Staff
Diversity Institute Senior Staff
Jack Marsh is vice president/diversity programs for the Freedom Forum and executive director of the Al Neuharth Media Center at the University of South Dakota. He lives in Sioux Falls, S.D., but divides his time among all three Diversity Institute offices, in Washington, D.C., Nashville, Tenn., and Vermillion, S.D. Marsh is founding director of the American Indian Journalism Institute at USD and among the founding organizers of the annual Native American Journalism Career Conference at Crazy Horse Memorial. From 1998 to 2001, he served as director of the Newseum’s NewsCapade with Al Neuharth, a traveling exhibit that visited all 50 states and Canada. Previously, Marsh held a variety of journalism and newspaper executive positions in New York, New Jersey and South Dakota during his 27-year career with Gannett Co., Inc. He is a past president of the New York State Associated Press Association and the South Dakota Associated Press Managing Editors. He is a trustee of the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation and a member of its executive committee. Marsh is a graduate of Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio.
Karen Catone is director of the Chips Quinn Scholars program, the largest and most enduring of the Freedom Forum’s diversity initiatives. Catone began her career with the Freedom Forum in 1974 when it was then known as the Gannett Foundation and was located in Rochester, N.Y. Catone spent 10 years as grants coordinator and moved with the foundation to Arlington, Va., in 1989. When the Freedom Forum was established in 1991 as successor to the Gannett Foundation, Catone worked on various grants and scholarship programs. She assumed administration of the Chips Quinn Scholars program in 1995 and today is based at the Freedom Forum’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Val Hoeppner is manager of multimedia education and is based at the Diversity Institute’s Nashville offices in the John Seigenthaler Center. She oversees multimedia instruction for the Chips Quinn Scholars program, the American Indian Journalism Institute, the Diversity Institute Multimedia Scholars Program and other Freedom Forum academic initiatives. Hoeppner is an adjunct professor of journalism at Belmont University, Nashville. She is the incoming education liaison for the Associated Press Photo Managers and directs the multimedia student project at the Associated Press Managing Editors annual convention. Hoeppner is a member of the Native American Journalists Association and serves on the multimedia committee for UNITY, Journalists of Color. Hoeppner came to the Freedom Forum from The Indianapolis Star where she was the multimedia director and previously the deputy director of photography. Hoeppner spent 10 years as the photo editor and a staff photographer at the Argus Leader in Sioux Falls, S.D. Hoeppner has a bachelor’s degree from Truman State University in Kirksville, Mo.
Other Diversity Institute Staff
Gordon Belt is the library manager for the Freedom Forum’s John Seigenthaler Center in Nashville, Tenn., one of the Diversity Institute’s three office locations. Before joining the Freedom Forum, he was a research and information specialist and library manager at the A.C. Kalmbach Memorial Library in Chattanooga, Tenn. Belt earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and a master’s degree in history with a concentration in archival administration from Middle Tennessee State University.
Janine Harris is manager of the Freedom Forum’s Al Neuharth Media Center at the University of South Dakota and is assistant to Jack Marsh, the Freedom Forum’s vice president/diversity programs. She joined the company in January 2001. Previously, she was office manager of the newsroom and assistant to the executive editor at the Argus Leader in Sioux Falls, S.D. She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Dakota.
Michelle Hedenskoog is program manager for the Chips Quinn Scholars program and is based at the Freedom Forum’s offices in Washington, D.C. She joined the program in March 2001. Previously, she was an editorial assistant for the University of Michigan’s LSAmagazine and administrative coordinator for the Gannett Co. corporate news division. She has a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of the Philippines.
Javiera Ihrig is program assistant of the Chips Quinn Scholars program, based in Washington. A graduate of The George Washington University, she studied journalism, criminal justice and art history. Ihrig was editor of her high school newspaper and was a 2003 Al Neuharth Free Spirit Scholar. She was a teen correspondent with the Virginian-Pilot’s 757 section in the Daily Break from 2001-2003.
Angela McDade is program coordinator for the Diversity Institute and is based at the Freedom Forum’s John Seigenthaler Center in Nashville, Tenn., where she has worked since 1992. McDade has had numerous promotions throughout her Freedom Forum career. Prior to her current position with the Diversity Institute, she was a human resources specialist for the Freedom Forum, Diversity Institute and Newseum.
