Overholser to leave post as director in 2013


By
 in ,

The Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism announced Friday that Geneva Overholser, director of the school of journalism, will leave her post in June 2013. The school has also launched a recruitment campaign for her successor.

Overholser has served as director since 2008, when she left a professorship at the Missouri School of Journalism’s Washington bureau. During her tenure at USC, Overholser kickstarted the Annenberg digital news site Neon Tommy, as well as the hyper-local site Intersections South LA. 

Her career in journalism has also spanned positions at The Washington Post, The New York Times and Colorado Springs Sun. Overholser was also the editor of The Des Moines Register from 1988 to 1995, when the paper won a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

Though her career in the industry has yielded plenty of successes, Overholser said that her time at Annenberg has also been fulfilling.

“It has been a remarkable four years, and we have big things on the agenda for this year, as well,” Overholser said in the press release. “My time as director of this school has been enormously rewarding, and it is gratifying to see the results of our efforts in the success of our students.”

Dean Ernest J. Wilson III also commended Overholser for her hard work at Annenberg, saying she has undoubtedly left her mark on the school.

“Her accomplishments in just a few years are extraordinary. The Columbia Journalism Review got it right when they included Geneva on its list of 40 women who changed the media business during the past 40 years,” Wilson said. “USC Annenberg will be forever in her debt for the path she has forged in directing a school to greater heights. For me, Geneva has been a wonderful colleague, close friend and collaborator in moving the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism into the future.”