Smith Named to National SPJ Board

Kevin Z. Smith, Assistant Professor of Journalism at Fairmont State University and Pierpont Community & Technical College of FSU, has been named to the national board of directors of the Society for Professional Journalists.

Smith was voted to a two-year term on the board during the SPJ national convention in Chicago last week. His position comes by virtue of being elected regional director of U.S. Region 4. He will represent the society's professional and student journalists as well as its academic members in West Virginia, Ohio, Michigan and western Pennsylvania. Attending delegates from Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati, as well as student chapters in Ohio, Bowling Green State and Kent State universities selected Smith as their representative.

Smith teaches classes in reporting and editing and serves as publications director, overseeing the student newspaper and yearbook. He is a columnist for the Times West Virginian and is the newspaper's former managing editor. He has worked at newspapers in Grafton, Parkersburg, Morgantown and Cincinnati as well as for Bloomsberg News in Washington, D.C. He also worked in public relations at United Hospital Center in Clarksburg.

This is the second time Smith has served on the national SPJ board. He filled an unexpired term in 1997-98 as campus advisor at large while teaching at Miami University in Ohio. His service to SPJ includes 17 years on its ethics committee with a chairmanship from 1994-96 and five years as SPJ Sunshine (open government) chair for West Virginia from 1990 to 1995. He is a contributing writer to two editions of the SPJ's textbook on journalism ethics and has been a member of the SPJ's resolutions and nominating committees.

SPJ is the nation's oldest and largest organization for professional journalists with a membership of more than 1,000 professionals and students. Founded in 1908, SPJ has headquarters at DePauw University in Indianapolis.