Smith Holds National SPJ Office

Kevin Z. Smith, assistant professor of journalism for Pierpont Community & Technical College of Fairmont State University, has been elected national secretary-treasurer of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Smith assumed the position at SPJ's national convention in Washington, D.C., held Oct. 3-8. Smith served the past year as a national board member, representing SPJ student and professional members in West Virginia, Ohio, Michigan and western Pennsylvania.

As secretary-treasurer Smith will serve on SPJ's executive and finance committees with oversight of the Society's national budget. He will also serve as member of Sigma Delta Chi, the Society's foundation.

Smith has been a member of SPJ since being inducted as a student member in 1977. He previous served on the board as a campus adviser at-large from 1997-98. He is a 19-year member of the Society's national ethics committee and chaired that committee from 1994-96. He is a contributing author to two editions of the Society's ethics books, "Doing Ethics in Journalism" and has lectured on professional journalism ethics at more than a dozen universities and at national and regional meetings. He was Project Sunshine chair for West Virginia, 1990-95, serving as the Society's advocate for open government records and meetings. He also served as campus adviser to the student chapter at Miami University (Ohio) from 1997-2000. He was one of the founding members of the SPJ's West Virginia professional chapter.

Smith teaches journalism courses at FSU and supervises the student newspaper and yearbook. He is in his fourth year of teaching at Fairmont State. He worked at newspapers in Fairmont, Morgantown, Parkersburg and Grafton, W.Va. and Cincinnati, Ohio, prior to teaching. He has his undergraduate degree in journalism from West Virginia University and a master's in mass communications from Miami University. He resides in Fairmont and has two sons, Ben and Nick.

The Society of Professional Journalists is the largest journalism organization in the nation with nearly 10,000 members, representing journalism professionals and students in every state. It was founded in 1909 as Sigma Delta Chi, a journalism honorary at DePauw University in Indiana. The Society is the nation's largest advocacy group for First Amendment rights, freedom of information and ethics.