Folkerts, Dr. Jean

Dr. Jean Folkerts began the education that led to her long career in journalism and communication in a one-room school in the sandhills of Nebraska. A Kansas native, she earned BA and MA degrees in journalism from the Kansas State University and a PhD in American Studies from the University of Kansas.

Folkerts is former Dean and Alumni Distinguished Professor Emeritus of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  After retiring from UNC, she taught media history and served as Interim Director of the A.Q. Miller School of Journalism & Mass Communication at Kansas State University. *

Prior to her deanship at UNC, Folkerts served in several roles at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.  These included Director of the School of Media and Public Affairs, Professor of Honors, Associate Vice President for Special Academic Initiatives, and Interim Dean of Columbian College of Arts and Sciences.

Folkerts began her career in Kansas, working as a reporter for the Topeka Capital Journal, editing a magazine for The Menninger Foundation, Menninger Perspective, working as assistant press secretary to Governor Robert Bennett and teaching at Washburn University. She then taught at the University of Texas at Austin and at Mount Vernon College in Washington, D.C.

In 2001 she was named by the Topeka Capital Journal as a Kansan of Distinction in Media and Journalism. That same year she was named Teacher of the Year by the Freedom Forum for excellence in the teaching of media history.  In 2016, she was selected for the Sidney Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism History. The award is given by the American Journalism Historians Association.

From 1992 to 2001, Folkerts was editor of Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly.  The journal publishes leading research in communications and journalism. She is the author of several editions of Voices of a Nation: A History of Media in the United States and of Media in Your Life: An Introduction to Mass Communication. She also is the author of many journal and popular articles. 

*The school has since been renamed to the A.Q. Miller School of Media and Communication.