Texas A&M hires new journalism faculty members
Hiring scandal tainted the program’s revival
Texas A&M University will double its full-time journalism faculty ahead of the fall semester, forging ahead after a hiring scandal tainted the program’s much-anticipated revival and raised major concerns about recruitment at the institution.
Mariano Castillo and Flora Charner of CNN and Paul O’Donnell of The Dallas Morning News will join the journalism program as professors of practice, A&M officials confirmed. Their additions make for six active, full-time faculty members in the program, teaching roughly 80 students majoring in journalism. Several other faculty members also teach courses for journalism majors but remain cross-listed in different specialties.
“There is some opportunism here in the sense that we want to build a larger program that serves the state,” said Hart Blanton, head of A&M’s Department of Communication and Journalism. “The strongest people we get, to some degree, are shaping the timing of those priorities.”
Castillo is senior director of news standards and practices at CNN, and Charner is the outlet’s weekend director of coverage for international newsgathering. Castillo was a reporter at the San Antonio Express-News in the early 2000s. He covered the border from the newspaper’s bureaus in the Rio Grande Valley and Laredo.
O’Donnell is senior business editor at The Dallas Morning News.
“Looking forward to helping to raise up the program,” O’Donnell wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Employers, keep an eye on our current and future grads!”
The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board last summer approved two new journalism degrees at A&M, reviving a program that went defunct in 2004. Journalism students and alumni largely celebrated the move: For the past 20 years, undergraduates had learned the discipline through a minor and later a degree concentration in university studies.
They can now earn a Bachelor of Science that supports concentrations that leverage A&M’s strengths in areas such as data and science, or a Bachelor of Arts that supports other concentrations to focus on government reporting, public health reporting and technology, according to the university.
The developments have, at times, been overshadowed by the national scandal that preceded them. Kathleen McElroy, a prominent Black journalist, was pushed out of negotiations to lead the program amid concerns about her past work at The New York Times and her research in diversity, equity and inclusion.
Top A&M officials initially celebrated the hiring of McElroy, a former Pulitzer Prizes juror with a national reputation as a sports journalist and a prior directorship at the University of Texas journalism school. The relationship soured when alumni and several regents voiced dissatisfaction with McElroy, leading top administrators to offer her less favorable terms of employment, according to an internal review of the bungled hire.
She walked away from “watered down” contract negotiations, saying she felt judged by race and possibly gender. President M. Katherine Banks also stepped down from her position days after she told faculty that she was not involved in the scandal — text messages showed that she shirked normal hiring processes and directed the changes to McElroy’s contract. McElroy and the Texas A&M System settled her claims for $1 million. McElroy returned to UT.
An internal investigation revealed that one Texas A&M University System board member opposed McElroy’s hire because he felt it counteracted a previously unstated “purpose” to cultivate right-leaning Aggie journalists.
The university and its new president, Gen. Mark A. Welsh, have been working to reaffirm a commitment to academic freedom.
“Last summer, some individuals mischaracterized our department and its goals. They mischaracterized the motives of the person and the character of the person we sought to hire,” Blanton said. “I’ve never commented on that and don’t have any desire to, but what I have been waiting for is the point where I can say we’re in the next news cycle.”
People around the university are now having to answer questions about academic freedom when hiring new employees, Blanton said. He hopes that they will not be deterred.
“I’m the son of a journalist, and they’re a tougher breed,” Blanton said. “They’re not a real fear-prone group.”