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Keith Greenwood earns national AJHA teaching award

Keith Greenwood

The award recognizes Greenwood’s approach to making journalism history relevant

By Austin Fitzgerald

COLUMBIA, Mo. (Aug. 20, 2025) — Keith Greenwood, an associate professor at the Missouri School of Journalism, will receive the 2025 National Award for Excellence in Teaching from the American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA).

The award recognizes excellence in teaching journalism and mass communication history at a collegiate level.

“Keith’s commitment to his students and his hands-on approach to journalism history make him an outstanding choice for this national award,” said David Kurpius, dean of the School of Journalism. “In helping students approach their work with a keen understanding of connections between the past and present, he is having a profound impact on the next generation of journalists.”

This is not the first time Greenwood, whose teaching revolves around the history of journalism and photojournalism, has earned recognition from the AJHA. In 2022, the organization awarded him a $12,500 grant to study the photojournalistic history of the military newspaper Stars and Stripes. And in the words of Amy Lauters, chair of the AJHA Education Committee, returning to honor Greenwood was “an easy call.”

“The committee noted the many years of dedicated teaching, particularly in the realm of history and photojournalism, and Dr. Greenwood’s emphasis on centering practice in historical context,” Lauters said. “We are thrilled to offer him this award.”

For Greenwood, the honor stands as validation of his approach to helping students learn a knowledge-gathering process rather than simply memorizing facts.

“It’s not that I want a student to come out of a class and say, okay, I learned this thing,” said Greenwood, who also won an award for writing-intensive teaching in 2016. “I want them to get that process in their mind of, well, why did I learn this thing and where did it come from? What is the context that shaped how this came about?”

That style of teaching is, in part, a response to his early memories of taking history classes that stressed rote memorization of names and dates. In fact, it wasn’t until his pursuit of a master’s degree in journalism at Michigan State University — which he earned in 1992 before later receiving a doctorate from the School of Journalism — that he was exposed to classes that approached the subject differently, opening his mind to the potential of journalism history as a discipline.

"Migrant Mother" Photo: Dorothea Lange
“Migrant Mother” Photo: Dorothea Lange

“Steve Lacy at Michigan State University was talking to me about the Farm Security Administration photo project of the 1930’s and 40’s, and I didn’t really know much about it at that point,” he said, referencing a U.S. government project that photographed rural and urban living conditions from 1935 to 1944 and produced indelible images like Dorothea Lange’s famous Migrant Mother. “It wasn’t even a history course, but what he was talking about in class brought in that context — the idea that journalism doesn’t happen in a vacuum. And that was the lightbulb moment. It completely changed my perspective.”

Now, Greenwood is the one changing perspectives at a school that, unlike some others, requires students to take a journalism history course to graduate. And whether he is teaching about the evolution of camera technology or news coverage of the Vietnam War, one of his goals is to help new generations understand that even those events and stories that seem brand new have a history.

For his photojournalism history class, he emphasizes this idea by asking students to research a historic picture and explain why it looks the way it does, not only jump-starting discussion of photographic technology but making a larger point about the importance of the context that history provides.

“Every generation is susceptible to the idea that, ‘hey, this is new,’” he said. “If they don’t understand the history, then it seems new, but a solid grounding in history gives them a different perspective. So when they are starting to cover a political movement, a social movement or an issue in their community, they have something in the back of their mind saying, ‘I know something similar was covered in the past. What are the unresolved questions that I need to dig into?’”

Speaking of history repeating itself, Greenwood is the third School of Journalism faculty member to receive this teaching honor from the AJHA since the award’s inception in 2008. Earnest Perry, now the School’s associate dean of graduate studies and research, received the award in 2013, and Curators’ Professor Emerita Betty Winfield received the inaugural award in 2008.

“As a teacher, [Greenwood] brings history to life,” Perry wrote in support of Greenwood’s nomination. “Through his visual scholarship, he connects the past to the present so that his students can better understand their futures. The work he does is vital and should be rewarded.”

The AJHA will officially present the award to Greenwood during the AJHA national convention in Long Beach, California, which will run from Sept. 25-27.

Updated: August 20, 2025

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