Reynolds Center president named Fulbright Specialist to Uganda

Andrew Leckey, president of the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, has been named a Fulbright Specialist to Uganda.

Leckey, who also is chair in business journalism at the Cronkite School, will travel to Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, in March 2016, where for two weeks he will lecture on business journalism, consult on starting a business journalism major and meet with local media to discuss economic coverage.

Fulbright Specialist is a program of the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs and the Council for International Exchange of Scholars.

“The main objective of the project is to nurture a generation of Ugandan journalists with an acute sense for business journalism,” William Tayeeba of Makerere University, wrote in his proposal to host Leckey that ultimately led to the grant. “Professor Leckey will be instrumental in sharing experience of creating and maintaining a chair in business journalism at Makerere University.”

Leckey was a Fulbright Scholar at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China, in 2014 and is a member of the board of directors of the Arizona Chapter of the Fulbright Association.

He has a track record with outstanding Ugandan journalists at the Cronkite School. His former business journalism student Elvina Nawaguna in the Cronkite Master of Mass Communication degree received first place in the “Best in Business” student reporting competition of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.

Serving as a mentor in the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program for visiting foreign journalists at the Cronkite School, Leckey last year met fellow Tabu Butagira, chief news reporter for Uganda’s Daily Monitor newspaper. Butagira was instrumental in helping to bring Leckey to Makerere University, the country’s largest university, from which both he and Nawaguna graduated.

“I’m grateful to both the Fulbright Scholar Program and Makerere University for this opportunity,” said Leckey. “Uganda’s agriculture, mining and petroleum industries, as well as its citizens’ ongoing concerns about investment and inflation, make it an outstanding center for quality growth in business journalism.”

The grant states that Leckey will present lectures at graduate and undergraduate levels; take part in specialized academic programs and conferences; consult with administrators and instructors on faculty development; and advise on initiating a chair in business journalism. The grant also encourages a longer-term relationship between Markerere University and ASU's Cronkite School.

Other Cronkite School faculty members who have participated in the program include Steve Doig, Cronkite’s Knight Chair in Journalism, who spent four months in Portugal as a Fulbright Distinguished Chair; and Bill Silcock, a two-time Fulbright Scholar who has conducted research in Sweden and Ireland.