Denny McAuliffe, who founded Reznet at The University of Montana and built it into a top journalism training and mentoring program for American Indian college students across the country, has returned to Washington, D.C. to rejoin The Washington Post.
McAuliffe, who joined UM 10 years ago, will be the overnight news editor for the Post and will continue to serve as spiritual leader of Reznet, a web site featuring Native American news, information and entertainment.
The new interim director is Steve Chin, a former San Francisco Examiner reporter who has been with Reznet since its inception. He designed the web site, a finalist in two categories in the 2008 Online News Association contest. Chin also has taught multimedia journalism workshops at the Freedom Forum’s American Indian Journalism Institute in South Dakota.
The Journalism School has begun a national search for a permanent director.
McAuliffe served as a journalism faculty member at UM before stepping away from classes in 2007 to work full-time on Reznet. In just the past 5 years alone, he raised more than $714,000 for the program, which has a legacy of young Native American journalists working at news organizations around the country.
In mid-October, representatives of UM's American Indian Support and Development Council (AISDC) honored McAuliffe and presented him with a Pendleton Blanket called "The Record Keeper," an exclusive design adapted from the work of Cherokee artist and flautist Terry Lee Whetstone.
During the giving ceremony, Patrick Weasel Head, a member of the AISDC, said, "In Native American tradition, elders pass history, warnings and prophecies from generation to generation through oral traditions as well as ancient rock pictographs and tablets. The dream images here reference symbols often found on those record-keeping rocks and tablets. Denny has been [a record keeper] for Reznet and his contributions to indigenous activities while on campus."
