Trevor Brown

Professor emeritus Trevor R. Brown retired as the dean of the IU School of Journalism in 2005, a post he had held for 20 years.

Born and raised in South Africa, Brown studied history and English literature at Rhodes University before entering Oxford University in England. He earned a bachelor’s degree in modern history as a Rhodes Scholar, later becoming a sports and general reporter for the Cape Times in South Africa.

At Stanford, he earned a master’s degree in communication and journalism. Brown taught Latin and English at the Western Province Preparatory School in Cape Town while working part-time as a sports reporter and columnist for the Cape Times. He later was a lecturer in the Department of English Literature at the University of Cape Town.

After earning a Ph.D. in communications at Stanford University, Brown came to Bloomington in 1972 to start his position as an assistant professor. In the 33 years as a faculty member of the school, he never took a single semester of leave and often taught journalism’s large introductory classes for freshmen.

At IU, Brown also was associate director of the state-funded Multinational Foreign Journalists Project and the advisor, associate dean and acting dean of the School of Journalism until he was named dean in 1985.

As dean, Brown was responsible for many changes to the School of Journalism that has been crucial to its success. He secured a $1.5 million grant from the Knight Foundation in 1995 to restructure the curriculum to better suit the emerging modern media platforms.

As a man of many accomplishments, his other positions included serving nearly 20 years on the Board of Trustees of the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla. He was named Journalism Administrator of the Year by the Freedom Forum in 2001, and he was inducted into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame in 2005.

In honor of his own international background and travel, this scholarship in his name is granted to undergraduates participating in IU-affiliated Overseas Study Programs.