Kappa Tau Alpha to Honor Professor Emeritus George Kennedy with Outstanding Service Award

Columbia, Mo. (May 10, 2010) — The Frank Luther Mott Chapter of Kappa Tau Alpha has named Professor Emeritus George Kennedy as the 2010 recipient of the Keith P. Sanders Outstanding Service Award. The award will be presented during the May 15 ceremony inducting new members into Kappa Tau Alpha.

George Kennedy
George Kennedy

The award recognizes Kennedy’s “exemplary contributions to both the practice and scholarship of journalism at the University of Missouri and the Columbia Missourian.” Kennedy, BJ ’64, PhD ’78, joined the Missouri faculty in 1974 after a career with the Miami Herald and the News Journal in Wilmington, Del.

Kennedy has a long record of service to the School, the profession of journalism and the Columbia community that includes co-authoring a popular news reporting textbook, serving as associate dean and editing the Columbia Missourian. Along the way he has mentored scores of journalism students, both on the Columbia campus and in stints abroad at the Center for Independent Journalism in Slovakia and the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain. Though officially retired from the School, Kennedy has remained active in teaching, advising and writing a newspaper column on community issues. He is a long-time volunteer with the Central Missouri Food Bank.

Kennedy is the inaugural recipient of the award under its new name, which was changed as part of Kappa Tau Alpha’s centennial celebration this year. The award is now given in the name of Keith P. Sanders, a professor emeritus of journalism at Missouri, who has served as executive director of Kappa Tau Alpha since 1991.

Kappa Tau Alpha is the seventh oldest national honor society and the only journalism/mass communication member of the Association of College Honor Societies. It was founded at the University of Missouri in 1910.

Updated: May 11, 2020

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