnold said. “Working as part of a team was really fun.

“I had agreed to do the fourth book when I heard Dick Lee (the longtime SDSU journalism department head) was retiring,” she said. “We finished that book during my first year here.”

Drawn to SDSU

Arnold was familiar with the program because she met Lee at national journalism conventions. She had also worked with faculty members Lyle Olson and Doris Giago through national journalism organizations. She became their boss when she was hired as department head Aug. 1, 2002.

But what really attracted her to SDSU was its top administrators – President Peggy Miller and Carol Peterson, vice president for academic affairs. “They saw the value of a diverse workforce. They said they would support me and my work. It was very refreshing compared to” other positions she held where Arnold said being a female was viewed as a liability.

“I figured I would be here for a few years and move on,” but even now at age 69 she is only moving aside. Arnold plans to stay in Brookings and, after a break, work part time in communications and marketing.

A key to extending her stay at SDSU was the camaraderie she developed with other female department heads – April Brooks in history and political science, Kathleen Donovan in English, Laurie Haleta in communication studies and theater, Teresa Hall in construction management and Eluned Jones in economics.

Arnold recalls the support she received from them when she went through a series of family tribulations – a sister with multiple sclerosis died in 2007, her mother died in 2008 and another sister died from cancer a few years later.

“We women department heads took care of one another. And we still do – even if it is to take one another to the emergency room after a fall,” she said, recalling a couple of incidents in the past few years. “My peer group is a big part of the reason why I stayed, plus I like our students’ enthusiasm and their work ethic. The students here aren’t afraid to work.”

Growth areas

And they’re finding jobs, including those in digital media and ag communications.

“In the past few years, there has been huge growth in ag comm,” said Arnold, noting the current 55 majors has grown from 12 in 2008. “There is a need to explain to people about the technological changes in farming. Ag comm graduates often get multiple job offers. But then, so do our advertising and journalism grads who are adept at digital and social media.”

Another growth area is the master’s in journalism, which had fewer than five participants when Arnold arrived 15 years ago. That turned around when the program went online in 2009 and now there are 46.

Advertising remains the department’s most popular option with about 50 percent of the 200 majors choosing that field. Another 40 percent choose journalism while 10 percent opt for public relations.

Adapting to new media

The department’s most visible asset would be the Yeager Media Center, a high-definition television and new media facility and the primary center for SDSU campus television and media production. The center was created in 2012 out of a former photo studio after facilities at Pugsley Studio were shut down.

The studio is now used for the filming of the “On Call with the Prairie Doc” live weekly medical advice show that airs on public television as well as for the Jackrabbit Insider weekly show for the athletics department. The center also serves several other SDSU and external clients.

Professor Lyle Olson, who will serve as interim department head for 2017-18, said, “Under Mary’s forward-thinking leadership, the department has moved into the digital age and adapted to the constantly-changing mass media landscape with, for example, two new majors, a social media minor and an award-winning online professional master’s degree program.

“Personally, she has been a great mentor in regard to effective academic leadership, from curriculum and student matters to faculty supervision and hiring and everything in-between.”

Retirement plans

In addition to serving as journalism department head, since 2012 one-quarter of her duties has been as assistant to the dean of the College of Arts and Science for marketing and communications. She may continue with that in retirement and definitely plans to continue to write, possibly doing public relations for a nonprofit.

Immediate plans call for a road trip to the national parks in the Western United States. “I want to explore the natural beauty and see more than the convention centers and restaurants I saw when I traveled a lot in my earlier jobs.”

There also will be time with her family – a son, Mark, who is a graphic designer in Iowa City; and a daughter, Ellen, who is a graphic designer for the Government Accounting Office in Washington, D.C.

Arnold’s retirement celebration is 3-5 p.m. Monday, April 24, in the Coughlin Alumni Lounge in Dkyhouse Stadium on campus. The program is at 3:30 p.m.