Quincy Pettiford is multimedia and online producer for the Diversity Institute and is based at the Freedom Forum’s John Seigenthaler Center in Nashville, Tenn. Prior to joining the Diversity Institute, Pettiford was the owner and operator of Qp Productions in Nashville and was a senior video editor for DigiScript Inc. Pettiford has a bachelor’s degree in telecommunications from Indiana University.
Founders
Al Neuharth of Cocoa Beach, Fla., is founder of the Freedom Forum, the Newseum and USA TODAY. The Diversity Institute, conceived by the Freedom Forum, has offices, staff, programs and classes at the Al Neuharth Media Center at the University of South Dakota, Neuharth’s alma mater. Neuharth was born and raised in South Dakota and is a 1950 USD journalism graduate.
John C. Quinn of Cocoa Beach, Fla., and Carolina, R.I., the first editor in chief of USA TODAY and former deputy chairman of the Freedom Forum, is founder of the Chips Quinn Scholars program, the Diversity Institute’s largest and most enduring diversity initiative.
John Seigenthaler of Nashville, Tenn., founding editorial director of USA TODAY and publisher emeritus of The Tennessean, is also founder of the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center. The Diversity Institute’s Nashville offices and its state-of-the-art teaching facilities are located in the John Seigenthaler Center at Vanderbilt University.
Affiliate Staff
Chuck Baldwin of Vermillion, S.D. (email), is journalist-in-residence at the Freedom Forum’s Al Neuharth Media Center at the University of South Dakota. His position is jointly funded by the university and the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute. In his role as journalist-in-residence, Baldwin teaches journalism classes, administers journalism scholarships, advises the award-winning, independent student newspaper, The Volante, and assists with Freedom Forum diversity programs. Baldwin spent 35 years as a journalist, most recently as editorial page editor of the Argus Leader in Sioux Falls, S.D. He won more than three dozen state and national reporting awards in his career. He is a member of the South Dakota Newspaper Association’s First Amendment Committee and the College Media Advisers First Amendment Committee. Baldwin also is executive director of South Dakotans for Open Government.
Colleen Fitzpatrick of Simsbury, Conn. (email), has been a career coach for the Chips Quinn Scholars program since 2000. Previously, she was managing editor of Fine Gardening magazine and had a variety of editing and reporting jobs at newspapers nationwide. Her jobs ranged from reporter at the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton, Mass., The Fresno (Calif.) Bee and The Providence (R.I.) Journal to national reporter at The Detroit News. She also has been a bureau manager at The Providence Journal, city editor at the Times Union in Albany, N.Y., and assistant news editor with Knight Ridder in Washington, D.C. She began her career in 1980 as a science-reporting intern at the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News. She is a graduate of Stanford University and is working toward a master’s degree at Wesleyan University.
Mary Ann Hogan of Boca Raton, Fla. (email), has been a career coach for the Chips Quinn Scholars program since 1997. She has been a writer for more than 25 years and a mentor to hundreds of students and young journalists during that time. Hogan started as a freelance correspondent for The Washington Post and the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News. For nine years, she was an award-winning reporter for The Oakland (Calif.) Tribune. When she left the newspaper, she created her own features syndicate. From 1991 to 1996, her stories were distributed by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate. She was a primary writer for the Newseum’s original news history exhibit in Arlington, Va., and for the Newseum book “Crusaders, Scoundrels, Journalists.” Today, Hogan conducts workshops for news professionals in newsrooms and online.
Pearl Stewart of Jackson, Miss. (email), helps administer the Diversity Institute Multimedia Scholars Program, is a career coach for the Chips Quinn Scholars program and the founder of Black College Wire. Previously, she was director of career-development services for Florida A&M University’s School of Journalism and Graphic Communication, where she also taught news writing and reporting. Stewart is a former chairwoman of the Black College Communication Association and is a graduate of Howard University, where she was editor of the student newspaper, The Hilltop. She has a master’s degree in communication from American University. She has been managing editor of the Chicago Defender, a reporter, features editor and editor of The Oakland (Calif.) Tribune and a reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle. In the late 1990s, Stewart was a Freedom Forum professional-in-residence at Howard and at Xavier University in Louisiana. In 2002, she founded Black College Wire, an online news service for student journalists at historically black colleges and universities.
