Shaw, Susanne

Susanne Marie Shaw was born in Wellington, Kan., where her mother, Alma was a registered nurse and her father Eddie Shaw, was a daily columnist for the Wellington Daily News, writing a popular hometown column, “Reporting Main Street.” His daughter longed to be a paper carrier, but back then, the Daily News employed only boys as carriers. Frustrated, she found old papers, folded them into the classic square newspaper fold, and delivered them to doorsteps anyway. She worked summers at the Daily News, starting in the mail room and eventually did every job at the newspaper, and later worked as a Wellington police dispatcher.

After graduating from Wellington High School in 1957, Shaw entered the School of Education at the University of Kansas and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1961. Her first job out of college was at Wichita Heights High School, in its first year as a high school, where she was publications adviser and journalism teacher. That first year, she guided the first-year school newspaper, the “Heights Highlighter,” to anational award from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association in New York.

She returned to Lawrence to earn her master’s degree in journalism in 1964-65 at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications, then came back to Wichita to serve as publications adviser and journalism teacher at Wichita South High School. Shaw returned to Lawrence in 1970 when she was appointed editor of the KU Alumni Association’s magazine, Kansas Alumni. She joined the journalism faculty in 1971 as an assistant professor.

While at the University of Kansas, she served as news adviser and general manager of the University Daily Kansan, the journalism school’s graduate director and served twice as associate dean of the school. She was considered by professional employers as one of the “goto” people at the school when they recruited students at the university.

Shaw left the state of Kansas only once in her career, when she worked 18 months at the Tallahassee (Fla.) Democrat, where Editor Rich Oppel hired her to participate in a Knight-Ridder management training program. She left Lawrence again in 1982 to become editor and publisher of the Coffeyville Journal. She returned to the KU journalism faculty in 1984 when Dean Del Brinkman offered her the position of general manager of the Daily Kansan. And she remained with the school for the next 35 years.

In 1986, Shaw was appointed executive director of the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications, the agency responsible for the evaluation of professional journalism and mass communications programs in colleges and universities and served in that role until 2019.

From a base at the journalism school, where she also continued to teach classes, Shaw traveled throughout the United States and to dozens of other countries for the accrediting council and was widely known by journalism educators and professionals throughout the country and world. Among the countries she visited: China, Australia, New Zealand and United Arab Emirates. “Susanne Shaw is the Michael Jordan of journalism education,” said David Boardman, past president of the council and dean of the School of Media and Communication at Temple University. He explained: “Name most any major institution, and you will instantly conjure one individual whose name will be forever associated with its success. For the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications, that person is Susanne Shaw.”

Among her individual honors are the Freedom Forum’s Lifetime Achievement Award; the H. Bernard Fink Award for Distinguished Classroom Teaching; the inaugural Dr. Tim Bengtson Journalism Faculty Mentor Award; the Gerald M. Sass Award for Distinguished Service, Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication; Outstanding Educator, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication; Chairperson, University of Kansas Athletic Corporation; Faculty Representative, Women’s Athletics, University of Kansas Athletic Corporation; and Mentor Program to Student Athletes.